Saul Parkinson looks back on a decade of biking to work, crunches the numbers, and peers into the future… Small individual actions can seem insignificant, unless we take a more long term view. As February 2017 rolled around, I realised I’ve been commuting daily by bike for 10 years now! So, 10 years…that must be a few k’s, right? I did some quick sums and came up with some random numbers: 4000+ rides 35,000 km travelled 1 time caught in a hailstorm 2 grazed knees / bruised egos (achieved all by myself, care of 2 misjudged curbs) $15,000 saved in bus tickets, or $20,000 in parking costs (let alone car & petrol costs …
Jessica Rose
Women in Urbanism Aotearoa is an exciting addition to the urbanist scene. I’ve been privileged to be part of the formation of this new group, which emerged in June with a social gathering to gauge interest. The room was packed with women eager to be part of the wider conversation about gender and cities. Off to a flying start! Women in Urbanism seeks to transform our cities into safe, accessible and equitable urban environments for all people by supporting and amplifying the voices and actions of all self-identifying women and girls. Why is this new group important to Bike Auckland? Because we are both passionate about how people move around, and we strive …
I adore travelling on public transport with my bike, and chatting with fellow travellers – almost every trip sends me home with a head full of stories. On Thursday night, returning home from Bike Auckland’s committee meeting, I parked my bike amongst the others on the ferry’s stern deck and looked around for someone to chat to. I was immediately attracted to a man wearing a high-vis rain jacket with a cute little badge… I simply had to know more! What sort of pilot was he? Glen Stanton, the owner of the badge, explained he was the volunteer pilot of an electric tricycle-rickshaw owned by the Aria Retirement Home in Brown’s Bay. Twice a week, …
We didn’t make nearly enough of a fuss of Duncan Laidlaw when he topped the charts this February in the Auckland division of the Aoteaora Bike Challenge, for greatest distance covered by a bloke… a whopping 3002km in 28 days! Duncan’s a stalwart member of local group Bike Kaipatiki, helps out at the Roskill Bike Kitchen and various repair cafes, organizes our monthly Bike Breakfast meet-up, and is generally a very good egg. We threw a few questions his way to figure out what makes his biking brain tick. What got you biking in Auckland? About 10 years ago I attended a Go By Bike Day breakfast at the Viaduct, and gave biking to work a go. I was a bit laddish, …
The wonderful “let’s fix it together” volunteers at Tumeke Cycle Space are looking for a new home. Their current location in Newton, shared with the Tangleball makerspace collective on Edinburgh Street, is slated for sale. Tumeke’s Alex Raichev says they’re looking for a space roughly the size of a double garage, preferably with street-level access and a storage area for spare parts and wounded bicycles. Ideally it will be free or cheap, and reasonably central – say, five kilometres from the Aotea Centre. Tumeke’s community bicycle workshop is currently open on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and on Sunday afternoons, and Alex says they’re open to sharing space with people working complementary hours. Got a space …
Self-portrait [noun]: a portrait of oneself, made by oneself This week’s image comes to us from Carl Wells, aka @djfriendlyman on Instagram, who explains how it came to be created… There’s no better excuse for a cycling adventure than a birthday! As well as regularly biking to work, I race for Team Webscope and normally ride around 12 hours a week on my Giant TCR, with a training plan from Grit Coaching. What would be a bit of fun and totally different than my usual training rides? Strava-art! Strava is a popular app for cyclists which tracks your route with GPS. So the challenge is to design a route which, when uploaded, looks awesome. My first …
I met Frank Webb last year at a bike pitstop at Unitec, where he’s worked for the last 30 years. He looked pretty dapper in his shirt sleeves, so I asked if I could take a photo. Frank laughed about how far he didn’t ride to work, as he lives only a few blocks away. Little did I realise at the time… behind the mild-mannered office guy appearance hides a super man, who not only rides long distances whenever he can, but is about to set off on a 700km ride around the South Island to raise money for a very good cause. Here’s Frank’s story: I took up distance cycling a couple of years ago, …
On a sunny Thursday in February, I took a spin around the city and out along Tamaki Drive with a group of senior Aucklanders on bikes, the first in a series of planned monthly rides. The convivial group has emerged from the city branch of the YMCA’s Never2Old fitness programme, under the guidance of Clare Lynch, with some helpful e-bike training along the way. The group has a ‘no rider left behind’ policy, and the rides are organized along safe routes at comfortable speeds, and culminate in an enjoyable lunch. I’d only intended to meet the group on Lightpath and say hello, but found myself zooming down Grafton Gully and then biking round the waterfront, hanging …
Sergio Ibanez is the mechanic at one of Auckland’s most-recognised bike shops, Bike Barn on the corner of Symonds Street and Khyber Pass Road. Originally from Madrid, Sergio knows bikes inside out – he’s competed on them, repaired them and has even managed a race team. Who better to answer three questions about feeding and watering one’s bicycle? Ross Inglis poses the questions: What’s the difference between a bike service and an overhaul, and how do I know which my bike needs? A bike service can include adjusting brakes or gears if they are not working properly, replacing broken parts or greasing your wheel hubs. An overhaul is much more …
Casual [noun]: 1. Dress or footwear for everyday, non-formal use. 2. A person who does something now and then. [adjective] 1. Relaxed and unbothered. 2. Informal in style. 2. By chance, as in an unplanned meeting. When you bump into the Mayor at a festival in the park, and he admires your basket bikes and summer frocks/ jumpsuits and is genuinely interested in ‘how you bike dressed like that’ … and then casually drops into the conversation that he’s loving using the Council’s fleet of electric bikes for zipping from meeting to meeting in town. If you have great images you’d like to propose for photo of the week, please contact us!
Tim White is, not surprisingly, the owner of T. Whites Bikes, the indie bike shop in Symonds Street, as well as a rad dad, and (with Haimona Ngata) is aiming to bring a high quality pump track to Takapuna. Ross Inglis asked Tim three very good questions: I’m looking for a second-hand commuter bike and don’t want to buy a lemon. What should I look for? The most common problem is buying the wrong size. Have a look at a size chart to get a rough idea; it does not have to be an exact fit – something in the vicinity will still work for you. Also look for a tidy machine – a bike with clean …
Sometimes we go out looking for photo opportunities…and sometimes they come to us. Today was Go By Bike Day. Alas, I missed the chance to grab a coffee at the nearby Unitec pit stop, but clearly it was a fun and busy morning – with some legends going out of their way to ‘collect the set’ by visiting all three pit stops before 9am! As AT’s Walking, Cycling & Road Safety Manager Kathryn King said (per AT’s press release): ‘I could see the difference a year has made to the numbers cycling. Figures we put out from our annual walking and cycling survey in August 2016 showed that in the previous 12 months, 45,000 more Aucklanders have been getting …
Tim Welch runs Rode, an independent bike shop in Ponsonby that bills itself as ‘not your ordinary bike shop’. Think niche brands like Surly and Breezer, steel frames, touring bikes and custom builds. Oh, and lots of electric bikes. We asked Tim three questions. I’m shopping for an electric bike. What questions should I ask when I’m in the bike shop? Definitely look at, and ask about, the overall quality of the e-bike rather than just focusing on the size of the battery and the power of the motor. Just because a bike has more powerful motor does not make it a better bike. Also ask, are there parts available …
An occasional series in which Auckland bike mechanics tell you what they’re really thinking. Got thoughts, keen to be featured? Or, do you have questions you’d love to ask a bike mechanic? Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. Wander into Rouleur Cycles in Onehunga’s Selwyn Street and there’s a good chance that the chap greeting you from the depths of the workshop will be Cam Baker. Cam, 22, is the lead mechanic in what is both a friendly neighbourhood bike shop and a Mecca for devotees of high-end road machinery. Ross Inglis asked him three quick questions… Which three most basic tools would you recommend to anyone planning …
There’s a saying along these lines: ‘Be kind – for everyone you meet is facing a challenge you know nothing about.’ It popped into our minds when a reader sent us the following description of an unexpected commute. ‘M’ prefers to remain anonymous, but we hope her story strikes a chord with everyone who bikes… and with every driver in Auckland who sometimes feels impatient on the road. In June this year, after a routine mammogram, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. At the time, I was getting fit to go on a cycling holiday – a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Iceland. That all fell through. The week before I would have been riding through a …
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