Apeldoorn cycle parking

A new video from the fietsberaad shows a cycle park in Apeldoorn called De Serre ("the conservatory") which was designed as a transparent building so that its use was obvious from the outside as well as the inside. It is located in a shopping area near to a large department store.

With space for 600 bicycles, this is not a particularly big cycle park by Dutch standards, but it is quite novel in design.

This cycle park provides daytime guarded parking, with a receipt in order to retrieve your bike (as shown previously in Nijmegen). This makes it very secure. It also has double layer cycle parking by means of a special lift called the velovator, but while this makes lifting bikes easy, it is obvious that most people avoid the extra work if they can:


The cycle park also has a social purpose of helping re-integration into the workplace.

This cycle park has been popular enough that Apeldoorn is now planning a second with a similar design. The new "glass palace" will have 2000 spaces and be located next to the railway station.

There are many more cycle parking examples.

End of week roundup

The Mango velomobile that I borrowed for a few days was great fun to ride. However, I had the small problem of keeping track of my possessions while riding. I lost my keys under the seat.

This prompted me to make a basket of the peculiar shape needed to fit beside the seat so that I could drop things like the keys into it, and I rode the machine back to Groningen without losing my wallet, keys or my lunch which travelled there in the basket.

The weather was absolutely terrible for the Thursday commute, so I didn't take any pictures. Regardless, it took just 53 minutes despite a mighty headwind and strong rain. Only my head was exposed and got rained on.

I also made some more normal bike baskets last week, including the basket of white willow for a customer back in Cambridge where we used to live.


I'd noticed last week that the rear tyre on my PDQ was badly worn again. I last wrote about this in November when I wore out the last tyre. The tyre worn , and now it's time to swap again. The tyre through to the anti puncture strip this week is the one fitted in December. Despite getting to this stage several times, I've still not ever had a puncture with a Vredestein Monte Carlo tyre, so I'm happy to stick with them.

We went to the Ooievaarsringen ( "Stork Ringing" ) yesterday evening. It takes place at Droonessa, just 6 km or so from home.

The first photo shows the unsuspecting mother sitting in her nest.

The mother remained remarkably calm when these guys turned up and took her children.

The ringing took place with a huge audience. Children were allowed to sit in front for a good view, but it was difficult to see past the crowd.

I couldn't help but take photos of some of the bikes that people had ridden to see this. It had been advertised for several weeks on signs outside, and as it is on my commuting route I'd been past lots of time.

There are very many more photos to view by following the "fotoboek" link from the Droonessa web page, and even a webcam. The birds are happily back in their nests now.

Finally, a video made last Sunday when we still had the Mango:

Military spending and cycling

The BBC recently reported that the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has calculated that US military budget is now 58% of the total for the whole world. It has grown enormously even during the recession. And now stands at $607bn, or about $2000 per US citizen per year. That's 4% of the GDP.

After the US the second highest expenditure is now China, which spends about $85bn per year, which due to their huge population is only $63 per person per year, and third and fourth place are taken by France and the UK, each spending about $65bn, or about $1000 per person per year.

The Netherlands, meanwhile, now spends about $10bn per year, or about $683 per person per year. That's about 1.5% of the GDP.

And what does this have to do with cycling ? Well, Assen spends about 27 Euros per person per year on cycling infrastructure. That's about $37 per person per year, and a fairly typical level in the Netherlands. A small sum compared with the military figures we're looking at.

In the past, people from both the US and the UK have told me that providing decent cycling infrastructure as the Dutch do is too expensive for their countries. However, to take the USA as an example, if the military budget was cut by a mere 2%, still leaving them easily outspending the whole of the rest of planet on weaponry, they could also outspend the Dutch on cycling provision. The UK would have to cut its military budget by more like 4% to achieve the same thing, still leaving that country as one of the biggest military spenders.

It really depends where your priorities lie. Bombs vs. bikes.

The "axis of evil" countries are also interesting. Take Iran, for instance. They spend about $6.7 bn per year on arms. That's about 3% of the country's GDP. Their population is 70 M. so that works out as about $96 per person per year. i.e. roughly 1% of the overall figure and under 5% per person compared with what the USA spends.

You can find these figures for virtually any country directly on the SIPRI website.

The photos of Swiss soldiers on "Swiss Army Bikes" come from the website of the Condor Club in the Netherlands, enthusiasts of the machines who have have a great list of military bicycles from around the world. Switzerland spends just 0.8% of its GDP on the military.

Dealing with abandoned bikes

It is often noticed that the huge cycle parks in the Netherlands seem to be full of abandoned bikes.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, people who regularly leave a bicycle at the railway station will often keep a tatty old bike for this purpose because of the risk of theft. These can look like they are abandoned. Secondly, there are also genuinely abandoned bikes.

Generally it is not allowed to leave a bike for longer than 28 days at such a cycle park.

The cycle parking has to be open 24 hours a day, every day, so bikes can't simply be removed at a particular date.

Luckily, there is a simple way of separating the wanted bikes from the abandoned ones. Labels like those shown are attached to the bicycles showing the date on which they were placed and the date on which bikes which still have a label will be removed.

As ever, there are some important details in the way in which this is done. The labels are designed so that removing them breaks them. This is important.

Cambridge once had a similar scheme, however the labels were attached just by rubber bands and could be moved from one bike to another. That's not good enough. I once left a bike for 5 days and returned to find that a label was on my bike saying it had been there over two weeks and would be removed the day before I returned. It's just as well that they were inefficient and had not removed my bike, as otherwise I'd have found myself without transport.

Borrowing a velomobile

I worked at the ligfietsgarage today, a Saturday, as we had several people wanting to try the Sinner Mango velomobile.

The demo machine isn't needed until Tuesday, when I next work there, so I've borrowed it for the weekend and rode home today on the Mango, leaving my PDQ at work.

It's the first time I've ridden such a machine more than a few hundred metres, so I was timid with it to begin with as I started on the 31 km trip back home. As I grew more confident I was quite happy with speeds around 36-37 km/h, roughly the top speed I'd expect on the PDQ, but in the second half of the commute I started to get more used to it and went a bit quicker.

It doesn't initially accelerate very quickly, but your speed can just continue to increase. Wow, it's fast. In open stretches on the cycle paths between villages I was going along sometimes at 45 km/h without really trying all that hard.

When I arrived home, the elapsed time was just under 52 minutes, the best average speed I've done to date for the commute. If I was to use this bike every time then I'd get used to it and the average would perhaps drop a little on good days.

Several months later: I now own my own Mango.

I've previously shown my commute here and here, or you can see more velomobiles here.

Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

European elections and a new cycle path

Thursday 4th of June is the date of the European elections. The local paper included the article shown which details what connection Assen has with the elections. The sign on the right, giving an example of something with European support locally, is at the end of a brand new cycle path in the countryside near us that I've been taking photos of lately.

Even though it's not complete, we rode along the path last week. It's concrete surfaced and a bit over two metres wide. This seemed a bit narrower than usual for a cycle path around here, but I put it down to this being a recreational path, not a main route.

Further along, the reason for the many blocks at the side of the path became clear. The path is actually considerably wider once these are added. In fact, it means there is a bit over a 3 metre ridable width. The outer bits feel a bit rough compared with the bowling green like surface of the main path. They allow for drainage and as they are a little rough they also wake you up if you happen to move from the centre of the path. They also, if nothing else, mean you can use the full width of the concrete part without any danger of falling if you happen to hit the edge.

A couple of weeks earlier I rode along it with Peter. You can see the thickness of the concrete part of the path relative to the 20" wheels on his bike.

This is not all, of course. There is also a thick and very hard foundation. The top layer of this foundation seems to be exactly the same stuff as is often used for cycle paths in the UK without any concrete on top (e.g. like this one that someone got a photo of me riding along when I lived in Cambridge. I used to think that was pretty good).

This last photo shows the way this cycle path is joining to a road. Note that the cycle path surface is the same thickness as the road surface. That's the way to build them if you want them to last ! The path continues towards Assen on the other side of the same road.

The new cycle path stretches for a bit over 2 km, and looks like it will be just as promised last year. It links the new Arboretum to the city and in the opposite direction it goes to outlying villages. Very pleasant.

One more detail. We saw how the path was laid. The concrete is continuously laid, and then slots are cut in it, part of the way through - presumably to deal with expansion. This is why what appeared initially to me on other similar paths to be separate slabs can have such perfectly smooth joins between them. There is no roughness at all as you cycle over the "join".

Anyway, on to the politics bit. On one of our Study Tours last year there was an interesting discussion when a local expert explained that there are "no anti-cycling political parties in the Netherlands". Some are, of course, more keen than others on cycling, but it would be a brave politician who took an anti-cycling stance in a country where 93% of the population cycle at least once a week. It's not the same everywhere in Europe, just take a look at one of these candidate's responses from Cambridge (especially the response to the last question) !

If you're a European voter and a cyclist, look closely at the policies of your candidates before voting tomorrow.

Update: Somehow I hadn't quite noticed that the 2020 blog covered the politicians response several days ago.

Free bicycle for commuters

I really can't add anything to this story from the fietsberaad, so I'm repeating it verbatim below:

The minor road N302 in Harderwijk will soon be overhauled completely. A bicycle transfer point is provided for motorists willing to cycle the last stretch to work during construction operations. In addition they will be provided with a free bicycle.
plaatje

Overall 150 people will have a transfer bicycle on loan during work on the N302. In return they are expected to cycle to work from the transfer point at least three times a week (in a five-day working week) over fourteen months. Anyone meeting these requirements is allowed to keep the bicycle (at a value of 700 Euro) afterwards. The electronic entrance to the bicycle shed registers daily who is retrieving and returning his bicycle. Participants may choose from eight different types of bicycle. Participation is completely free. The underlying reason is that supplying and maintaining a bicycle transfer point is expensive, but a shuttle bus is far more expensive. By now over 150 people have applied for the free bicycle.

Cyclists do quite well over here when there are road works. We've more examples, including how road lanes are reserved for cyclists during road works.