This gallery contains 13 photos.
Time to join the French revolution and get a proper taste of Europe’s biggest bike sharing scheme. 100,000 bike trips will have been made today by Velib, and one of them was mine. I was on a work trip to … Continue reading
These diminutive machines are quite common on the streets of Taipei. I never actually saw one with the extra passenger on the back but I saw a few with a child in the front seat, unfortunately never when I had a camera to hand.
I can think of reasons why this might not pass any number of EU regulations, but is a perfect solution for a family in a small apartment.
This post rounds up some of my experiences from a week in Taipei and it gives me the chance to bring together the thoughts of people I met and my own observations. I wrote about this a bit last year but this time there are three key differences.
Most importantly I rode a bike myself – the basis for the “Not despairing in…” series of posts on this blog. I also know that the experience of combining walking, writing and talking to activists in 12 countries in 12 months has improved my cycling observation. It is much like when I used to benchmark factories in my previous career, if you do it often enough you develop a more finely tuned sense about what is happening and you have much better references to use for judgements. The third element is that I got to do a lot more talking to people in the cycling industry and advocacy this time which gave my views better balance, on my first visit I was almost a tourist by comparison.
I was formally in Taiwan to attend the Taipei Cycle Show and to speak at the International Bicycle Design Forum which gave itself the title “Forging Taiwan to be a Bicycling Island”. (News report here.)
After hearing the words from the conference and having my discussions with the cycling community my personal observations reinforce what the cycling world here is saying. The underlying commitment to cycling here is huge. It already had a massively successful and world leading bike industry which has been strategically planned as a key national economic interest for years.
However this was largely built on the back of a static or declining local cycling market.
The first stage of trying to address that has been largely leisure and tourism focussed. This approach that would be widely recognised in the English speaking world – something you do in your sporty clothes at the weekend or in your spare time.
This has been improving vigorously with the influence of the industry and the support of academics in tourism and economic development like Associate Professor Hsin-Wen Chang who is working in association with eight counties on their cycle tourism product.
I really must try to get out and try some of their rural routes another time because Lonely Planet and CNN have listed Taiwanese experiences in their top ten in the world and I saw some stunning pictures. Cycle tourism holidays are growing and there are lots of “round the island” promotions and charity rides which are being used to try and build cycling lifestyles. I sampled this ambition 
just by trying some of the extensive and well-engineered riverside cycle tracks in Taipei which now reach over 100km virtually traffic free. I was really delighted to be invited on the “Social ride” promoted by the local staff and friends of Korean folding bike specialists Tern who took a big group of us along the paths after dark. That was great fun as social rides usually are and it was complemented by the fact that the routes through the parks and the river bridges are brilliantly well lit at night.
So leisure is going in the right direction. That leaves transport.
The relative affluence and successful economy of Taiwan means that they have high levels of car use and recent massive investment in motorways and road capacity sitting alongside successful high speed rail and a mass rapid transit (MRT) in Taipei.
Most of the writes and bloggers online agree with the people I met. (Example here by Carlton Reid) Transport cycling in Taipei has been neglected, there is a lack of cycling infrastructure except cycling on the pavements and there is almost universal concern about the swarming buzzing scooters anywhere on the island. They are about 30% of traffic in Taipei, a huge proportion. The main perceived threat to cyclists is that they fly around in swarms at what seem very high speeds, all across the roads and swerving around the cars, a combined deterrence of speed and noise. The cars themselves are very scooter aware but that doesn’t stop the average driver from getting the foot to the floor on all the roads around the city, and from what I could see out in Hsin Chu and Taoyuan they are just as fast.
And this is where the contradictions start.
These road conditions and driver speed easily put Taipei on a level with somewhere like Kiev as a really cycling unfriendly city. The Invisible Visible Man did an excellent recent post about his discovery of Staten Island in New York describing similar challenges and the lack of cyclists as a result.
Therefore I would expect to see almost no cyclists whatsoever on the roads and last year I didn’t. However this year I felt I saw more riders, perhaps because I was out a bit more in daylight but I think there is a change going on.
This was confirmed by King Liu, founder of Giant and his daughter Vicky Yang who is CEO of advocacy and promotional NGO the Cycling Lifestyle Foundation.
I can confidently say that if the driving conditions were like this in any European city I cannot imagine seeing any but the fiercest cyclists out on the streets, the fore-runners, the fixies, the messengers. However as I have already posted the
cyclists I kept seeing out on the highways were women of all ages, from the young and trendy to the “mature”. (here and here) Yes there were men but
as often as not they were often the ones on the pavements.This was an unexpected result and I think it hints that there is a supressed cycling culture just waiting to burst out. King Liu said that the ambitious Youbike bicycle rental scheme had recorded a record 25,000 trips on a single day the previous week, even before they had expanded the scheme from its current base of 2,000 bikes up to the expected 5,000. Vicky confirmed my observation that a big proportion of the users were young professional women who are seeing cycling and Youbike as a lifestyle choice.
Taipei has the space to copy New York and start taking space on the streets for segregated cycle lanes and I have no doubt that this is the big political choice now facing the city. They are putting in lanes on the pavements on some streets but I cannot imagine it will be enough if the demand really takes off and it is a political soft option, not a proper solution. I said as much in my presentation, highlighting the need for a proper joined up network that is accessible to all. The quality of the riverside routes shows that the engineering knowledge is there. Giant and the China Lifestyle Foundation are equally confident that Youbike is meeting a suppressed demand that will enable Taipei to follow Paris and London by getting cycling numbers up in the urban heart while the battles for urban space continue with the city authorities.
In my comments to the press I focussed on speed because I felt so uncomfortable with my own experience on the roads and because it is a “right now” opportunity which will complement Youbike. However in my speech to the Forum I emphasised that the city could and should see cycle lanes move from the pavements to the streets if the city and the country really wanted to forge a cycling island.
I think it will happen, cycling is too important to be neglected here and the right people are probably in position to make a difference. You can add the names of Tony Lo, Chief Executive of Giant and Robert Wu, Chairman of KMC to the mix of key players involved in the Forum. With that sort of influence from big companies working with the academics and advocates governments tend to listen. It won’t become the Netherlands overnight, no other country has even got close in forty years but there will be significant strides if they can get true political will.
I expect this will become an annual series of posts, I am quite excited about observing the changes, not least because the Taiwanese I met are such open and welcoming hosts who could talk cycling forever. What finer praise can there be for a nation?
Some personal highlights:
Riverside cycle paths by day and by night.
With thanks to Tern for the night ride and the very nice bike!
Photo Credit Tern
What I call a Grimshaw bridge. Any high quality cycling bridge I see anywhere around the world I subconsciously attribute to John for his passion about cycling bridges and design.
The cyclists of Taipei: their Youbikes and bikes
Very frustrating first couple of hours this morning failing to hire a bike.
Apparently to use the Taipei Youbike system I need either a Taiwanese credit card or mobile phone.
The bikes are plentiful, the weather is warm, there are cyclists about and I am hoping to cycle about rather than use the MRT every day. In fact this Youbike station was huge – and full of bikes!
Plan B is now in operation – one of the leisure bike hire stations by the river.
*The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
“Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”
Just looked back at last year’s blog posts when I was a novice blogger and a bit overwhelmed by the Taipei Cycle Show. Where else does the President turn up to open a bike show and I get to shake the hand of Ernesto Colnago.
So much cycling bling, so much sensory overload.
Now looking forward to a great week, it will be flat out but should be time for a few photos and posts. Click the Taiwan tag below for a preview from last year and for why I am going here’s this year’s advert.
I walked onto my host’s stand at the bike show I was visiting in Budapest this weekend and the hairs almost stood up on the back of my neck.
Right in front of their stall was one of the legendary bikes of cycle sport – the extraordinary bike ridden by Italian star Francesco Moser in 1988 to break the “the hour”, one of cycling’s most extreme records.To anybody immersed in cycle sport at the time this was the stuff of legends. It even had a photo indicating authenticity.
I couldn’t be true. I just couldn’t make out how this groundbreaking machine wasn’t in a museum or the collection of the man himself.
So I poked around on line over the weekend to see if I could authenticate the bike and I came across a fun new blog I haven’t seen before – the Lo Pro Cycling Club, a site dedicated to the whole generation of aerodynamic bikes that became super fashionable in the racing scene of the 1980s.
I this great post the blog tells the story of how former professional track rider Kiss Ferenc from Hungary built a Moser replica for fun. I can only assume this is the beast.
The replica is a bit naughty, but what a designer – one of the bike companies should give him a job.
At bike shows there are rules.
Fixies must be bling.
Electric motors must crop up slightly unexpectedly.
And somewhere there must be a lovely Bianchi in celeste blue.
These are given.
The company will remain nameless for discretion’s sake, but I have to say this is the very first image as you walk through the door at the Bringaexpo today in Budapest. Another rule – at every show there must be one piece of marketing that makes you go “what were they thinking?” 
Couldn’t work out why this is so frustrating for me but doesn’t seem to bother anyone else here.
Then as I wobbled back home through the slush and the blowing flakes tonight I realised. List of wants. Dry bum, dry feet, warm face, stable road surfaces……..and more covered bike sheds in Belgium.
30 years of work. 3 years as a student. 7 years cycling to school. Not once have I travelled anywhere where I had to leave my bike outside daily. The dear old UK might be Europe’s cycling dunce but I must have struck lucky with our legacy of bike sheds, some of them probably dating back to the 1960s or even earlier in the case of at least one factory bike shed I can recall.
I mean those saddle covers I see at the bike parks are awfully naff, but now I know why they are so popular everywhere else in Europe and its not just for advertising SRAM.
Photo RienVal (All rights reserved)
I have never given a talk in a stables before.
But at the Dordrecht Sustainability Café (Duurzaamheidscafé) last week I was speaking in the former stables of a rich merchant’s house which is now the Weizigt Sustainability Centre. Next door was an even bigger and grander room which used to park the carriages when the house was built in the 19th Century.
To keep the integrity of the space there were even two fibreglass horses in the end stalls.
And how those horses must have lived. Look at this place! Expensively tiled walls and each horse has its personalised drinking trough. I’d hate to say that these were from marble, but this was a carved solid stone trough out of something impressive. If you wanted to carve a trendy modern work surface for your designer kitchen then this is the sort of stuff you would use.
It was a great environment for the informal and interactive series of sustainability talks (the café) held each quarter where local groups can come together and hear presentations and discuss topical sustainability issues.
But I couldn’t help but think of my own animal shed. I have been over the moon since I moved to Belgium because the house I am renting comes with old farm buildings, including a milking shed with the cow stalls still in place.
So my bikes have been given their own stalls too.
Only problem is that in this one the roof leaks and there is a howling wind blowing through the space, but it is the best bike shed I have ever had. I even had this sneaking temptation to start giving the bikes appropriate names like Daisy, Buttercup and Ermintrude.
However now I have seen the Weizigt centre all that is behind me.
How could I possibly match up when those Dutch horses each had a personalised brass name plate over their stall. Now that would be some bike shed.
Just over two years ago I was involved in a series of protests about the UK’s Royal Mail deciding to give up on its 14,000 cycling posties and go over to cars and foot trolleys.
I always believed that the arguments they put up at the time about security, capacity, speed and safety were complete rubbish, but rather they (and unfortunately some of their union leadership) had a deep seated prejudice that bikes were part of a backwards postal service.
So it always gives me the greatest of pleasure to see a proper, efficient, modern postal service that really understands the potential of the bike.
Take a bow Deutsche Post.
A great research titbit from the ever excellent Bike Portland made me realise now is the time to share my Bike to Work problem. “Cycling Commuters are happiest” whizzed round Twitter last week.
Graph of “commute well-being” from a presentation poster by Oliver Smith, Portland State University
This is exaggerated by the fact that those most likely to moan about cyclists are the least happy – lone car drivers. Great for the promotion of cycling and we all knew it really, didn’t we? (And does it confirm the stereotype that all cyclists are just that little bit smug about their transport choice!)
But currently I am not happy with my bike to work. I am seeking a special set of conditions that make my ride “Just so”.
The scene is set by my first week of living in Belgium. I realise that in the ECF office as in much of Europe I am also a much rarer beast than in the UK, while I am a daily cyclist I also have roots in sport, most of my colleagues here are largely transport cyclists and while the daily commute is a great thing to do (and thereby should make them happier) it is just a commute, to be done as efficiently and quickly as possible. One of my colleagues expressed her confusion about my travelling habits because on my second week after moving I rode 24km to the office, appearing as a sweaty mess and heading off to the local gym for a shower. “But” she said, “you have just paid for your season ticket on the train, why ride all that way?”
Automatically I gave her the same answer I have been giving for nearly 20 years. “Oh, it keeps me fit, keeps my weight down and it sets me up for going out with a local cycling club when I get a bit fitter”.
But in in hindsight I realise that my stock answer just isn’t true anymore. While I value the fitness what I miss more than anything else what I need is a ride where I can settle to a steady rhythm and then completely disengage my brain from the process of riding. Over 10 years of my last commuting route in England there were numerous occasions when I would arrive at the work bike sheds and realise that I had no recollection whatsoever of the last hour.
What happened in that missing hour was like a piece of mental magic. I sort, order, conjure and create until the most difficult of problems began to rearrange themselves into manageable form. So many presentations, speeches, projects and problems sorted themselves during those rides that I rely on those moments for my mental wellbeing. And the reverse is true, without the necessary therapeutic hour my mind becomes crowded and even my sleep can be interrupted by the competing threads.
My trusty commuting bike is also built to meet these objectives. Recovered from scrap the Giant Granite is a rigid mountain bike frame with drop bars added for road riding and my favoured Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres so I am never going to be troubled by punctures. But neither am I going to be troubled by the need for speed, add a couple of full panniers and I slow myself down enough to ensure I don’t get to work too quickly. (Oh and by the way it is deliberately ugly, dirty and distressed to deter thieves – honest)
There is all sorts of medical evidence that exercise reduces stress and people who walk and cycle to work arrive more productive and alert, I am sure I am getting the benefit of all those things on my ride. But I can get many of those by riding the 5km to the station too or on a weekend ride. What matters on my long commute is that the riding itself is completely automatic for just the right period of time.
So why I am not happy with my Belgian ride yet? The distance is about right – I can finesse the route to get my favoured 90 minutes and fitness will certainly come, there are five hills of varying sizes which I can charge up if I want to. And it has the makings of a great combination. First 8km on quiet country roads while the traffic volumes are low. Then into Foret de Soignes where I have about 9km on forest tracks and car free service roads before the final 7km is a zigzag though the southern suburbs Watermael-Boitsfort and Etterbeek to the EU district at Schumann.
I have a horrible feeling that this ride is just too diverse. I have to think too much. When I get to Brussels I am not yet confident enough to ride without full concentration. The forest tracks are actually in excellent condition but not enough to relax during periods of falling leaves, rain, snow and ice. I am begging for a dry spell when I can try just cruising.
Just maybe the conditions, travelling away and spells of illness mean I am just being too impatient, I haven’t done the ride enough to make it automatic, to switch off completely. Maybe a bit of route fettling will see me right, but something has to give. Wouldn’t it be a cruel irony if I have got myself this beautiful route and I find myself heading back to the typical horrible cycle lanes by the main road so I can create the cycle commute I need for my well-being?
Let’s end with a reminder of how great it could be ……… I live in hope.
A year ago I wrote my first blog post, a New Year’s resolution to give blogging a chance.
A grand total of three people viewed it, all of whom were undoubtedly family members.
A year later I can hardly believe how much pleasure I have got from the process and how much I have learned about writing and taking photographs for other people to read. I had intended to write about cycling but it has been a lot of fun to add some diversions into food and travel.
Thanks to everyone for reading, for commenting and for just generally being polite enough to take an interest in my posts. And above all else thanks to the cyclists I have met across the world who have been such an inspiration. I genuinely do not despair every time we meet.
And because your favourites seem to be the bike rides and photos I can use my twelve month anniversary to share a few images from my annual reaffirmation of my cycling credentials, the New Year’s Day Ride. A few more readers this time!
This year’s was a solo. My wife and I walked our dog for a couple of hours in the wind and rain this morning, predicting that this was going to be the best we would get for the day.
However just after lunch the clouds cleared and a dazzling winter sun broke through which encouraged me to keep up my tradition that the year hasn’t started until the first ride. And just as in the last few rides it was a temptation to wander and take in the lanes around my new home in Belgium.
Today I didn’t set out for a specific destination so the significant memory today is just light. Fierce, glaring, reflecting off the roads and lighting up the buildings. At times I could have done with sunglasses and I was almost worried about the effect it could have on drivers. I have heard rather too many excuses about being dazzled at the scene of serious accidents to entirely relax when even I cannot see properly. However the drivers today were few and far between which made it very relaxing.
So I was able to enjoy the sunlit village green at Ceroux, the extraordinary sunlight off the roads and the beautiful avenue of trees above at Ruart. The avenue reminded me of the art of David Hockney which I enjoyed so much in April, I am sure he would have made much of it.
And the riding itself was great, a stiff wind but I deliberately took my trusty winter road bike so I could enjoy spinning lighter wheels and narrow tyres up and around the rolling landscape. It’s a survivor this one, every time I have a new year plan to throw it out somehow it survives another twelve months. £75 for the frame about twelve years ago, the seatpin and chainset stuck solid, the frame rusting in places. But it is always comfortable and familiar and I can ride it across winter roads without a care. Just what I needed.
Happy New Year to all.
I always knew Belgium was mad for cycle sport and that it is the main home of the winter variant of the sport – cyclocross. It’s a much older offroad cycle sport than mountain biking, carried out on adapted road bikes.
But I have been highly entertained as for the second week in a row I have bumped into cyclocross on live TV as a major event of the day and the Dutch speaking radio station I had on while cooking a meal led with the cross results as the lead sports headline. A nice bonus, I had been anticipating watching some of the Belgian road classics later in the spring but I had forgotten all about the cyclocross.
Today showed why this has always been an event for hard riders, historically mainly men. The kind of rider who likes to keep a clean bike and mechanical perfection would recoil in horror from the pouring rain, the ankle deep mud and the grinding sand. Perfectly suited to the image of Belgium as the country of riders on and off road who like conditions really horrible.
Today’s Superprestige series race at Diegem had the added twist of being run off under floodlights and street lamps only enhancing the sense of being closed in by the storm. And despite the conditions it appeared to attract a good crowd. All the pictures are on copyrighted sites so I won’t put one here, but try here for some good ones.
I loved cross when I was a kid, I was absolutely useless at it because I lacked the power and strength to be any good. But when it turned really horrible I was always worth a few extra places just because it put off some of the speed merchants. So in the middle of the wettest winters ever in northern Europe I am very happy to be tucked up indoors and to salute the kings of the mud. I guess before the season ends I had better get myself out there and actually watch one.
This is the first of my Christmas holiday posts where I catch up on some of the missing subjects I promised myself I would write about at the time and never quite got round to. Some reflections, maybe a few thanks, but above all else the things I can catch up on when the rain is howling in horizontally across the countryside and it is time for another piece of cake.
Among this year’s new discoveries that I wanted to share were some of Europe’s communities of vintage racing bike enthusiasts. I had frequently marveled at the massive queues for what I could only characterised as a “load of old scrap” when I visited some of the popular bike rallies in the UK but the scale of the sector had passed me by.
However I do know that I always enjoyed seeing a restored classic and this year I have learned so much more about the community and culture behind the world of classic bikes.
Firstly I started a rather urgent mission to reduce the volume of cycling stuff I was going to relocate to Belgium. I knew I had a couple of nice classic bikes that needed a good home because I was never going to give them due respect. But I had no idea that when I delved into my old bits box I would be uncovering the items that power a whole community of collectors and restorers.
Secondly I began the long drawn out process of restoring my own period classic. I conceived the project over a year ago on my 50th birthday because the bike itself is of a similar vintage and frankly at fifty there are not so many toys you can buy a bloke. But it was only this year that I got the frame refurbed and started to think properly about the parts.
In both cases I have been hugely impressed by the community over on www.retrobike.co.uk , there just doesn’t seem to be anything that they don’t know about bike bits. And the ability to identify a part or a bike from just a single photo or a clumsy description is only matched by their ability to conjure up just the missing part from a secret store, often in mint condition.
I had carried a bit of a prejudice that this was a mainly British community of eccentrics with some similar enthusiasts in North America. The tribe runs on a diet of old English handmade frames and the period components that go with them. However it hasn’t taken long in my travels this year to discover that there is an alternative theme that runs across Europe, one that runs on pure Italian vintage, with Colnago and Bianchi at its head. Just goes to show how little I really know about anything when I make assumptions about national character.
First I found the amazing Bikelager in Vienna – café, galley and homage to the finest Italian frames and bikes which I mentioned in one of my Vienna posts in May. I am looking forward to paying them another visit next year for one of the coolest coffees in town.
Then I in September my newest discovery was Bici D’Epoca, (“Bikes of the ages”) the period bike exhibition at the Padua Cycle Show. As with everything Italian and cycling from this period the twin gods of Coppi and Bartali looked down on everything. I guess it is a form of insurance for the company that they have to give equal billing to both.
It was a feast of Campagnolo, Bianchi, clothing and parts stretching over more than 50 years. Coppi’s 1954 World Championship winning bike as star, but I enjoyed just as much bikes with local histories such as the tandem from the local Padova club which was used to win an Italian national championship, complete with black and white photos of its riders. 
So despite being surrounded by some of the most exciting modern bikes on the planet I kept sneaking back to their stall at the Padua fair to soak up some of the legends.
The spiritual home of this stuff and one of the drivers of the rediscovery of the era has become the classic ride L’Eroica (“the heroic one”) which has spawned a whole generation of spinoff rides including a Giro d’Italia d’Epoca. These rides only allow riders to compete on classic bikes with period clothing to preserve the classic images of the sport. L’Eroica itself was created to draw attention to the paving over of the legendary white dirt roads of Tuscany. It can be credited with the decision by the organisers of the Giro D’Italia to take one of the monuments of cycling over little known dirt tracks, days which have changed the destiny of the race. And a professional version of the L’Eroica in the spring is fast becoming a classic. Together they have rehabilitated both the strada bianchi and the classic bikes of Italy.
I almost imagined I had a small part in the original Eroica this year because one of the participants was credited in the event reports with wearing “some natty punched leather Gianni Motta shoes”, the ones I had sold him just a few weeks before just for the occasion. Now I know that this is a proper missing link in my cycling CV, one for the bucket list to be sure.
So when I could be putting up more blog posts, riding my bike or restoring my own bike I seem to be able click around for ages www.bicidepoca.com for their events, parts, accessories, clothing, historical articles and some great photos of the bikes including the story about that Coppi championship winning bike. And if not I will be sneaking my regular look at www.retrobike.co.uk to see if anyone really does need some of my old tat, for say the price of a cup of coffee?
I Do Not Despair 
