Pumped Up Weekends

If you’re feeling deflated in the middle of London then a solution could be nearer than you think as the City of London have put in pavement-mounted bike pumps. I think this is a great idea, and should be rolled out across the country, although there is one major flaw. Surely you should be addressing what it was that has made your tyre go flat in the first place, not just pumping it up and then undoubtedly getting just too far away from the pump to use it again before your tyre goes down again.

Perhaps they should combine the pumps with an inner-tube vending machine and make everyone happy.

Mind you it’s now the weekend so you should be resolutely staying away from any work-related parts of town and enjoying what’s left of those summer days, if the rain holds off.

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Traffic Issues

With test events all over the place, it seems that the Olympics are really coming. This means plenty to look forward to for cyclists, but also it seems that more and more people will be encouraged to ride. You could see this as an admission that the transport infrastructure of London won’t be able to cope, or a chance to be joined by thousands of other cyclists as busses and trains grind to a tourist-filled halt.

Perhaps the real answer is the one being tried out in Lithuania where cars parked in bike lanes are being threatened with being crushed by an armoured personnel carrier.

To finish I bring you a warning for London based cyclists. If I were you I would avoid parking my bike in this lane in Islington.

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Bits and Pieces

It’s been a while since we saw any innovative bike parking solutions, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw this idea, where bikes are hung on the side of a building on a gigantic belt – all run by an operator pedalling a bike to move the belt.

Closer to home it’s interesting to see that the National Trust are going all-out to encourage cycling on their land, both for people who like a pleasant potter on the tarmac, and for mountain bikers. This might mean even more places to ride, and hopefully another organisation making the most of it as the Forestry Commission has.

Finally today we normally steer clear of road-riding films, but this one on the Paris-Roubaix is pretty cool:



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Work Balance

So it’s Tuesday. I’m still waiting for my forking delivery and everyone’s tied to a desk in work.

At least there could be an option to be both on your bike and at your desk thanks to this new bike rack design. maybe in some small way you could feel like you were riding instead of working, although I have a nasty feeling you might end up with all the downsides of a long 8 hours in the saddle with none of the benefits of good feelings, exercise and the thrill of the ride. At least it’ll make that issue of whether to change when you get to work easier. Just ride in and start working. Your lycra won’t look out of place if you’re still on a bike.

When you get home you still need a way to keep the bike safe and, possibly, out of the way. While those desk-racks are a bit odd, I really like the ideas on this blog. There seem to be more and more good ways to store your bike securely and attractively and that is definitely a good thing.

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Jim'll Ride It.

Another new week and guess what another mountain bike (and other mountain sports) video. You’d have thought it was undoubtedly going to feature the media mountain biker of the moment, Mr MacAskill, but it would appear that he has a rival.

None other then Sir Jim’ll himself has burst onto the scene with a range of skills that nobody expected he had:



In other exciting bike news it seems incorporating a bike shed into your brand new office building is all the rage. It even seems as if people are trying hard to outdo each other in their bike storage and servicing facilities. I think this has to be a good thing.

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Lost and Secured in Soho

It seems that some users of the London bike hire scheme are having a fair amount of trouble finding their way around. This seems to mean that they entirely rely on a map to navigate and ignore the evidence of their own eyes when it comes to no-entry signs and one-way streets. It seems like the scheme must be doing ok if all anyone can find to moan about is people getting lost in the capital’s streets.

Perhaps what’s needed is a tube-style, like one that’s been developed in Edinburgh. Although now I suppose there will be a rise in people complaining that the roads are the wrong colour or not in the exact right configuration.

Once you’ve found your way to the centre of town you will soon be able to park your bike securely at a new gym in Soho which is planning to provide a couple of hundred parking places with showers, catering for commuters who don’t have those facilities at work.

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All the Answers to Questions You Didn't Have

What we like at FMFT is a nice barrow-load of new developments and ideas in the bike world. Much like how magazines and media outlets get flooded with actual products to test and drool over, we have scrabbled-together internet reports. So here we offer you solutions to all the problems you probably haven’t even realised you had yet.

Fed up with your electric bike running out of power far away from home, but in a delightfully sunny location (and unable to, you know, actually pedal the bike)? Then either stop and take a break or hope you’ve arrived close enough to one of Kyocera’s solar powered charging stations which should, hopefully be appearing soon all over the place.

Annoyed with the way your bike rack attaches to your car and wanting something a bit more exciting, with the constant fear of a possible detaching? Well, invest in a sucker-based system and trust in their claims that it’ll keep your bike safe. I’m sure it probably will but it takes a bit of a leap to trust suckers over more traditional attachments.

Disconcerted with the usual frame building materials, and more in the line for something a bit more “natural”? Perhaps you’d like to embrace yet another take on the wooden high-performance bike.

Or possibly you are just so over locking your bike at a level where it’s wheels are on the ground, and are yearning for a solution that offers something a bit more “high flying”? Well now you can park your bike on rack which will then zoom it high into the sky and keep it safe, provided you can ever get it back, or there isn’t another bike locked underneath.

All of these are far, far preferable to attempted dangerous modifications and vandalism to bridges built into mountain bike trails, which could have had a horrible outcome had the riders not been lucky.

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More Powered Bikes

Hardly a couple of days go past without more reports of assisted bikes. This time it’s something a bit more exciting that’s hit our highly sensitive internet fishing net.

If the idea of a $35000 electric bike wasn’t thrilling enough for you (perhaps money is nothing to you and the there’s no buzz from spending it in wads?) then how about a jet powered bike? far more interesting than a simple electric engine you can power past other road users in a blur of acceleration. And then probably run into the side of a bus at the next traffic lights. Still, I’d be happy to be overtaken by a jet, which undoubtedly requires a bit more skill to stay on board than an electric lazy-bike.

I guess it will certainly shorten your commute time – or possibly your time before arriving in hospital – and should mean you get to snag that all important bike parking place. Admittedly this time of year isn’t when bike racks fill up, but that extra boost will be important in the summer (and the heat form the engine probably a bonus in the winter) to get you a spot. Unless, of course, you are the Director of Transportation in Tuscon, Arizona, when you won’t have to worry about any of this as you have your own reserved bike rack.

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Bonfire Night Thrills

Suddenly and almost as a surprise we’re into those blustery, dark and restless autumn rides home (the surprise was helped in many ways by me spending the last three days not leaving the flat). Nights like this feel dangerous as you don’t k now what’s going to happen, whether from the groups of kids roaming the streets or the blustery traffic pushing you around. Today this restlessness will be added to by the smell of smoke and gunpowder as we collectively look for an excuse to look at the sky and say oooh and aaaah. Having somewhat prematurely shot my bolt with the best fire and bike related story I’ve seen recently, you’ll have to settle for something tamer. Inevitably we’ll bring you a round up of all the firework stories we should have seen next week sometime.

So for now: Excitement! As TfL reveal their tips for keeping warm, dry and safe on the bike as winter sets in.

Thrills! As Lambeth council replace a sign with a more interesting one which also acts as a bike rack.

And, er, well that’s about it for now. Better then standing in the cold looking at thousands of pounds worth of explosions, right?

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Bike News from While We Were Away

While we were away and (as it transpired) experiencing first-hand the excellent work of the Dumfries and Galloway Safety Camera Partnership cycling news continued to happen. Almost as if the world didn’t rely on us to report all things bike-related, events continued to occur.

It was a bad week for people getting things stolen, as Orange had a number of prototypes and 2011 bikes (mostly not built up) stolen from their factory in Halifax. We’d like to join in hoping that people will keep an eye out for any unusual bargains on Orange hardtails with no forks fitted and pass the details on through Singletrack (details on the link). The National Championships were also hit by theft as nine bikes worth between £3000 and £4000 were taken in one night. The local police suspect an organised group of thieves possibly with a silver van, and once again, be on the lookout for anything suspicious.

However, in London there was good news for victims of bike theft, as a new team has been set up specifically to target bike crime and disrupt the established methods of reselling stolen cycles. Let’s hope that they can make a difference and make it safer to leave a bike parked in London in the future.

This is excellent news for London cyclists although there was mixed news regarding other London schemes for cyclists. Barclays bank has been named as the sponsor for both the Cycle Superhighways and the bike hire project, which goes some way to explaining the colour choices, but also should ensure that both do get the funding they need to continue. The Superhighways are still being met with a certain amount of amusement by the cycling world, unsure of the benefits that blue pain has in terms of safety and relaxed cycling, and there are yet more reasons to criticise the hire scheme. Firstly the locations of the docking stations have been announced, and they cleverly avoid being anywhere near where anyone might want them. So that’s no stations within 15 minutes walk of Victoria, Waterloo and London Bridge train stations, nor near Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square or St Paul's Cathedral. The scheme has also already been attacked for not being large enough, with the inventor of a similar bike hire company in Hammersmith warning that demand will far outweigh supply when it comes to the bikes. He also points out to the Evening Standard that his company, had it won through, would have been compatible with Oyster cards, which would surely have been a good thing. Some good news was floating around, however, and it seems that there will be an increase of cycle parking along the Superhighways, provided by Bike Dock Solutions.

As you know we like to be on the cutting edge of bike developments and we’re not going to let you down in this bumper end-of-week post. So we can offer you the quite ridiculous monsterbike, which shows that there’s no reason why you should stop at 29” wheels on your mountain bike. Also, there’s been much written about Nokia developing a phone charger that runs from a bike, while clearly useful for the developing world where mobile phone use is on the rise, and handy in any situation where you’re away from a mains supply, it’ll clearly be most vital to ensure you have a fully charged phone to call for an ambulance with when you’re attacked by a saw-wielding maniac simply for riding your mountain bike.

To finish with today, something to bear in mind from Roscott, Inc., and we’ll bring you more from the big FMFT Trip North next week.

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Insurance, Art and History.

I imagine you need a paper like the Daily Mail to tell you that you might want to consider insuring your expensive bike in case it gets stolen. It’s good to know that they see it as a news-worthy story. I want to feel sorry for the guy in the box-out who had both a £500 road bike and a £1000 mountain bike stolen from a bike shed, and I do, although I think what he really needs is an upgrade in his girlfriend to one who is ok about a bike left in the flat. It’s hardly the biggest problem and shouldn’t she love him for all his interests, even if that means a muddy bike in the lounge?

As ever I am shocked and amused by the comments that people leave on the Mail website.

J Ladle form Portsmouth says,

“This guy obviously didn't learn enough the first time his bike was nicked and is pushing up the insurance premiums for all of the hard working grafters in this great country...he really needs to take a look at himself and stop using cheap locks.
I feel sorry for his wife, who must be a real saint to put up with this muppet. Good looking guy though!”

All of which seems a bit harsh in some ways. I’d assume this is the sort of rubbish that people write when they inadvertently end up on the internet drunk, but it was left at 9:30 in the morning, so I’m guessing they were sober and mean what they say, whatever their point might actually be.

We can hope that the bikes that victim lost didn’t end up as some bike-rack sculpture at some point, as that seems like a bit of a waste of parts. I like the thought behind the racks installed in St Louis, but I wonder whether the frames could have been recycled into more bikes which seems a little more useful?

If you’re looking for inspiration on places to ride, rather than just leaving the bike locked up somewhere to be stolen or turned into art, then you might want to look at a new iPhone app from the Museum of London. It seems like a fantastic idea to be able to see what used to be where you are in the city with views from the archives. I know it’s not strictly a bike app, but it could be easily adapted to make the basis of a relaxed weekend ride, or a more interesting commute.

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An Important Experiment

Some things are just so important you end up putting them off and off. Perhaps it’s delaying the disappointment if it doesn’t work out. More likely it’s fear of having to deal with the consequences, either way. These things are the big moments in your life and the things that might make everything take a different course.

I finally confronted one of these issues last night. I tried fitting my bike rack to the back of my new car.

It might not seem like much, but without a bike rack a car loses half of its appeal to me. I’m not hugely into cars, but I am definitely into being able to load up a car with mountain biking gear and heading out to ride somewhere better than the scraped-together opportunities of North London. A car which I couldn’t carry a bike on would take away half of the point of having one.

I had therefore put off trying the rack on. In the mean-time I had been further worried by scare-stories of boots with not enough gap to fit the clips over (damn that quality German engineering), and fear for the new paintwork.

With my heart in my mouth I introduced the rack to the car, hoping they would get along. Luckily (although less dramatically for the sake of this story) they could be made to work together, albeit not perfectly, but well enough to satisfy me, without damaging the car and securely holding at least the one bike I tried on.

This is good news. It saves having to look for other bike-carrying options, and means that we are surging forward with preparations for the Great FMFT Summer Adventure.

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Keeping Your Bike (or Bike Rack) Safe

One of the biggest obstacles to riding in a big city is the problem of how to leave your bike safely at your destination. Bike theft is an issue that just seems to be determined to stay.

The London Cycling Campaign has found that one in six cyclists have recognised a stolen bike on websites such as Gumtree and eBay and that as many as 80% have had a bike stolen. The survey was done to promote a new anti theft campaign called Beat the Thief, which has some common-sense ideas about clamping down on both the number of bikes stolen and the market for them once they are stolen.

Perhaps what we should be looking for is a response as demonstrated in St Louis, where mountain bike-riding cops are armed and trained to use their weapons in the fight against bicycle crime. It might discourage a bike thief to have a police officer with a handgun launching themselves at them. However, you do then run the risk of escalating the danger that is posed by the thieves, if they then proceed to arm themselves against the police. In LA (where else?) there have been reports of armed thieves taking bikes, and shooting the owners who try to stop them. On balance I’d rather lose my bike than be shot in the act of trying to keep it, and the thought that stealing a bike is seen as potentially worth taking someone’s life for is more than a little bit scary.

Perhaps, though, some people will just steal anything. In Hungary it looks like if there isn’t a bike to take from the bike rack, then thieves will just satisfy themselves with taking the bike rack itself. Quite frankly I don’t know how you should respond to a threat like that – perhaps there's an emerging market for bike-rack racks to make sure that they stay where you left them.

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Friday

It’s been an exciting week, and one with the promise of summer coming. Not only have I officially ridden all the way home without lights, but also it’s the first time this year I have ridden without long sleeves.

It doesn’t sound that exciting, but it feels like a turning point in the year, when cycling becomes a pleasure instead of a battle, and you start considering the bike for more journeys, when you otherwise might have considered the car, or just staying at home in the warm.

If you are heading out to social events on your bike you’ll need somewhere to lock it up securely. If I were you I’d aim for something less extravagant than this bike rack, which seems more than a little over the top. I’m all for basic, strong-looking racks which allow you to lock up the bike without pretending to be some sort of set from a children’s TV show.

It was in this spirit of approaching summer and possibilities that I was racing along and overtook this bicycle. I must have been racing to have overtaken such a power-assisted machine, as surely putting an engine on a bike shouldn’t make it slower?

However hard the website tries to make it look pretty I will say that they at least got the name right. It really does deserve the model name, Ugli-der. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more “Ugli” bike before.

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Puncturing in Brooklyn and Parking in Wellington

It’s late on Sunday evening and you’re riding along when you are disturbed by the disappointing feeling of your back wheel squirming and you have to face up to the fact that you have a puncture. Obviously you came out with no spare tubes on this occasion and you’re staring down the barrel of a long awkward walk home. All the shops are closed so you can’t even limp to the nearest one. Luckily if you’re in Brooklyn, New York, you are in luck, as an enterprising shop owner has installed a bike part vending machine that can supply you with all your bike-part needs at any time of day. I guess you’ll just have to hope you remembered a pump at least.

The vending machine seems to be aiming for the trendy fixed-gear market in New York, who are the most likely to be out at night cruising the artfully decrepit bars and puncturing in Brooklyn. Something that’s sure to interest them is the possibility to buy a (definitely, definitely not one-off) track bike as ridden by the British cycling team. The UCI are enforcing their rules about the bikes that can be ridden in sanctioned events with a distinct aim of targeting the British and Australian teams that have invested heavily in technology to help their cyclists along. As the bikes will soon be restricted to only those available commercially, there is a plan to possibly put one of the bikes they’re using already up for sale. It sounds like the bike may have to be priced at around £200000, but for a gritty fixed gear rider sitting on a trust-fund, that’s peanuts.

Once you’ve bought your bike for the price of a house you won’t want it getting scratched by any sharp edged bike racks when you leave it locked up outside a trendy bar. You’ll probably be best parking it in Wellington, New Zealand where a new design of rack is starting to appear. The Bikerakk protects the bike frame by coating the rack in rubber reclaimed from old car tyres. Admittedly this is turning into a world wide search for the best bike, the best place to buy inner tubes from a vending machine, and the best bike rack, but it’s worth going the extra mile for quality, right?

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Ticking the Design Box

It seems that the hint of Spring this week was just a tease and we’re firmly back into winter again. Or maybe two days of milder mornings was actually all we’re getting to pass for Summer this year and we’re now back into the cold.

Either way I’m not too impressed with having to go back to layers and winter gloves so quickly.

Nipping quickly from clothing to protect you form the weather to clothing to protect you from getting hurt, there has been a recent proposal in Colorado to make it compulsory for children up to 17 to wear helmets while riding a bike. So far so reasonable and par for the course in some areas, but what makes it interesting is the addition of an extra clause that was added (admittedly as something of a joke and a political point-maker) to suggest that boys should also have to wear a 'crush resistant athletic cup' while cycling. It’s reported here, and might be the start of suggestions that we should wear a protective covering all over when riding a bike. There should also be four wheels for balance and an engine to prevent any strains from pedalling too hard...

For more sensible ideas and infinitely more style than you’ll ever get form a protective box then have a look at the wide range of cycling-related bits and pieces that made the short list of the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year competition. As ever cycling seems to promote more new design ideas and solutions than virtually any other activity, with products ranging form the growing trend for city hire bike schemes, to attractive places to lock up your bike.

Lastly, we copped some (possibly fictional – I have my suspicions!) flak for posting a Land Rover ad up here this week and helping to promote and sell cars. I’d like to take the opportunity to point out that we’re not really environmentalists, just people who like to ride bikes for fun and because it’s faster and cheaper than any other way to get to work. Also the post in question did make a point about four-by-four drivers having a reputation of being awkward to cyclists, and although a Land Rover’s not really my style, I do have a car and enjoy it to get to places to ride and to do the shopping so it’d be somewhat hypocritical to suggest we were against them.

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Finding Your Way

There’s finally just the merest hint of the end of winter in the air this week. There’s just a possibility of a ride home in the evening without lights, and short sleeves and sunglasses instead of layers and waterproofs. It’s starting to suggest days to look forward to being on the bike, instead of dreading the battle through the weather.

It’ll also mean less space in the bike racks and more people in the way on the way to work, but I’m deciding not to dwell on that. I’ll probably hardly notice what with all the roadworks that are currently filling the route and adding an extra two or three traffic lights to every trip.

With the better weather I’m sure there’ll be more people deciding to get out on the roads on their bikes and looking for safe ways to do it. The London Cycling Network will continue to provide a role in this that I don’t entirely understand. I appreciate that people need a way to feel safe while they get around, and advice on which roads are best to ride along, but the entire network seems to just make things more complicated. There’s even been a suggestion to extend the network with a “bike grid”. None of the routes and their elusive signs seem to do much more than a decent look at a map and a bit of thinking about the quieter routes that you could take to get somewhere would. The idea that you should stick to a specific route also seems quite limiting, and almost enforces an idea that cyclists shouldn’t have as much right to the roads as anyone else.

Sure, the TFL cycling route planner can be handy, but it shouldn’t take away from people using a bit of intelligence to find their own way somewhere, perhaps on a map. Having said that there is a trend towards allowing computer programmes to work out your every move in life, so perhaps we just need a general return to map-reading. Before the world of sat-nav and Google Maps people still seemed to find their way places, and had a better idea when they got there of where they actually were.

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Future Friday

The future, it seems, is still a world of swoopy but minimal lines and where everything will look like it’s made of plastic. That is if you look at this new B1K concept bike from Peugeot. It’s an aggressively styled bike and has a chainless drive system, which answers the eternal question of what you can make designers do when you’ve had a basically right design for several hundred years. The answer is apparently to reinvent the Softride and simply improve slightly on the ugliest bike in the world ever. It looks to me like something that triathletes will embrace at least.

We also know the future will be a busy place, and there’ll be no room to park your bike anywhere overground. Luckily the answer to that problem is already here, or at least in Japan, where underground automatic bike parks are keeping railings and lampposts clear. I’m not sure I’d trust the machine to return the right bike to me, but I’m sure it works perfectly. It’s similar to a solution we featured here a while ago and might mean that they’re proving popular. If they are safe and reliable then it’d be great to see them over here, perhaps to offset the lack of much bike parking even in new office buildings, as Bike Radar points out.

The big question is whether people will still be riding bikes in the world of tomorrow, as children get bigger and bigger through not being active and only spending their time in front of the television (this is sounding more like the Daily Mail every day). Luckily it looks like Gamercize can save the day. Their systems ensure that you can only play computer games as long as you keep pedalling or stepping on their specially designed exercise machines, which means exercise as you play. It will surely make drunken games of Wii Sports Tennis even more dangerous, but perhaps it’s not really designed for that, and otherwise it means keeping active rather than sitting and only working your thumbs. Settle in for a long session and also save yourself getting wet outside as you train for that long charity ride.

The final fear of the future we’ll address here is climate change (never let it be said we don’t know what’s going on in the world). If the snow caps melt and the Gulf Stream shifts (or whatever the current thinking is) we’ll be in for more cold winters and more struggles in the snow. I think it’s about time to buy a ski-bike just in case. Then I just need to find a commute that’s downhill both ways.

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