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Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise



 
 
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Old May 5th 06, 04:11 PM posted to aus.bicycle
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Default Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise


A more cheery article than the last one I posted. Sorry about the Bush
reference in the introduction, but the general tone does improve for
the better...

************************

Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/...ess/wbbike.php
By Rick Smith International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2006
Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle use,
have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role. Perhaps
it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and Danish
cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are fully
recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest One of the easiest and quickest
investments is the simple bicycle rack, either randomly scattered in
small units, as in Paris, or centralized in large parking lots, as in
many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The standard formula is that one
automobile parking space can hold 10 bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile. "Even in the Netherlands, there were
politicians in the 1960s who complained about the nuisance of
cyclists," Wittink said. Total kilometers cycled in the Netherlands
fell roughly 70 percent as car ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle
use,

have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and
Danish cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are
fully recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


Look no further than to the leader of the free world to find a serious
promoter of the bicycle. Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy." This spring he spent 35 minutes
in the Oval Office with half a dozen U.S. cycling advocates, more time
than he gives to some government leaders.

But even though Bush is scrambling to find ways to cut U.S. oil
consumption, it is not clear whether he sees the bicycle as much more
than a virtuous hobby.

He would not be alone. Although an engineer designing from scratch
could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap,
nonpolluting, small and silent - the bicycle after nearly a century of
mass ownership is still more apt to raise quizzical eyebrows than
budget allotments.

"There is a warm and fuzzy feel for cyclists, but it's a different
thing when you talk about practical policy," said Tim Blumenthal,
director of Bikes Belong, an industry association based in Boulder,
Colorado.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that
only five of the countries that it follows have comprehensive national
cycle campaigns at the moment - Britain, Germany, Finland, the Czech
Republic and Latvia. Poland and Spain were singled out as particular
laggards.

And, most ominously for a warming globe, China and India seem to be
using their new wealth to pave the way for the automobile rather than
to preserve long traditions of mass cycling. So it may seem odd that
many cycling advocates are getting optimistic of late.

They acknowledge that progress may be slow at the national level, but
many see a wave of action swelling up from below - at the city level,
where exasperated mayors are connecting the dots.

London, Paris, Chicago, Bogotá and Seoul have embarked on major
campaigns to incorporate the bicycle into traffic grids. The results
have led to substantial shifts in fuel consumption, commuting times and
even real estate values.

"A mayor or a deputy mayor can make things happen the fastest," said
Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists in
Washington. "They are in a unique position and have all the levers to
get results quickly."

Consider the case of Enrique Peñalosa, the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to
2000. In that city of seven million, he set in motion a transformation
of the transport grid with measures like peak-hour restrictions on cars
and about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, of bicycle paths. He said that
cycling has become a primary mode of transport for 5 percent of the
population, up from 0.1 percent when he started. The share using the
car as primary mode, by contrast, has fallen to 13 percent of the
population from 17 percent.

"It was a war to get car owners off the sidewalks where they used to
park and I was almost impeached," he said. "But in the end people loved
the new city and the new way of life, and we have saved many hundreds of
millions of dollars on road building and maintenance."

Peñalosa, who was prevented by law from running for another term, has
been teaching, writing and serving as a consultant to Mexico City,
Jakarta, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the South Bronx in New York City
on cycling grids and other transport innovations.

He sees the issue as one of democracy - economic as well as political.

"If all citizens are equal, urban policy should be democratic and not
everyone has access to a motor car," he said. "In Bogotá, even bus use
can take from 13 percent to 26 percent of a minimum wage earner's
income and bicycle use over 20 years generates enough savings to buy a
house."

London may be the greatest success story in the new wave. When Mayor
Ken Livingstone introduced a congestion charge in 2003 on vehicles
entering the city center, a surprising side effect was a 28 percent
surge in cycling in the first year. The city says overall cycling
mileage has doubled in the last five years and it aims to achieve
another doubling.

In some cases, merchants who were initially nervous actually saw sales
rising as the population of more fluid bus and cycle lanes fed them
more customers.

What has also been discovered worldwide is that accident rates have
dropped wherever cycling has gained momentum, as cars are forced to
slow down and as they become more accustomed to sharing the road.

"We're seeing a lot of people willing to try this and now it's getting
safer as we get critical mass," said Silka Kennedy-Todd, an official in
London's transport office. "The number of accidents has roughly fallen
in half as the number of cyclists has doubled."

In Chicago, Richard Daley, another charismatic mayor who is an avid
cyclist, has given that city the most active cycling program among
major U.S. cities. Daley, who has been mayor for five terms, started a
"Bike 2015 Plan" and wants emergency medical services and the police to
put more of their forces on two wheels.

In Seoul, Mayor Myung Bak Lee defied local lobbies and replaced a
six-kilometer elevated highway that once covered the Cheonggyecheon
River in the city center with parks, walkways and cycle routes.

What planners generally have discovered is that a little money spent on
cycling infrastructure can go a long way, even though it may take time
to produce results and they are not often easy to track statistically.

Roelof Wittink, director of Interface for Cycling Expertise, a research
organization in Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that Bogotá's investments
in cycling infrastructure eventually produced savings roughly seven
times greater. Largely, this resulted from better utilization of urban
space and from savings stemming from a slowdown in traffic flow.

Viewed from another perspective, his organization cited studies showing
that about 6 percent of funds spent in the Netherlands on road
infrastructure were devoted to the bicycle, although it accounted for
more than 25 percent of all journeys.

In Kenya and Tanzania, it is estimated that 60 percent of spending is
devoted to the car, which accounts for only about 5 percent of
journeys.

Such ratios make it clear why many mayors are recasting their budgets.

"We have to start from scratch and retrain city engineers and
administrators," Wittink said. "Most still have a mind-set that makes
the car the priority and it's a major shift to go to any mixed
solution."

One of the easiest and quickest investments is the simple bicycle rack,
either randomly scattered in small units, as in Paris, or centralized in
large parking lots, as in many Dutch, German and Chinese cities. The
standard formula is that one automobile parking space can hold 10
bicycles.

When such facilities are coordinated with rail systems, the volumes
become impressive. Nearly 30 percent of Dutch rail passengers cycle to
the station, and 12 percent then get on cycles again to reach their
final destinations.

Cycle paths are so much cheaper to build and maintain that some cities
have gone to extremes to encourage them. Copenhagen finally resorted to
providing a fleet of free bicycles.

Of course, the global effect of all this ingenuity and experimentation
in the rich West pales compared with the opportunity at risk of being
squandered in the developing world.

Poverty long has consigned the bulk of humanity to foot or to human-
powered transport, and it means that China, India and Indonesia are far
ahead of wealthy nations on this environmental score, even if it is not
by choice.

Whether they will improve on the pattern of richer countries is
uncertain: Eight years ago roughly 60 percent of Beijing's work force
cycled to work but that percentage has dropped below 20 percent.

"A monoculture is dangerous and that is almost what we've created in
the United States with the automobile," said Clarke, of the League of
American Bicyclists. "We need to own up to that as an example to
others."

America, of course, does not have a unique predilection for the comfort
and status of the automobile.

"Even in the Netherlands, there were politicians in the 1960s who
complained about the nuisance of cyclists," Wittink said. Total
kilometers cycled in the Netherlands fell roughly 70 percent as car
ownership rose between 1960 and 1980.

Similarly, Copenhagen has seen cycling increase steadily for 30 years,
but it still is below the levels of the 1950s, said Thomas Krag, a
consultant in Copenhagen who has advised the city and the Danish
government.

But the Netherlands and Denmark, the undisputed champions of cycle use,
have come closest to restoring the bicycle to its pre-auto role. Perhaps
it is no coincidence that they share one concept: Dutch and Danish
cyclists are protected by an extensive legal framework and are fully
recognized users of the road.

"It surprised us that neither country has a national bicycle program as
such any more," said Mary Crass, a transport policy analyst at the OECD
in Paris. "It just wasn't necessary."


--
cfsmtb

Ads
  #2  
Old May 6th 06, 03:34 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise

Peter McCallum wrote:

Referring to his newfound passion, President
George W. Bush has praised cycling as a way to "chase that fountain of
youth" and called himself "Bike Guy."


Hmm, wonder if someone can puncture it's tyres.
An occassional glimpse might be motivating.
  #3  
Old May 6th 06, 02:39 PM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise

On 2006-05-06, Peter McCallum wrote:
cfsmtb wrote:

Peter McCallum Wrote:

"Bike Guy" hey? Sounds like he wants to be a superhero when he
retires.


He could team up with Biker Fox ...
http://www.bikerfox.com/


What a dynamic duo they'd be. Biker Fox front flipping and Bike Guy back
flipping through the world's hot spots. Evil empires would stand no
chance.


Especially with Bicycle Repairman on their side!

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".
  #4  
Old May 6th 06, 03:16 PM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise


Stuart Lamble Wrote:
Especially with Bicycle Repairman on their side!


This man is no ordinary man ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh67Nr-6YHY


--
cfsmtb

  #5  
Old May 6th 06, 05:44 PM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ten seater Oriten

Impressive but cans someone enlighten me on why the ramped cog sizes?
I just cannot get my heaed around the drive train configuration.

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/Images/TenSeaterOriten.jpg"TEN-SEATER ORITEN

Charles Metz built the Oriten, a unique and distinctive bicycle, in 1896 for the Orient Bicycle Company in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company took it on tour throughout the country to its many dealers and bicycle races in a promotional effort to gain public attention for its bikes with the hope to increase sales. This was the time, near the end of the nineteenth century, when the public became highly interested and attracted to the bicycle as a new method of personal transportation. It was common to find bicycle clubs in communities, such as the Wheelmen in Bloomsburg, and bicycle racing had become a very popular event.

An unknown photographer in Berwick took this picture of the Oriten and its ten riders in front of John N. Harry’s bicycle and harness shop at 111 West Front Street in 1898. Fortunately, there is information that can briefly identify eight of these men. Four were brothers: John H. Harry, 32, proprietor; James A. Harry, 29, a machinist; Charles Harry, 19, bicycle repairman; and George F. Harry, 17, laborer. Four others included Ralph Laubach, 17, hardware store clerk; Edward Averill, 23, ice dealer; Bruce Kepner, 23, molder; and Charles Brittain, 24, an employee in the A.C..F. rolling mill. No additional information could be found for William F. McMichael and Edwin Schenk.

The Oriten still exists today as part of the Henry Ford Museum collection at Dearborn, Michigan. This unusual bicycle weighing 305 pounds is twenty-three feet long. It has no breaks or gears. The sizes of the ten sprockets are all different, with the smallest in the front and the largest at the rear. One account reported the bike under ideal conditions could attain a speed of forty-five m.p.h. There was even a short silent film made in 1897 about the Oriten reaching a high rate of speed on the Charles River track in the Boston area. Today, in Waltham, the Watch City Brewing Company produces a Belgian Pale Ale called an Oriten Ten-Seater Ale."

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/phot...h/Dec_2004.htm
  #6  
Old May 7th 06, 02:45 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Bicycle is king of the road as gas costs rise


"cfsmtb" wrote in message
...

A more cheery article than the last one I posted. Sorry about the Bush
reference in the introduction, but the general tone does improve for
the better...

************************



I was going to refrain from pointing out it could hardly improve for the
worse, but, well......


//Adam F


  #7  
Old May 7th 06, 09:10 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ten seater Oriten

Skewer wrote:
Impressive but cans someone enlighten me on why the ramped cog sizes?
I just cannot get my heaed around the drive train configuration.

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/Images/TenSeaterOriten.jpg"TEN-SEATER
ORITEN


chain slip?
different cadences?
the stop harmonic build up? would have completely buggered the bike if
all 10 down stroked at the same time.

Probably best to reqard it just as a protype trying out an idea that was
demonstrated to be unsuccessful.
  #8  
Old May 7th 06, 09:14 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ten seater Oriten


"Skewer" wrote in message
...
Impressive but cans someone enlighten me on why the ramped cog sizes?
I just cannot get my heaed around the drive train configuration.


It looks like each crank drives a chainring of equal size on the crank
behind it so each rider will pedal with the same cadence. The gearing of the
bike is the "huge" rear chainring onto the rear hub sproket.
I suppose with 10 pairs of legs, pushing such a gear is pretty reasonable.
Wilfred


  #9  
Old May 7th 06, 09:34 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ten seater Oriten


"Terry Collins" wrote:
Skewer wrote:
Impressive but cans someone enlighten me on why the ramped cog sizes?
I just cannot get my heaed around the drive train configuration.

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/Images/TenSeaterOriten.jpg"TEN-SEATER
ORITEN


chain slip?
different cadences?
the stop harmonic build up? would have completely buggered the bike if
all 10 down stroked at the same time.


Looks like the paired chainrings are each the same size, but they have tried
to avoid having the same sized rings on each crank, hence the chainring
sizes gradually increase towards the rear.

Maybe they thought two chains running on the same sized chainring side by
side would rub and clash.

Or maybe it's a way to get that *huge* gear at the back without each rider
needing to pedal such a monster.

Probably best to reqard it just as a protype trying out an idea that was
demonstrated to be unsuccessful.


Now why on earth would ten muscle bound people pedalling through one chain,
suspended on two tyres, be unsuccessful? :-)

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)


  #10  
Old May 7th 06, 09:52 AM posted to aus.bicycle
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ten seater Oriten

Skewer wrote:
Impressive but cans someone enlighten me on why the ramped cog sizes?
I just cannot get my heaed around the drive train configuration.

http://www.colcohist-gensoc.org/Images/TenSeaterOriten.jpg"


Possibly to eliminate any driveline harmonics that having multiple
identical sized chainrings would have caused.

Unless it was because they only had a certain number of each size chainring?

--
BrettS

 




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