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Welcome to Velo Vision, the practical cycling magazine.Print edition: Subscribe and/or order sample copies, back issues, PDFs, T-shirts etc...here! Digital edition: details or subscribe! The current issue is Issue 34. The next issue is out in September 2009.
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Post-move round-up (Part 2)Montreal's advocacy art and hire bikes, catching a boda-boda in Uganda, Re-Cycle reach a milestone, load carrying celebrated and obscure brakes catalogued. Sue Archer writes: Surviving Montreal's traffic Spotted on the Only in it for the gold blog, a project aiming to raise awareness of the impact of motor traffic in Montreal. The Ma survie dans le trafic ("My survival in the traffic") website is in French, but the aim translates roughly as "Using a photograph, a video, an illustration, a drawing, a collage or a comment, express the impact of the motor vehicle traffic on your quality of life!" and the pictures transcend language. There are rider's-eye views of cycling in the city, including a slightly odd view from a child's tricycle (entry number 30), a retelling of the fable of the tortoise and the hare in transport terms (26) and on less cycling specific theme, entry 7 reveals the activities of some guerilla gardeners who fill potholes with lawn turf. Meanwhile, Jeremy Garnet writes to mention that Montreal is setting up it's own Bike Hire scheme, similar to the Velib scheme in Paris. Customers subscribe to the service for an annual, monthly or daily period and pick up bikes at automated stations using a credit card for security and deposit. The first 30 minutes of each hire are free, to encourage the sort of short trips for which cycling is ideal. Catch a boda-boda As part of an ongoing project portraying life in the Katine region of Uganda, this video charts a day in the life of bicycle taxi rider Dennis Ewalu as he pedals his 'boda-boda' into town to earn the money to support his family. The boda-boda is simply a bike with a purpose made cushion fixed onto the rack on which the passenger simply sits, astride or side saddle. Claude Marthaler wrote about boda-boda riders in Issue 4, and the job doesn't seem to have got much easier since then with heat, dust and constant haggling over fares. But Dennis's optimism and ambitions - a house with a metal roof and some oxen - make this a positive story. Re-cycle recycles its 30,000th bike Staying in Africa Re-cycle is an organisation which collects unwanted bikes and ships them to Africa to provide vital transport for essential workers and everyday transport, reducing the time spent every day fetching water or walking to school miles away. Their 30,000th bike was donated by Trevor Moles of Colchester, after his wife's aunt broke a hip and could no longer ride it. The bike is on it's way to Zambia, where a volunteer from The Kaloko Trust is setting up a bike workshop and training local bike mechanics. Who needs a truck? Africa also features in this slide show of novel load carrying pictures. Most are human powered, with the odd mule or donkey, and a couple of engines included. Sofas feature predominantly as loads, as does high volume/low weight packaging material. Most ironic perhaps, is the small pick up truck on the back of a tricycle. Readers may remember that the inside cover of Issue 27 featured the delivery of a sofa by bike trailer, proving that such feats are not limited, as the slide show suggests, to developing countries. All you ever wanted to know about brakes... ...but were afraid to ask. Jonty Semper spotted this page, dedicated not just to bicycle brakes, but to obscure ones. More pictures or information is welcomed by the author. Also worth a look is his tattoo project page, not so much for the tattoo aspect as for the huge number of chainring sillouettes, which seem to be almost as varied as snowflakes. Posted on 10 June 2009 Your comments ...
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