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Welcome to Velo Vision magazine, covering specialised bikes, cycling as transport and human power. It's a quarterly dose of cycle inspiration.The current issue is Issue 16. The next issue is out early March 2005.
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No space for bike parking? Let's go underground!Underground cycle storage facilities have been around for a while in Japan. Now comes news of a system commercially available in Spain, the Biceberg. As the urban environment becomes ever more crowded, architects and engineers are increasing forced to look to the vertical dimension. This is equally the case with cycle storage. You can go up: as the Swiss Bike Tree does... or you can go down: ..which is how the Biceberg works. All that appears on the surface is a small 'shack'.  Bikes are wheeled in and, jukebox fashion, transferred automatically to a space in the rotating below-ground 'carousel'. A smart-card system controls access. Is this the future? Hard to say, but considering the number of car parking spaces still provided in many of even the most crowded of city centres, and the fact that you can fit 20-odd bikes into each car space, there should be plenty of scope to expand bike parking before resorting to costly underground construction. But for particular applications, like public transport terminals where space is at a premium, it could be very useful. Hope it's reliable, mind... See www.biceberg.es for more details. Most of the site is available only in Spanish as I write this. Posted on 04 January 2001 Your comments ...
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