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?” 
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.
Last week I paid my first visit to Berlin. Fortunately around my schedule of meetings I had a few free hours to myself for an afternoon and the freezing rain relented just enough to make sightseeing a realistic opportunity.
I was horribly unprepared to be a tourist having done almost no prior reading. When I checked my usual source on such matters Tripadvisor’s main recommendations were all places that needed at least an hour each to do them justice. Given that my knowledge of Berlin is entirely made of fragments from spy movies and occasional news footage, not the soundest of starts.
So it should come as no surprise to any reader of this blog that I hired a bike and pottered about with my camera just trying to get some impressions of the city.
I was able to top up my knowledge by chatting to colleagues the following day so I was at least able to answer some of my immediate questions, but here is a brief snapshot of thoughts and feelings from a first afternoon cycling and sightseeing in central Berlin.
First orientation issue – am I in East or West Berlin? I am starting from the middle (Mitte), but checking the map tells me I am in the former East because the Berlin Wall actually encircled the old centre like a bump in its alignment. Not obvious to my eye which was which or that the East had been the poor half because my walk down Friedrichstrasse to hire a bike passed parades of shops and offices indistinguishable from any modern city.
Once a bike was obtained from one of Deutsche Bahn’s many bike hire stations I realised that the layout was very compact and it was a matter of minutes to turn down the main street of East Berlin Unter den Linden and head for the must see monument, the Brandenburg Gate. (above)
Not only an impressive monument but important for my orientation because this was one of the symbols of divided Berlin and I could follow the former line of the Berlin Wall from here, especially as so many tourism landmarks appeared to be along its route.
It turned out to be quite an odd ride, as if the city doesn’t quite know what to do with its legacy, or indeed it’s cycling. Heading south from the Brandenburg Gate towards Potsdamer Platz the road was obvious but almost all suggestions of the wall’s existence were gone. Instead the first landmark was the Holocaust Memorial, a sombre grey feature of large blocks laid out in a grid, completed in 2004. A moody place in the overcast sky and slushy snow.
At PotsdamerPlatz I encountered my first evidence of the wall with some retained segments placed on the square covered with interpretation materials about the wall and its legacy. This explained more about what I was, or indeed was not seeing. In the transition after the wall came down many sections were demolished leaving the wide open spaces that used to be the former killing zone, the space left for the guards to see anybody trying to cross. Some are still undeveloped over 20 years later and appear as waste land, some quickly got developed or incorporated into road schemes and a few make the site of memorials and museums.
As I left Potsdamer Platz the cycle lane on the pavement disappeared, the road narrowed and I appeared to be on a very ordinary city street with no indication of history. My map said I was following the wall and should take the first left into another very nondescript small side street heading for the famous Checkpoint Charlie and a site called “Topography of Terror”. It was all very quiet, few cars, few tourist trappings and not unpleasant cycling at all.
I quickly knew I was on the right road because a much longer section of original wall came up beside me. Behind it was a flat plain containing a low grey modern building and some open building foundations. No signs, no obvious clues as to what was going on until I found that “Topography of Terror” was the site of the core of former Nazi control in Berlin, the seat of the Gestapo and the Propaganda Ministry and the building footings I could see were Hitler’s Bunker and Gestapo rooms. I found out later that the surface buildings had been demolished by Allied bombing during the war and its proximity to the wall meant it was just left as open space for over 40 years. Another uncomfortable memory to be incorporated into the city and the museum was perhaps suitably understated.
Its neighbour across the street could hardly be more of a contrast!
Shortly beyond was Checkpoint Charlie, the main gateway between the American and Russian sectors which had appeared in many iconic Cold War images and is certainly more of a tourist hot spot now. 
The motif of the wall was used well to provide photographic displays on the approaching streets which gave the history of divided Berlin in news photographs and information boards.
But yet again nearby was one of those ambiguous memorials that really set me thinking – this time the museum of the infamous STASI, the East German secret police.
I spoke to a colleague later about these many memorials to difficult subjects. He said that because Berlin had stagnated for so long after the war there had been no systematic attempt to “move on” and certainly no civic regeneration programme to remove evidence of difficult subjects. And then after reunification it became recognised that Berlin should not be allowed this past so the city had begun to establish them as part of education and reconciliation. I had the feeling it was a sort of pact – you can become the capital city again but you cannot be allowed to forget.
There is certainly no avoiding the subject of the wall. I had assumed that when I left the central area some of the references would go diminish but later that evening on the S-bahn railway I learned about the ghost stations where North-South trains ran under East Berlin from two sectors of the West but didn’t stop at the pre-war stations. And the sections of that line that ran almost along the wall with platforms only open on the West side.
Back to my ride. Having passed Checkpoint Charlie I had my fill of wall sites so I swung North East to see more of the older city. First I followed a relatively large road across to Alexanderplatz which was a pretty nondescript public space in the growing gloom but I was then able to pick up the banks of the River Spree and circle around the hugely impressive Museum Island. What actually caught the eye here too was the amount of building going on, this looks like a city going though a construction boom.
I then used the river bank to retrace my steps back to a building I wanted to see, the Reichstag. The historic parliament building became the seat of German government again when its modern dome designed by British architect Norman Foster was finally built into the older frame. 
Around it I discovered a huge modern civil service quarter built on the river bank and a series of waterways and parkland which looked really nice environment. If I had been organised I would like to have booked a visit to see the inside of the Reichstag because everything I have heard about it looks amazing. But for now the space in front of the Reichstag was vast, open and increasingly cold so I didn’t linger, I needed to keep moving.
From the Reichstag it was a quick trip through the Tiergarten park back to the Brandenburg Gate and the return of the bike to its hire station as the gloom came in.
Fascinating place – so many questions about the attitude to history, to culture, to monuments and a potentially days to spend. That is without touching the arts, culture, nightlife and even some of the suburbs – so many other things form which the city is known.
And what about the cycling?
Well I found as many oddities about cycling in Berlin as I did about the city itself.
I had been told that about 13% of trips in Berlin are made by bike. That’s in line with the German average which means well above the rest of Europe and especially the places I usually ride. But I have convinced myself I am getting the hang of this mode share business, I am beginning to be able to see what the differing levels look like.
But in Berlin I couldn’t. Whether on my ride or looking at the rush hours I couldn’t see the significant flows I was expecting. Cyclists visible on most streets, yes, but not huge numbers. There were lots of bikes parked round the city but in fact much of the cycle parking was empty. So maybe the weather meant that cycling was quite seasonal I asked? Apparently not, but perhaps I was in the wrong place because the levels of cycling are highly dependent on the routes in from certain suburbs.
Just like everywhere else in Europe it is the middle classes and intellectuals who cycle the most and in Berlin it is the areas where the alternative cultural movement established itself in the sixties that cycling levels are highest. If this is the case then it might explain why cyclists in the city centre really did feel quite isolated.
However in the city centre what I could see was that other indicator of cycling health. Women on bikes are universally recognised as a sign that the population thinks cycling is safe. However maybe they think they are not quite safe enough because I did notice that nearly all the women wore the dreaded cycle helmets – but none of the men!
The other thing that will be a bit confusing for many cycling advocates was the lack of segregated cycle routes. The vast majority of cycling I did was on the carriageway – I could have been in Brussels or London. That certainly contradicts the message that you need a big segregated network to get cycling levels above 10%. However I rarely felt worried, the drivers were largely respectful of the cyclist and the cycle lane – now that is a big difference. Possibly my view was distorted by the time of day, I was just before the afternoon rush hour, but even the following morning I felt general traffic volumes in the city were really low compared to most large cities in Europe. Maybe Berlin drivers are less stressed than their equivalents stuck in traffic across the world? I still instinctively believe that cycle lanes are just one way of changing the relationship between rider and driver and Berlin seemed to support the notion that respectful driving is a valuable way to create a cycling environment too.
So Berlin by bike?
Flat, compact, interesting, well behaved drivers, loads of bikes on hire. Something I definitely want to do again. But better prepared and able to use the Call Bike system properly, jumping on and off to visit the main attractions properly!
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.
Christmas Eve was one of the few times since I started working in Belgium that I have been for a bike ride that was “just a spin”, a proper touring ride through the local lanes.
Previous rides have almost all had a purpose – exploring areas to live, visiting houses and more recently plotting routes to work or to local services. I feel as if I have been waiting weeks for free time to coincide with some gaps in the rain or snow and it just happened to be the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
I decided to cut though the lanes in the general direction of Waterloo, partly because the network of roads look interesting on the map and also because I wondered how much I could ride around the historic site of the 1815 battle.
It was really refreshing to be pottering about and with time to take some photos. When I returned three impressions were left on my mind.
Firstly I was good to be moving at bike speed through the villages and hamlets rather than by car so I could enjoy the vernacular architecture glowing in the winter sunshine, especially the white painted farmhouses which dot the fields and the solid brick churches marking the village centres.
Battles are not really my thing but I want to know more about my new home and the Battle of Waterloo is by far the biggest deal in this region, undoubtedly one of the most pivotal battles in European history. The main Waterloo battlefield is actually south of the town itself and include the communes of Braine L’Alleud and Lasne while the events leading up to the battle stretch many kilometres away to Wavre and Genappe, right across the area I am now living.
I was first aware that I had hit the battlefield proper when I came across the first of many roads named after the troops and leaders of in the battle. And then bouncing across the cobbles and potholes I looked up from my concentration on the road ahead to see the Butte de Lion, the huge pyramid -like mound built by William 1st of the Netherlands to mark the event.
It isn’t the most attractive memorial in the world but it is certainly a major landmark in the surrounding agricultural landscape which only dips away gradually. At least around its base there is only a limited amount of tourist exploitation while the older buildings mark their association with the flags of all sides and not much other adornment.
However the thing that really struck me was that I could ride right up beside the monument and then head out across the fields on my bike, I am sure in most countries this would be closely guarded and only accessible by paying customers. Alongside the path were interpretation boards in multiple languages which set out the main features of the battle. I was able to swing across the ridge defended by the British against the French cavalry charges accompanied by several joggers and the car we collectively pushed out of the mud in a burst of international collaboration.
So I can mark that one down as somewhere to bring cycling visitors with an interest in history, a bike is a really good way to move around the big area covered by the battle and get a sense of the topography.
Ah, but there is a catch. My third and final discovery was the state of the roads in this direction. I may have moaned a bit about rough cycle paths earlier in the year but for the first time on this trip I hit some of the real stuff, proper domed pavé with deep ruts down either side. Front lamp lasted about a minute before it had to be removed but the rest of the bike and I rattled bumped and bounced all over the place with little semblance of control or momentum. Only a relatively short section fortunately but it caught me by surprise.
Later I tried my best to imitate Tom Boonen, going full bore down the centre crest on a similar section which seemed to work better but it was tough keeping it going and no fun at all when momentum was lost. A few of the minor roads are theoretically smooth now but when the tarmac wears away the thinly covered cobbles are exposed and make impressive potholes, a tricky combination after all the wet weather.
In other areas the cobbling is more decorative, in fact it looks like it is used as a sort of traffic calming because many of the road junctions and village entrances had short sections in just the right places to discourage car speed. These more modern sections are relatively tame for a cyclist and in general the drivers show a lot of respect to cyclists, certainly better than in Brussels.
All in all I loved my return to pottering about the lanes and the discovery of the countryside, the history and even those cobbles. I look forward to much more, but for the moment I was refreshed for Christmas.
I haven’t updated my “Music to ride bikes by” blog page in ages, I think my head has been too full of other stuff for songs to sneak in and take over.
Not today!
Within minutes of starting to pick my way through the fresh fallen snow even my intense concentration was taken over by Paul Simon’s “Slip sliding away”.
There is little doubt that it was prompted by my two wheeled behaviour. The Belgian schoolboys trudging alongside the road were highly entertained by the chap doing a 180 degree spin in front of them and wobbling off down the hill sliping from side to side.
No real risk, a friend has given me an almost car free back route to the station. But I am a victim of my own complacency. I am a huge fan of the puncture proof Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres, over 10 years since I first reviewed them for the CTC magazine and still puncture free. But this does mean I put them on the bike and completely ignore them until the carcass completely falls apart. This is exposed at some point each year when the bike becomes mysteriously unstable on mud, snow or ice and I finally look down to discover the rear is completely bald.
Today appears to have been that day, thus Paul Simon is now in my head for the rest of the day.
Over to you Paul.
One of the great frustrations from moving house has been embodied in a cardboard box, just one amongst so many. But an odd shape, long and flat.
It arrived a week before we moved and I allowed myself a single peek into the box before very reluctantly I packed it away.
So having unpacked everything domestic over the last two weeks I treated myself to a session in the shed and I carefully brought Freddie Grubb number 11773 into the light after its respray and refurbishment for its 50th birthday (and mine).
A thing of rare delight, a 1963 English steel track frame which has been in my first club, the Godric CC for its entire life. I acquired it in the 1970s and after a short racing career in grass track and rollers I mistreated it for almost 30 years.
But now as I gradually pulled the packaging away I broke into an irrepressible beaming smile. This is my classic and I am really looking forward to the gradual build. Watch this space for more updates.
Spotted in Stockholm.
A most unusual attachment for a sporty road bike. Speculation as to purpose welcomed.
Just for my British followers. Having cycled up Andriivsky in Kiev I realised that only one photograph could do it justice. For those from outside the Uk this advert is part of our cycling heritage, it advertises bread. It has been recreated a number of times using celebrated cyclists including Chris Boardman and most recently Victoria Pendleton. In both cases – its a great hill.
Although I have to say Ira from the Kiev Cyclists’ Association campaign does it better justice than me, better bike, more style.
You need to have your head in the sand to have missed the pretty awful week many bike fans have had. Even travelling in Ukraine the twitter feed and blog posts have been pretty down in the dumps.
But the whole purpose of my blog is to remind me on on the down days that this is the transport of delight, and to try and share.
So it is just as well that this week I have seen three videos that brought me out in the widest smile. Winter may be coming in the north, so if you need just a small pick up to get you out on your bike next week here are three positive films about the sporty side of cycling, each with a little reminder why“I do not despair”
The first time, (see also previous post) the company and the sheer exuberance of cycling.
For more fun videos please go to my video library page where these will end up long term.
No time for a detailed blog post today, but just back from a sunset tour of Yevpatoria with the rest of the Veloforum delegates.
Fascinating.
Although it is much less well known than some of its more famous neighbours Venice and Verona I think Padua is a great place to ride a bike and should make a good stopping point for any passing cycle tourists or advocates interested in seeing a fully traffic calmed city in Italy. (Thinks out loud “Padua for my English readers or Padova out of respect for its proper name? No idea – use a bit of both.”)
Last week in Verona I was lucky enough to be guided and helped by the cycle tours organised by local volunteers but here in Padua the local FIAB volunteers were flat out proving cycling fun for children visiting the Padova Expobici cycling show so I was a bit more on my own.
However they did provide the equipment, a mountain bike that was a reasonable steed for the cobbled streets throughout the city centre. Unfortunately when I first collected it from the hotel baggage room it had a flat which did lead to one of the most entertaining misunderstandings of my ventures into Italian.
My hosts asked me to bring the bike to the children’s try out area at the show where the volunteers had said they would stick in a new tube. So of course along I pop pushing the bike and wander up to the desk. Unfortunately the chap on the desk was the one person not in the know and he was convinced I was a 50 year old juvenile who wanted to play on the kids track! I was sent off to play with the big kids despite all my attempted explanations. It was all resolved with considerable amusement a bit later by the rest of FIAB Padova.
Anyway back to my trips into the city.
The photos here come from two excursions into the town which I fitted around my work at the Expobici. On Saturday morning when the flat tyre was discovered I walked the city which led to my early discovery of the great contrast with Verona that I blogged about last week.
I keep mentioning in my posts how much I like mornings, there is something quite different about a city waking up, especially when the dominant noise is the rattling of bicycles and the shouts of the market traders , not to mention the fact that you can actually smell pastries and coffee everywhere.
On Saturday evening I also had a ride into town but unfortunately no time for photos as I was off to dinner with my hosts. This gave me a ride through the city from north to south and a great chance to zig zag around the narrow alleys and short cuts. However I was stopped in my tracks when I emerged into Piazza Prato della Valle. It is the most enormous open square that I have ever seen in a city of this size. I was immediately reminded of Plaza de Espana in Seville but this seemed even bigger.
This gave me the itinerary for my Sunday morning ride because I really wanted to see the Piazza in daylight, even if the morning was a bit gloomy. But this time because I had a bike I was able to take a slightly longer route and I decided to circle around the branch of a river which serves as a historic moat around the inner city. Riding along waterways you often see bits of architecture and heritage that survive from different eras and the water itself can be great. Turned out that Padova was no exception, the western branch of the river took me along quiet streets with some gorgeous old bridges, buildings and perspectives on the city.
With time running out I swung back towards the centre of the city along the ample cycle lanes and came to Piazza Prato della Valle again. The translation is “Meadow of the Valley” so I can only imagine that at one time this was a vast open space leading to the river. Today it is a formal square with a ring of water features, statutes and seats in the middle and a vast open expanse of walking and cycling space. At one end Abbazia di Santa Giustina is a huge church and abbey but even it seems lost in the corner of the open space.
The cyclists mooching through the square just showed the scale, they looked tiny and even a club group of 20 road riders turned out in immaculately matching club colours could not make it look busy.
Great place to ride a bike. And on a human level some final thoughts. When Venice was a city state Padua was its university town, a tradition it keeps up today. So the first thing I noticed about the cyclists and pedestrians was the large numbers of young people, something cycling shares with other great university centres, surely something we must keep building on throughout the world. 
And also in keeping with the great cycling centres of Amsterdam and Copenhagen I am sure that a significant majority of the cyclists I saw were women. 
As advocates we are always told that when you make your cycling cities female friendly 
you are on the right path, Padua cycling culture must be a great example because it is young, female and wearing ordinary clothes.. The Cycle Chic movement writ large, excellent.
Now if only the cycling shows could understand that ….. But that is another story.
I have been pretty rude about the politics of transport in Verona in my previous post, especially when compared to Padua which has taken a completely different path.
However in typical contrary style the negative conditions for cycling have resulted in a strong cyclists’ movement with the Verona branch of Federation Italiana Amici della Bici (FIAB) having its largest branch in the city, over 2000 members.
It also has a really strong sports cycling tradition too having hosted the world cycling championship twice in modern times. (2004, 1999)
I was there to work at the EICA trade fair and to have meetings with some of the national leadership of FIAB but the local members were such excellent hosts I have to give them a write up, especially as they gave me a great insight into their city, warts and all.
First up was Giorgio, president of the branch who turned up at my hotel first thing on Saturday to provide me with a bike for the weekend and set me off to the show. As I have written many times, it’s not about the bike and the fact that he gave me his careworn town bike with its rattles and pannier meant that I wasn’t too worried about where it got locked up or how I rode it.
In the afternoon I was invited down to the city centre to meet the local branch who were launching the first weekend of European Mobility Week by holding a series of guided rides. No prospect of a Car Free Day here so this was an exercise in grabbing the city’s attention. I could soon see why this group was well established in the city. The agenda for the day was to invite different professional groups to come for a guided ride at a set time in the day, either professions that were supportive of the group or some groups of friends. Simple, but so effective because it encourages existing networks to encourage their friends and contacts to come along.
I went out with the teachers and thirty minutes later our tour was followed by the bio-architects, which apparently translates organic architects, a new trend in the profession. (Means nothing to me either!)
The ride itself was a tourist tour but it was also to boldly go through the streets in bunch and be proud to be cyclists whether it was on the one or two pedestrianized streets or out into the busier roads. That was made clear by the bibs with slogans we were asked to wear, and because Paulo our guide had a PA rigged up to his bike. I assumed this was because he was going to give us a tour. Oh no, he was using the PA to shout to the crowds, not just us. My Italian is non-existent but it doesn’t take much to hear the word “bici” repeated with great enthusiasm and to get warm smiles from the pedestrians to see that the man is a natural entertainer.
A nice ride, repeating some of the areas I had walked the previous day, but great fun from the saddle and with company. Oh and here’s a thing (not one for my wife). I had to ask why the group of teachers were all women? I was astonished to be told that all teachers in Italy are women. I checked that this didn’t just mean primary schools like many countries but I assured that almost all teachers in Italy are female without really being able to understand why.
The professional groups idea was certainly a success, a group of up to 20 every half an hour meant that there was a steady flow of people through the day learning about cycling in Verona.
There were also quite a lot of cyclists around in the town and I was just generally snapping a few as a backdrop to for a blog post. I was just snapping this chap when I realised a group of sports cyclists were passing by in the background – none other than the bike show test ride coming back from their spin with Mario Cipollini who as if to order had popped into the corner of the frame. The test circuit let show visitors take a huge range of road, electric and mountain bikes out for a spin of up to 15km around Verona returning through the main square.
Who’s this just passing by on his bike?
As well as the group rides I was also told I had been invited out to a concert in the evening by one of our local hosts. “Concert” I ask, “what sort of concert?” Nobody actually knew, other than it was going to be at a building called Lazzaretto outside the city. From what I could briefly glean on my smart phone I thought it was some sort of restored stately home. About the music, no idea.
So that’s how I ended up at a sort of modern jazz outdoor concert for the Italian National Trust to promote the fact that they had acquired the grounds and ruin of a former isolation hospital and military base that had been partly blown up by anarchists. “Concerto in Bronze” had a celebrated percussionist beating out music on the bronze statues of Gino Bogoni while a dancer and narrator telling the story of the sculptor’s life. I had the introductory speech by the National Trust translated so I learned a bit about the rotunda that had been at the heart of the old hospital. But I didn’t understand a word of the narration and I have to admit that a grown man lying on a bronze statue shaped like a melted bar of chocolate hitting it with his fists stretches my definition of music.
But how can I top sitting in open parkland with a slight chill in the air surrounded by people who really cared about the place we were in and the city they live in, listening to tawny owls hooting in the trees around us. Magical.
And on the way home I was treated to a trip up to the terraces of an old castle which sat above the Roman theatre I had been on earlier in the day. Fantastic views of the city from above.
On Sunday the lure of the test ride circuit and the views from the castle drew me and I couldn’t wait to get out in the early evening and do a proper tourist ride. Even better I was told that the circuit was actually part of the world road race circuit used twice in the past. I was soon zigzagging up the hairpins on a good climb out of the city, bit of a challenge on the single chainwheel of Giorgio’s bike but certainly rideable.
Before long I was up to a good height and able to look over to the valley beyond as well as great views back over the city itself. On one side the old city with its mediaeval roofs and Roman origins, but it was easy to see on the other valley why this is also a strong industrial area too.
The road itself kept the higher ground and looped round above the city until I came down to the Santuario Madonna Di Lourdes, a domed church set high above the city and one of the most distinctive sights on the city horizon. 
It was a stunning spot and I got some great views from its terraces, including a nice view back across to the previous climb. But even here I could not resist a mental rant that they just could not keep cars out of what should have been an oasis of silence.
However the café behind the Stantuario did offer a very tasty espresso and tiramisu, a classy step up on the coffee and cake at home.
Then a great descent into town at 50kmph before rolling back through the old streets.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much I went back again in the early morning for an final spin, a bit cloudier than the previous day but still a lovely ride.
Thanks to all the FIAB members in Verona, your hospitality made it a very special visit. I wish you every success in your frustrating battle to create a cycle friendly city.
I Do Not Despair 