Bicycles 4 Humanity

Bicycles for Humanity gathers up your old used bikes and refurbishes them, and sends them in a container, along with tools, to Africa. The Africans, who may not have any other mode of transportation, are now able to see doctors, go to work a little farther from home, and sell their goods in markets in larger cities. B4H will train the Africans on how to repair the bikes, when they eventually break down, and provide them with the spare parts to do it!

Bamboo bicycle! $2400 frame only

Check out the bamboo bicycle made by Calfee Design. It won the people's choice awards at the North American handmade bicycle show! Apparently the bamboo is smoked and oiled, and has extra stiffness and vibration-absorbing qualities. The frame weighs four pounds. Talk about a small environmental footprint - but how the heck does it get to be so expensive??

1.4 billion bicycles in the world make it the most popular form of transportation

Princeton's International Networks Archive has accounted for transportation means around the world and put the information in a comparative graphic. Fascinating to find out that the bicycle is the world's most popular transportation means or that Armenians are the world's worst drivers!

Tonnes of Bikes!

In Munich, the city has dedicated bikelanes all over, at the side of the car lanes. You should see all the people riding around on bikes! Then, when they get to where they are going, they lock the bikes up, en masse.

So many bikes that it makes theft negligible - can you imagine targeting a bike here, with all the people coming and going to the parking area?

Germans use bicycles to deliver the mail!

On a recent trip to Munich, I was pleasantly surprised by how much Germans use bicycles to get around! There were dedicated bicycle paths along all roads, major or minor, and cyclists even had their own signals! Tonnes of bike parking gave everyone the chance to securely store their vehicles, and because there were so many of them theft is not a problem. Most of the bikes were practical, with fenders and bells, not like the sport-geared bikes were see a lot of in Canada.

The mail is delivered by bicycle, which eases parking and lets the mail person get around quicker and more comfortably!
The train system (Deutsche Bahn) rents bikes at each train station, and they are perfect to get around town for the day, and can then be dropped off before you get back on the train! And they are reasonably priced. No worries about transportation in a strange town...

Altogether a really informative trip - it showed me how things could work here with a little effort. It is no wonder that Germany clobbered us in the environmental rankings!

Commuting in Beijing Problematic

The commute into Beijing (a city of 17 million) can be shortened by adding bicycles into the mix. Check out this article in the Toronto Star, where a neuroradiologist uses his bike to navigate intense inner-city traffic:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/284051
Apparently there are only 13 million cars for 1.3 billion Chinese - that's one car for every hundred Chinese! Not to worry, the market for cars there is the fastest-growing in the world, at 26% per year. Soon everyone will have a car to zip in to work (or spend hours in traffic)! Count me out!

In India, some computer programmers are spearheading a program to encourage cycling to work to cut down on the intense pollution and traffic problems. Mr. Dasarathi heads the organization Go Cycle to lobby for bicycle lanes and facilities and to encourage bicycle use. He says that India is caught in developing-country syndrome, where the use of the bicycle is discouraged, but bicycling to work is fun, good for the health and for the environment! Check it out in BBC News at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7130418.stm

Best Cycling Video - Criminal Evading Police on Bicycle

Check out how fast this criminal is going in order to evade police!