A guest post by Christina Bengtson, who grew up in Denmark, now lives in Westmere, and took part with her family in the recent Bike to the Future ride in support of neighbourhood bikeways. Christina explains how bike life in Auckland is steadily evolving to be a wee bit more Scandinavian… For me, cycling is a bit like knitting, in that I have no conscious memory of learning or of not being able to do it. Being Danish, there’s nothing remarkable about that. I do, however, have very vivid memories of my first times biking in New Zealand in 1990. I remember being questioned time and again on whether this was a good …
Bike Auckland
We love real stories of everyday bike life! So when we saw Pshem’s delightful string of tweets looking back on his first year of regular cycling for transport around Te Atatu peninsula and to work in the city, we asked if he’d be keen to share them as a guest blog with a few choice photos. Enjoy! It’s been a year since I’ve started biking to work, and this is a summary of my thoughts and observations. I work in Newmarket and live in Te Atatu Peninsula. My one way trip is about 17.5km and it takes me about 35-40 mins. I cycle every workday. I consider myself lucky – the …
Out of the blue came a photo, and a request. Theo Brandt had discovered a snap from the early 1980s of himself wearing a bike advocacy T-shirt. Theo’s question: if he could find a way to replicate this rad design, would we be able to help him get a fresh version printed up? Little did we know, this would lead us to connecting old friends and highlighting the hard work of a previous generation of cycling advocates. Because it turns out, when it comes to making Auckland better on a bike, truly we stand on the T-shirt shoulders of giants. Long before Bike Auckland, and before Cycle Action Auckland became Bike Auckland… …
Canadian couple Melissa and Chris Bruntlett have carved out a unique position in the conversation around bikes and cities, with their family-friendly focus, clear language, and a clever eye for a persuasive image. Based in Vancouver, their research consultancy Modacity – which grew out of an experiment in ditching the family car in favour of a combo of bikes, car-share, and public transport, and sharing their story with readers – is all about creating catchy and accessible and content for audiences eager to learn about how to bring bike-friendly cities to life. They also get around: the seed of Modacity was nurtured by a 2014 visit to New Zealand; and their 2016 visit …
The $67 billion global cycling industry has ubiquitous brands such as Taiwan’s Giant, which employs 11,000 people and has annual revenues circa $2.6 billion. But it also has plenty of entrepreneurs making waves at a local level. One such is Kiwi Emma Jonsson, a one-woman hive of energy whose mission it is to introduce New Zealanders to the practical and stylish cycling accessories Europeans have enjoyed for years. Emma sells retail through The Urban Cyclist website and to the trade through Velocity Distribution. The distribution business started first, five years ago, when Emma returned to New Zealand from a trip to Copenhagen with her Danish partner, Sebastian. She discovered there …
A recent guest post by Dr Rob Burrell struck a real chord. It was about the irony of how dangerous it is to bike to one of Auckland’s biggest hospitals – despite cycling being one of the healthiest commutes there is. Now, Rob’s anaesthetist colleague Dr Craig Birch follows up with his own story of how difficult it is to bike safely to Middlemore. Content warning: two grisly crashes, resulting in what would officially qualify as merely ‘minor’ injuries. I have cycled to Middlemore Hospital, where I work as an anaesthetist, for many years – since 2001. Unfortunately, safety issues have meant that I’ve had to resort to getting in my car …
A joyful day! A new story from our resident teller of tales, Simon Vincent (search for ‘Simon’s stories’ to find more). “I often find things catch my eye when I’m riding – sometimes it is because they are unusual or unexpected, but in this case it is things that I notice often and that stay with me,” says Simon, about this lovely list of landmarks along his regular routes… As a child, I loved spending time visiting my cousins. The cousins were great, but what made the visits so special was that they lived in Blackpool – the Rotavegas of the English North. The (in hindsight, short) trip up the …
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