Fietsparade Groningen

On Sunday, 20th of June (i.e. this Sunday coming) there's a Fietsparade in Groningen at the Vismarkt. This includes a tour through the city. The event lasts from one in the afternoon until about 4.

This comes after the opening of an exhibition about the Groninger bike manufacturer Fongers, who built bikes in the city from 1884 through to 1971. There will be demonstrations by unicyclists, BMX riders, cycle racers, cycle couriers and bakfietsen. There will also be a group of 100 old bikes ridden by members of De Oude Fiets, a nice group of people who preserve old bicycles. I made a video of one of their rides locally a couple of years ago:


What's more, the Fietsharmonisch Orkest is coming along. I saw this lot at SPEZI earlier this year:


And of course you're welcome on your bike too.

These days there is just one bicycle manufacturer left in Groningen. Sinner Ligfietsen, building a range of recumbent bikes and trikes including the rather wonderful Mango velomobile, and of course we'll be there too.

Update 21/6/2010
I didn't get any particularly good photos or videos. However, Wilfred did. This is his video, and there are photos on his blog.

LOFAR - world's biggest radiotelescope

Drenthe, the province of the Netherlands in which we live, is the least densely populated in the Netherlands. There is a lot of beautiful countryside here, and a lot of farming. However, it's not just a farming area.

A few days ago, Queen Beatrix officially opened the world's largest radiotelescope, LOFAR, based here in Drenthe, but spread across Europe, is the biggest in the world. The individual parts all link with a supercomputer in Groningen.

It's one of those many surprises you find when cycling across the province. And of course the video about the radiotelescope can't help but include bikes here in the "cycling province".

The Wikipedia page on LOFAR has more details, and there's another video showing some of how it works.

14 and a half feet please

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The image above is from a cycle path which I use for a good part of my commute. I've written before about how this path is great for commuting at a decent pace, and shown how this cycle path has priority over side roads. The cycle paths here are 2.5 m ( 8 feet ) wide, that's the minimum allowed for a unidirectional cycle path. Such paths should also be separated from the road by a minimum of 1.5 m (just short of five feet), however, in this case, the separation is actually about 4.5 m ( 14 and a half feet ).

Back in Britain there is currently a campaign called "3 feet please" (link is not longer correct), which is asking merely for motorists to give cyclists 3 feet ( 0.9 m ) of clearance as they pass cyclists. The campaigners behind this correctly notice that "Fear of traffic" (i.e. a lack of Subjective Safety) prevents people from cycling in Britain, but their suggested fix is woefully inadequate.

"3 feet please" didn't originate in Britain. It is actually an idea that the British have imported from the USA. The problem is that while this passing distance requirement is law in some American states, the cycling rate in the USA is just as low as it is in the UK. Britain copying America or America copying Britain is never going to result in a high rate of cycling (and you can add any of the other English speaking countries to this. Australia, New Zealand etc. They all have about the lowest rate of cycling it is possible to have).

It's no good looking to where people don't cycle to find ways to encourage people. You need to look to where people cycle a lot. The Netherlands leads the world by a wide margin. 3 feet is not enough. Complete segregation of cyclists from motorists is what is actually required to make the masses feel that cycling is safe. It's also required to make cycling efficient and safe.

This can be achieved by a combination of two means: high quality cycle-paths with proper traffic light and roundabout design, and by treatment of roads to achieve segregation without cycle-paths. The concepts of Sustainable Safety lie behind the Dutch success.

The Dutch highway code tells drivers to pass cyclists with a minimum 1 to 1.5 m gap. However just like everywhere else this doesn't mean it actually happens because just as everywhere else, drivers make mistakes. What keeps cyclists safe in the Netherlands is not tbe law but the physical infrastructure which exists where most cycled journeys are made. To learn from the Netherlands it is necessary to emulate the things which really make a difference here, not just anything which is "Dutch". Note that the example cyclists are shown riding side-by-side. That's normal in the Netherlands.

This infrastructure isn't only for high speed adult commuters. I also made a video showing how school children use this same cycle path to get into the city from a village. Note also that in this instance the cycle paths have a concrete surface which is smoother, and faster to ride on than the asphalt of the road. This type of surface is increasingly common in the Netherlands.

Cyclevision 2010

Last weekend was Cyclevision. It's an event for recumbent cyclists, including an exhibition, social rides, racing and much talking over a weekend.

I worked on the Sinner stand on Saturday. We had Wilfred's spectacular Mango+ on the stand for customers to see, and it got a lot of attention. Also I got to see Peter racing.

On the Sunday I took part in the six hours race. As ever, the leaders were much quicker than I am. The winning rider, Ymte Sijbrandij, rode more than 322 km in six hours and averaged over 53 km/h. He's always very quick, but this time he also had a "secret weapon" - a super lightweight version of the Quest velomobile, differing markedly from those you can buy, with a custom carbon frame not adjustable for other riders, and fitted with a racing hood. Indeed, the first six places were taken by machines which were not standard or not road legal (that's perfectly OK - it's a race).

I took 21st place out of 54 participants, covering 235 km in six hours, in the same Mango as I ride to work. My average speed was 39.1 km/h.

I didn't come close to a podium place, but I'm still very pleased with my result. My first two hours went well, averaging over 42 km/h. I covered 100 miles (i.e. 161 km) in three hours and fifty four minutes, and still had an average above 40 km/h at the five hour mark (200 km covered before five hours). However, I really ran out of steam in the last hour. It became increasingly difficult to eat and drink, leading to low blood sugar and general grumpiness, and my average speed dropped a lot. You can see it in the graph of speed over time. At this time quite a few people I'd overtaken earlier took laps back from me.

I also took part in Cyclevision in 2002 and 2003 when the long race was three hours in length. In 2002 I covered 97 km and in 2003, 95 km. These are average speeds of just 32.3 km/h and 31.6 km/h. This year I was about 30% faster for the first three hours, and 20% faster over the entire six hours than I was when I was eight years younger, in a race which was half as long and on a track which didn't include a bridge.

A good part of the difference can of course be put down to the Mango's aerodynamics. It simply goes much faster for the same amount of effort. However, in this case the difference in speed is greater than you'd expect between the two bikes meaning that I'm somewhat fitter now than I was eight years ago. I put that down in large part to living in the Netherlands. I always thought I cycled a lot when I lived in the UK, but in this country the environment invites you to cycle more than you would otherwise.

Last year in the four hour race at Tilburg I had a puncture which took ages to fix because I had no spare parts with me. As a result, this time I carried a pump, spare tyre and inner tube. I also still had my trailer hook attached to the Mango, the basket I carry things in next to my seat, speakers and in fact almost all the stuff I usually have.

I didn't really do any training. I've heard that some trainers refer to cycle commuting as "junk miles", but I still think the 60 km round trip commute must count as something. Apart from that, just the occasional Sunday huneliggers ride, and the elfstedentocht.

The full results are online.

Peter also wrote up the ride, including a video with the camera pointing the other way. Harry made a video of a camera test with the Mango Sport and Marjon made one from next to the start line. Many more photos, videos and blog posts can be found on ligfiets.net.

Thanks to the organisers, time-keepers, marshalls and other volunteers who gave so much of their time to make the event go so well, and also to the other competitors who were such fun to race with.

My speed this year in the six hours race was nearly so fast as that over just one hour in last year's cyclevision. I'm really pleased ! I took the two photos from Bas de Meijer. I hope he doesn't mind.
Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

Driving is boring

Something that has long amazed me is that people actually claim to enjoy driving cars. I find driving for everyday journeys is quite excruciatingly boring. I could see the attraction if people went to track days and raced around with other like minded people. A bit of speed, a bit of danger, testing your skills etc. I think I could enjoy that myself. After all, racing bikes is great fun. However, it seems that a remarkably small number of people who claim to like driving cars actually ever do it competitively at any level at all. Except perhaps on a computer screen. I really think that's a shame.

Anyway, back to the boredom of driving... Cars manage to make speeds of over 100 km/h ( 60 mph ) a sleep inducing experience. Bicycles make 50 km/h ( 30 mph ) into a fairly scary experience which demands that you're alert, and 80 km/h ( 50 mph ) down a hill on a bike is quite terrifying. I always think of all the things that could go wrong, and how injured I'd be if they did.

I think boredom explains an awful lot of why there are so many deaths and injuries on the roads. So many SMIDSY (Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You) type incidents. Drivers are simply bored, or distracted by something more interested, and not concentrating. There are regular campaigns around the world to encourage drivers to sleep well before driving, take breaks every so often on long journeys etc. but this is frequently ignored. This boredom is a good part of the reason why campaigns to encourage drivers to behave perfectly never actually work. It doesn't really matter how good a driver you'd like to be if you're half asleep at the wheel.

Crashes due to drivers falling completely asleep are quite common. Other incidents due to loss of concentration are also common. In fact, driving is so sleep inducing that even an insomniacs' website warns of the dangers of falling asleep while driving.

Campaigning for drivers to always behave perfectly, and for cyclists to always behave perfectly, will never eliminate this problem. Cyclists will continue to be the victims of crashes with drivers while bikes are mixed with cars on the roads. Separating the modes is the only way of significantly improving the safety of cyclists. It worked here in the Netherlands, where cycling is safer than in any other country.

The poster image is from a Dutch campaign against "slaaprijden." It reads "2 hours driving, quarter of an hour rest - " It is one of many such pieces of advice being handed out on the campaign website. These posters appear beside the motorways in order to remind drivers of the importance of taking a rest from driving.

So I'm going to stick to riding bikes (and trikes) for most of my journeys. I'll stay awake, and I'll enjoy the experience.

I've always seen driving as a boring activity. I was 27 before I bothered to learn to drive. On moving over here my license became invalid and for over two years I had no legal driving license at all, which was no problem as I didn't need to use a car in that time. In December I got a Dutch license, primarily so I can take my turn with driving the company van. One of my favourite videos showing driving as a boring activity is here.

Cyclevision this weekend

On the 5th and 6th of June I and many others will be at the Cyclevision event in Sloten, Amsterdam.

This year I'll be on the Sinner stand for at least part of Saturday, and I'll take part in just one race - the six hour race on Sunday.

Or, take a look at some videos from last year's cyclevision.

Golden cycle stand

In 1999 a programme called "Room for the bike" began, aiming to increase the amount of cycle parking at Dutch railway stations.

The 200000th new cycle parking stand due to this programme has just been installed in Hardenberg. It's coloured gold. The 200000 are made up of 157000 unwatched stands, 30000 watched places and 13000 cycle lockers.

60000 more cycle parking spaces at railway stations will be installed by 2012, and ProRail promises to keep up a rate of building 25000 new spaces per year at least until 2020.

The result is that the entire country has an enormous ratio of bicycle parking spaces available to the population of the town in which they exist.

Some of the cycle-parking at Assen railway station, expanded under this scheme.

Assen, where we live, has a cycle-parking space at the railway station for every 25 citizens. Groningen has better than one space for every 20 people, the village of Beilen has enough for one in fifteen and the small town of Meppel has enough for one in twelve.

Read all stories on this blog about railway station cycle parking.

The cycle stand shown at the top is a "Tulip" design. These are the very best cycle-stands. Read why in a previous blog post previously.