Commuting

Today I started a part time job at the ligfietsgarage in Groningen, helping with making Mango velomobiles.

I had planned to cycle there, but as it was snowing this morning so I decided to take my folding bike on the train instead. This is not as effective as you might think. It shortened the cycle to 22 km instead of 63 km (13.5 miles vs. 39 miles), but the folding bike goes at half the speed and waiting around for the train meant it took over an hour each way - longer than cycling the lot would have done. I'm hoping for better weather next Tuesday. Perhaps at some point I'll be able to afford my own velomobile and be both out of the weather and faster.

The video is from last Friday morning when it wasn't snowing and I cycled up to have a chat. Note the wonderful cycle paths almost the entire way, on which your speed isn't restricted by anything but your fitness. It's reminiscent of riding on a velodrome (the ultimate segregated cycle facility for those who want to cycle at speed). On a good day I can do it in less than an hour in each direction. With a tailwind it can be very quick indeed. However, there are also those bad days when there is a strong headwind in both directions.

There are also other posts about commuters, The Assen-Groningen Route, directness and featuring recumbents. A few months back I made a video about a journey in the opposite direction from Assen.

Rubbish bins for cyclists

One of the problems that occurs when all children cycle to school is that they tend to drop litter. Here's a solution to the problem: a "blikvanger" or "can catcher". On routes used by a lot of children to get to school you find these litter bins for cyclists to throw their litter into without stopping.

This is an older style cyclists rubbish bin, using a net instead of a metal cone, on a route north of Assen. The opening is about a metre wide, and the cycle path is 2.5 m wide. It's on a popular rural school route.

You may have seen the first photo before. It comes from our page of photos of Dutch cycling infrastructure.

It also features on our article about how waste and recycling is dealt with in the Netherlands.

Update November 2009: This short piece in the local news paper about publicity surrounding an anti-litter campaign shows the size of these bins. The openings are a metre in diameter, so that even those with not such a good aim can get their litter into the bin while moving. If you're going to copy this initiative for your own city, you need to get the scale right !

This is one of those small things that makes a difference for cyclists.

The bin in the first photo can also be seen on Google Maps Streetview and it features in a video about school cycling in winter.

Another Sunday Ride

This morning I went for another ride with the huneliggers. It was a bit chilly when I got up, but it wasn't so bad when I set off. Just -1 C / 30 F in the morning when I left, and it warmed up a few degrees in the sun during the morning.

In the photo above, the ditches on both sides contain frozen water.

We met at the usual place, and for me the total came to 70 km today. Stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot by a lake, and I practised my still not terribly useful Dutch.

There's a video below giving a bit of a flavour of the ride.


I don't write about them here every time, but for more videos and photos of the regular Sunday rides, look at other articles tagged with huneliggers

Fresh Statistics from Britain

I was recently sent some transport statistics from Britain by someone who works for a government agency in the UK.

The first diagram is a plot of modal shared for motorized transport. This originates with the UK Commission For Integrated Transport and purportedly shows that the Netherlands is second only to the UK for car dependence.

The problem with this is, of course, that it is a plot only of motorised transport. In the Netherlands 18% of all all journeys are made by foot and 27% by bike. So they are missing out nearly half of the total. It's not even doing the UK any favours. People are often surprised to learn that 24% of journeys in the UK are by foot, though sadly less than 2% are by bike.

If you estimate figures on this graph and adjust for those non-motorised modes you suddenly find that in the UK around 68% of all journeys are by car, while in the Netherlands it's about 57%, which is a bit closer to the official figures of 64% in the UK (below) and 48% in the Netherlands. A substantial difference from the impression given in the first chart.

Funny things, statistics. Draw the right graph and you can "prove" things that are not quite true.

Here is another piece of information from the UK showing the current number of trips per person per year by different modes of transport. Bicycle and motor bicycle are combined and between them make up just 2% of the total at 19 trips per year for the average person. In reality, of course, this means many people simply never cycle at all in the UK. Cycling is completely alien to them, and cyclists are considered to be a bit odd - possibly even criminal.

This compares with 0.8 trips per person per day by bicycle in the Netherlands, rising in cities with more cycling. It's a little under 1.2 trips per person per day here in Assen and 1.4 per day in Groningen. It makes a very large difference to people's perception of cycling when it's a "normal" thing to do - when they regularly take part in it themselves, when they see all their neighbours cycle regularly, when their children all cycle to school.

For cycling to become normal again, it has to cease to resemble an extreme sport and be both very safe and convenient. It has to stop dropping in popularity (the average number of miles covered per person per year in the UK was 43 in 1997, but just 39 by 2006 - a 10% drop in ten years) and start rising. Until this happens, cycling will continue to be vulnerable to threats such as insurance companies blaming cyclists for being hit by cars.

There are several other blog posts about living car-free in the Netherlands.

Like suicide and murder

Could it perhaps be a slight over-reaction to describe two people riding on a bike at the same time as being "like suicide and murder" ?

I've just returned home and cycled past a couple of schools here around lunch time and saw any number of children being given lifts on the back of their friend's bikes. Lots of smiles from friends enjoying their lives together. No concerns about it being unsafe. Given that cyclists here have the lowest death rate in the world, it would seem that this isn't a great problem.

The image comes from a comic called "Danny and the Demoncycle" which was produced by the "Highway safety division of Virginia" back in 1972. This would seem to pre-date many of the current health and safety concerns over cycling, so unlike a modern day equivalent it doesn't also go on about helmets and fluorescent clothing.

It's one of many examples of where excessive concern about something which carries a very small risk is mis-directed. In this case, it's likely to stop children cycling at all, with all the negative effects that this implies for health, wealth, and society. Real safety doesn't come from scaring people off bicycles. It comes from efforts to improve the conditions on the streets.

I wonder if the same department also tried to stop people from driving cars. After all, they were responsible for roughly as many deaths in the last century as wars, yet the motor industry has always been keen to emphasize safety.

Thanks to the Old Bike Blog for drawing my attention to this. But remember... "Sorry Pal, No passengers ! Doubling on a single bike is like suicide and murder !"

Oh, and remember that carrying a passenger is actually illegal in many countries. Haven't the police got anything better to do ?

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A long commute revisited

A few days ago I posted a story about Mark Wagenbuur's 50 km long intermodal commute between 's-Hertogenbosch and Utrecht.

I've just been sent a link to a further video of Mark's. This one presents a set of stills which document his journey on a day in 2005 when the Dutch railways were on strike and he cycled the 100 km round trip to work. He says: "I found it a very nice route. But it was a one time thing. I rode back the same day and if you are used to under 5km trips only that 100km on one day was a bit much!"

The cycle facilities here support any speed that you like to ride. It's a network which covers the entire country. The paths vary in intent and there is always a choice. The direct route may be in a relatively unpleasant place such as next to a motorway, but you'll never be on the motorway and in any case that is never the only option.

Mark revisited the first half of this route on the 31st of January at just above freezing point. Every metre of the 25 km covered on this video is on a cycle facility of one kind or another. There also wasn't any part of it where he didn't feel happy about holding a camera in his hand while cycling:


A little while ago we also featured a similar length route between Amsterdam and Utrecht.

Unicycling to school

Where child cyclists cross a bus-road near their school, it is the cycle-path which very obviously has priority.

The children shown in the photo are unicycling to a primary school here in Assen, unattended by any adults.

They're riding on the sidewalk alongside a bicycle path which provides the direct route to this school. It's perfectly safe to let children do this sort of thing here. The cycle-path provides priority for the children, including here where th cycle-path has priority over a road built specifically for buses.

There is another view of the same school, including a very short glimpse of a child with a unicycle, in my now quite famous video of children riding to school.

Lots of children here seem to know how to ride unicycles and it's not all that uncommon to see them going somewhere on them.

It doesn't even seem to be a particularly recent thing. This video (from BeeldenGeluid) shows a child unicycling to school in 1956:

The presenter says how "there are 500000 normal cyclists in Amsterdam, and one on a unicycle. He is joined by a peleton of other cyclists on the way to school. He is without bell, brakes, lights, steering but the police can't do anything about it."

This rider was 16 when the film was made, so he'll be 69 this year. I'd like to think he is still be riding that unicycle.

Note how he rides through something I've commented on before: an older Amsterdam which lacks cycle paths. It is sometimes assumed by people from other countries that the Netherlands has always been as it is now, but that is not true. There is a continual process of improvements for cyclists.