Dear Truck driver,
At approximately 6 this morning, in full day light, I crossed the street at a designated bike-crossing-point in hardly 3 seconds. But not before I took a good look at you to estimate your speed, all the while I was clearly indicating my intentions using the world renowded arm sign where one would stick out his arm to the far left of his or her body in a parallel way to the street. When you crossed me about 10 seconds later and broke my peacefull state of mind with your claxon and 'are you crazy' movements, I really asked myself: who's gaga now? Me or you? Maybe you should be more attentive on the road when you're up so early.
And no, I refuse to put a flag on my bike!
Last Sunday, we participated at the Bike Parade in Kortrijk. This 2-yearly event during the Sinksenfeesten promotes the use of bikes in the city. This years theme was cargo bikes. By lack of time to prepare our bikes in an original way, we took our 2 sons Mart and Gust as our most important accessoires. :)
On the way to the Parade a lot of people showed interest in our bike, we experienced some silent recognition from our resent passage in the newspaper and now and then some less silent recognition: hey, those are the ones from the newspaper!
At 15:30 we departed starting on the Grote Markt in Kortrijk. There was a nice tour through the center of Kortrijk and about an hour and a half later, we arrived again at the market. We
were welcomed by hundreds of people. The men (and women) of W-evilghem fixed and CargoVélo took the best cargo with them: some crates of Bockor beer :-)
Near 6 pm the weather changed and became colder and windy so we took off to home.
Result at the end of the day: 51,26km!
Photos can be found here and here thanks to the vwz Fietsencentrum Mobiel from Kortrijk!
Did you know that you can turn your bike into a real ATM machine?
Velotariër posted a extended calculation example and the link to the fietscalculator.
Nice! Let's calculate how much we safe in a years time
:) Only the fietscalculator seemed a little insufficient with its maximum of 50km a day for the 64km commute of Jeroen and certainly for the 79km of the both of us. For the simplicity, I just divided everything by two.
Anyway, this is the result (you should multiply it by 2 for the both of us):
Together, we commute about 18875 kms each year. This does not only saves us 2068 euro diesel, but it earns us also 2574,25 euro bike recompensation. For 225 working days in a year, this means 11 euro a day extra for the both of us. Just to cycle a little bit. To relax a little bit. To stay healthy, a lot:)
It's a sad sad world...
New York plans a big bike
sharing program starting in about two weeks. However as the program
launch approches, New Yorkers start complaining and adversing themselves
to the project because....
they found out that you actually need bikes and bike racks for such a project. OH MY GOSH!
Thank God for the New Yorkers' brilliant minds, I would have never found out such a thing myself.
Turns
out the bike racks (placed by 30 or 50 on side walks) take up quite
some space and event parking lots! Some adverse to the project because the places attract dirt, garbage and vermin (which place does not in a big city??), others because municipal bicycle racks have been relocated in favor of the bike share program.
Well, we don't have to look as far as
New York to find such ridiculous reactions. Even in Roeselare,
opposition rised against the installation of bike racks in the main shopping street Ooststraat on which I previously dedicated a blogpost.
Really, it's sad to see people prefer individual conveniences and habits above the bigger picture of sustainable transportation
Read the original post here.
