Large Hadron Collider by bike
And part two here. I wonder what road rules apply down there?
Love and marriage
How to start your marriage the right way.
Being monstered
That old PEST Alan Parker has written an excellent opinion piece on why B-triples are not suitable on urban roads:
Common sense tells us that there has to be a maximum size limit on the vehicles that freely mix everyday with other vehicles on designated major roads. In the region, within 100km of Melbourne, there are more than a million people who drive or ride small vehicles who have a legitimate right to feel safe on the road, no matter what the direct cost savings.
B-triples on urban roads is something nasty that we can do without.
Across the Andes by Frog
Actually, Tibet to Nepal by Unicycle:
On the 23rd September 2008 I fly to Nepal, then onto Tibet. I am going to ride my unicycle 1000km (620 miles) across the Roof of the World, from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. I will be using this ride to raise as much money as possible to help fund an NGO (non-governmental organisation) and its projects to improve the educational facilities and amenities in a remote village in the Himalayas.
How fast are you going now?
Have you ever outpaced cars and been honked at? Had a car almost wipe you out while making a turn? The Speed Vest was invented because we were curious to know if putting more information in front of drivers might change their awareness of bicyclists. That, and we suspect a lot of people don't realize that an average person can bike 10-15 mph (15-25 km/h).
A clever idea and well done, but sadly not yet commercially available. They don't claim it actually will make a cyclist safer but I can't see much wrong with making more information available. Although I don't think the bike path boy-racers would be too keen to publicise how fast they (don't) go! [Thanks tom]
PARKing day
A little bit of street reclaiming in Brisbane or "guerrilla picnickers" in Melbourne.
We don't want dooring
Audax Alpine Classic in RACV Top 100?
From the Audax Australia web site:
Friday 26th September at 7:30pm sees the announcing of RACV 10's "Must Do's" in Victoria. Can the Alpine get into the top 50, top 20 or hopefully the top ten. Tune in to Channel 9 Melbourne and find out.
Dr Nick's Swanston St Prescription
Dr Nick Low outlines six points of improvement for Swanston St.
Bikes, bikes and more bikes
The Economist says:
the humble bicycle is an increasingly popular choice of transport. Around 130m bikes rolled off production lines in 2007 and even more are set to be made this year…since 1970 bike production has nearly quadrupled while car production has roughly doubled.
[Thanks Peter]
Get bikes off the road
Apparently we should get bikes off the road or should we?
Catch a train, Minister
In The Age:
Angry commuters have challenged the head of Connex and Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky to take a ride on Melbourne's overcrowded and "dangerous" train network.
Not an unreasonable request, I'd have thought. If only from a PR point of view, it wouldn't hurt for the minister to be seen to do this from time to time. And it may prevent such incredibly out-of-touch publicity exercises as this or this even seeing the light of day again.
Spring riding for women
The CPF lists two forthcoming cycling events for women: the SheSpoke Free Coffee Morning for Melbourne's Women Cyclists and Brunetti Women's Coffee Club Ride.
What was I thinking?
And now a flashback to September 2006, where I explained why I hate Spring. Still do.
Comments
I suspect that if anyone recognised Kosky on the train she'd be kidney punched all the way. She made some claim about catching the train everyday a while back and it not being that bad, and iirc it turned out she had been on a train at 10am...
This is the same woman whose response to people complaining about late trains was "Melbournians are too obsessed with punctuality"