TED Videos on Urban Bicycle Culture

Below are some videos I've seen in YouTube on making cities more bike-friendly. We need all the ideas and inspiration we can get if we want to transform Metro Manila.

Bicycle Culture by Design: Mikael Colville-Andersen at TEDxZurich

Key take-aways:

1. We should veer away from traffic engineering and move into a more user-centered design.
2. Sociology - anthropology and mapping "desire lines" are great starting points to investigating safe and usable infrastructure for modern cities.
3. It doesn't always have to be all about the automobiles.

TEDxCopenhagen - Mikael Colville-Andersen - Why We Shouldn't Bike with a Helmet

Key take-aways:

1. The bicycle helps in rebuilding cities into livable ones.
2. We live in an age wherein the culture of fear is prevalent. And fear clutter up the ideology.
3. The scientific community is split on the efficacy of wearing helmets. A study showed that wearing a helmet increases the chance of getting an accident by 14%. They are designed for non-life threatening impacts in solo accidents under 20 km/h.

TEDxPortland 2011 - Mia Birk - Pedaling Towards a Healthier Planet

Key take-aways:

1. I think I should visit Portland, Oregon and study how they made their roads cycle-friendly.
2. To make bike lanes, maybe we can try removing a foot or two from our car lanes.
3. I should try to get a copy of her book.

Surly LHT Frame

Today marks a milestone in my preparations for my bike tour around Luzon. I have finally purchased the frame of my bike. I also got a quotation for the parts that I'll need to complete my bike. And oh boy is it expensive. I need a way to cut the cost to almost half. I need to do more research.

Cycling Books from Washington DC

I just came from a work trip in Washington, DC. On one afternoon, we found this great bookstore called Politics and Prose along Connecticut Ave. In their Sports section, I found a great selection of cycling books and below is a photo of the ones I bought.

I also found out that Washington DC has a lot of bikers. I saw a lot of commuters riding all sorts of bicycles from granny bikes to fixies. With the picturesque parks and brick buildings as their backdrop, the DC cyclists are wonderful to watch. Impressively, DC also boasts a bikeshare program of their own, the Capital Bikeshare.

I wonder how the ADB's bikeshare program in Davao is doing.