Beware of Road Monsters

via SmallWheelsBigSmile.com

In Metro Manila, I call them jeepneys and buses.

I Bike Shirts

via London Cyclist Shop

Cool! Now all I need to do is have a I (bike) MNL shirt custom-made.

Biking in the USA: An Infographic

People Powered Movement sounds like an awesome name for a non-motorized transportation advocacy group. I wish I thought of that one first.

Dahon Jifo 16

The great thing about a folding bike is how well it integrates into an urban lifestyle. It can be stowed easily indoors. It can be brought inside less strict commercial establishments. It can be used for multi-modal commuting via carpooling (I do this when I go to dragonboat training in the morning) or in the trains. Folding bikes definitely helps reduce those ridiculously short car trips.

A few weeks ago, I saw the 30th anniversary video of Dahon. Around the 20-second mark, the video showed a guy in a suit emerging from what appears to be a stairway leading to a subway station. The guy is carryign with him a green folded Dahon. A few seconds later, he unfolds the bike with ease. The speed of the unfolding and the apparent lightness of the bike intrigued me so I researched the bike online.

The Dahon Jifo 16 is one of the newer folding bicycles of the company. It's a 16-incher that employs a new lateral folding technology (that apparently, Dahon bought from this company). It's a single speed bike and is marketed as a bike for the last mile of a multi-modal commute. Although it's more suited for flat cities (like my favorite Dutch and Danish cities), I'm really tempted to get one for myself. Although I love my Flamingo bike, it's still heavy (about 13kg), that's why I don't bring it up to train stations. The Jifo, on the other hand, weights around 9kg.

The bike is also available in Sierra

Aside from the weight, the best selling point of the Jifo is that it folds "in a jiffy". It may not fold as neatly as a Brompton, but I think a Jifo can be folded faster.

Another positive thing about this bike is that although it looks small, tall riders can use it comfortably. My only serious problems are its $900 price tag (I think I'm better off saving for my Brompton) and its limited availability.

No Ridiculous Car Trips

No ridiculous car trips from Martin Lang on Vimeo.

This is an awesome video about Malmo, a city in Sweden. They discovered that half of tips under 5km are done with a car. So they decided to make this social marketing campaign to encourage biking among their citizens.

To put in perspective, for a regular jogger, 5km can be traveled in about 30 minutes on foot. At a very easy pace, I can cover 5km in less than 20minutes on a bike. I'm sure this is also the case in Metro Manila. Car owners would opt to bring their cars to destinations that are ridiculously short because for them, that's the more convenient choice regardless of the repercussions to the environment and to ones personal fitness.

The campaign has been a massive success. In the film, above, you can hear all about how and why the campaign started. I like how they turn the tables in their marketing. Directing confronting that very simple fact that using cars for short trips in their city was - ridiculous.

They invited people to write down a description of their short car trip in the hopes of winning the Most Ridiculous Car Trip title - and a new bicycle of course.

The film is also a fine infomercial about the city and their visions of the future, including their goals for increasing bicycle traffic. In 1995, the modal share for bicycles was 20%. Today it is 30%. They increased their bicycle traffic by 1-2% each year. Brilliant. The reason for the increase is not just campaigns but also a sensible investment in separated bicycle infrastructure. The city now has around 420 km of bicycle infrastructure. 
[via Copenhagenize.com]

Learning from the Flying Scotsman

A better trailer is available here

Today I watched The Flying Scotsman. It's a movie based on the life of champion cyclist Graeme Obree. He is a Scottish racer who broke the world hour record (setting it at 51.596 km) and was an individual pursuit world champion.

The movie is particularly inspiring because Obree raced using a bicycle that he built from bike parts, scrap, and from a washing machine. And he rode this machine he calls Old Faithful against rivals who ride expensive customized bicycles. His innovations were definitely ahead of his time. This has lead the ruling officials of competitive cycling to ban both his bike and his unusual riding positions several times. But it's hard to put a champion down. Obree is a fierce competitor and nothing can stop him and his pursuit for greatness.

Obree's unusual riding position on his unusual bike, Old Faithful

Obree set his sights on the world record during a difficult time in his life. Unlike his rival Olympic gold medalist Chris Boardman, Obree had no stable source of income. He had to train on his own. A couple of videos below show the stark contrast between Obree and Boardman during their attempt at beating the world hour record in 1993.

Obree's life story as a cyclist is truly inspirational. His passion for biking transcends competitive cycling. He may not be as renowned as the likes of Lance Armstrong or Eddy Merckx, but his drive to reach his goals are at par with the best of them.

This is definitely an excellent movie about cycling!

Premium Rush and Fixies

For weeks, I've been excited about Premium Rush. It's story centers around a bike messenger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who gets chased around New York City because of an unknown envelope that's in his possession.

I've watched the trailer many times already and I can't wait to see it on the big screen. Even though it comes off as a B-rated movie thriller, I'm willing to pay money to see those bikes (and bikers) in mad dash action. I love how the bikers in the movie (JGL included) madly rushes through through traffic head-on, sans brakes (after all, they ride fixies). Plus JGL's bike is gorgeous (hint: I want one!).

I think it's a stripped down Surly Crosscheck (photo via UrbanVelo)

This movie made me want to tryout fixies. Fixed-gear bicycles evoke a sense of simplicity in cycling because of the lack of gear-shifting and of brakes. Because the bikes don't have brakes, those who want to ride fixies need to learn how to stop through skidding. Thankfully, YouTube offers a lot of tutorials for this maneuver. But I think the road to my office requires too many uphill pedaling for a fixie to be a viable commuter bike. Plus skid breaking is dangerous, especially given the traffic conditions in Aurora Blvd (or anywhere in Metro Manila). So I guess I'll be skipping a fixed gear bike and just focus on either a Surly LHT or a Brompton of my own.

Fixie riders are often seen as hipsters

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I think watching the trailer too much has led me to biking like a daredevil lately. This morning, I was biking to work and all I could think of was "Premium rush. Premium rush.". I was weaving through jeepneys and buses along Aurora Blvd. at 25kph. I'd even put the hammer down while scaling the flyover before Pureza. It was quite an exhilarating Bike to Work Wednesday for me.