This week’s round-up features hair-raising mountain biking, a gift for the Pope, examinations of the role of cycling in African countries, and much more.
The featured image is from a Reddit post by user JonTheDoors, in which he proudly shows off the ‘view’ from the top of Holme Moss, a peak in the South Pennines. The foggy photo is a nod to photos taken from tops of peaks which often include beautiful scenery, and a celebration of the fact that it’s usually the climb itself that attracts cyclists rather than views from the top:
Red Bull and Kenny Belaey teamed up to create the video below which, as well as turning our stomach when we watch, shows absolute perfect bike balance. Kenny crossed a 112m slackline on his mountain bike at an altitude of 2700m in the French Alps, and it’s incredible. The crossing starts at 2:32:
Pope Francis visited the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia last week (a Christian festival celebrating the family), and was presented with a brand new bicycle by the city’s fantastically named Mayor Nutter. This continues a tradition of the Pope being presented with gifts, and is a perfect opportunity for the city to demonstrate its attitude to sustainable transportation, outlined recently in a Papal encyclical.
An article in Momentum Mag explains the design choice:
“The style of bike was chosen by Mayor Nutter; the Breezer 8 is a classic commuter – a “people’s bike” – which Nutter felt best represented “The People’s Pope”. The bicycle was chosen to celebrate and honor the pope’s advocacy for environmentally responsible modes of transportation. Accompanying the gift, the city will also donate 100 commuter bikes to bicycle-based community programs around Philadelphia.”
At Ride25 we’re proud to work with two charities in Africa, one of which donates a bicycle for each person who signs up for one of our routes. We also follow closely cycling developments in the continent, so a gallery posted on the Guardian last week caught our interest.
The photographer, Richard Poplak, aims to showcase the role cycling plays in Eritrean society – a relationship which, like the country’s recent history, has been turbulent. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the photographs are fascinating and, at times, troubling: captions explain how cycling hopefuls had to train at night and risk beatings by occupying troops if they were discovered, and how Eritrean cyclists were forced to compete in Ethiopian colours during competitions.
It’s a great series, we recommend taking a look!
Another article, this time in the Richmond Dispatch, explores the position of cycling in Rwanda through Jeanne d’Arc Girubuntu’s race at the UCI Road World Championships. Though she finished last in the race by quite a large margin, the article focuses on the adversities she had to overcome to be at the race at all:
“being here means racing despite having been born into a suffering African country that is still wounded by post-genocide traumas. It means competing despite a stigma in Rwanda that a woman who rides bicycles cannot be married or carry children”
It makes for inspiring reading, and highlights some of the taboos that cyclists (especially women) have to face in some countries.
Good and bad infrastructure news this week. We’ll start with the less than ideal news that a segment of the much-hyped Cycle Superhighway in London seems to be divisive, in more ways than one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex2DanqMaCs
This section on Tottenham Court Road is being largely ignored by cyclists: in the 10 second clip, twice as many cyclists opt to use the bus lane rather than the specially created, separate cycle trail. There are also questions as to whether pedestrians crossing the lane to get to the bus stop will take the necessary notice, or whether this will lead to collisions…
In better news, a one-day ban on cars in Paris saw a huge increase in cyclists, pedestrians, scooters, skateboarders and other wheely creations taking to the streets. The ban aims to raise awareness of other methods of transport and demonstrate that we can get by without cars in some settings, and led to some great imagery:
Cycling Weekly have put together a fantastic quiz aimed to identify what type of cyclist you are, based on a series of “very unscientific questions”. You can try it here.
Some of the questions:
Let us know what type of cyclist you are in the comments below!
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