Bach by Bike

We both feel quite strongly that cycling is not just about getting fitter, cycling faster or even impressing the folks in the tea room or the pub with the quality or cost of our gear, but is the ideal, environmentally friendly way to visit historical cities and sites, look at landscapes, take in some culture and enjoy some fairly painless exercise. We were thus pleased to run across the BACH by Bike tours at a recent ADFC (German Cycling Club) Cycle Touring Fair in Frankfurt/Main. This company offers three tours a year to places connected with J. S. Bach in the eastern part of Germany, in Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony Anhalt, such as Eisenach where he was born or Dornheim where he married. Looking at the Bachfest tour (9-19 June 2017) the cost is reasonable. Sharing a double room with breakfast every day and a packed lunch most days, one evening meal and luggage transfer costs 1180€. Single room supplement is 230€. Bike or e-bike hire costs 100 or 205€. Three concerts during the Bachfest cost 215€. The distances covered are not strenuous at a maximum of 60km (40 or so miles). The small parties are led by two experienced musicians who enjoy cycling and who speak English. In spite of rumours to the contrary in the UK restaurant meals in Germany are reasonably priced once one is away from the major cities.
There are similar tours later in the year between 22 July and 1 August 2017, and 26 August and 3 September 2017.
Just to make one thing clear we have no financial interest in the organisers of these holiday nor have we been offered free accommodation on any of the company's trips. It is just that this holiday is an excellent way of learning more about Bach, listening to some private organ recitals and visiting a part of the world that few Britons have or will ever visit. As such it is worthy of being mentioned in our blog.

http://bachbybike.com/en/welcome/

SPEZI Special Bike Show 2017

If you are interested in recumbent bicycles, recumbent tandems, tandems, folding bikes, trikes, four wheeled human powered vehicles, rehab vehicles, e-bikes, bolt on e-bike kits, work bikes, cargo bikes and trailers, then you should plan on visiting SPEZI, the world's most successful specialized bike show in Germersheim/Rhein, Germany on the weekend of 29 and 30 April 2017. For more information check on www.spezialradmesse.de  and click on the union flag.

Bike Friday Haul-a-Day Cargo Bike

Like many cyclists I am fascinated by the concept of the cargo bike. I have this vision of nipping round to our local ALDI store to pick up a mild steel garden frame to take window boxes and popping it on the bike to cycle home. It would obviously a good idea for a weekly shop or our trips to the local dump to pick up compost, but these bikes are normally big and heavy. I mentioned the Tern Cargo Bike a few weeks ago. I have just come across the Bike Friday Haul-a-Day Cargo Bike which can be dismantled/dismounted/knocked down. It can be stacked on its rear end which could be useful in a flat or appartment. It is light enough to go touring. There might even be room in our cellar. A nice bike. More details from https://www.bikefriday.com.

Instant Germanisation

We cycled along part of the Berlin-Copenhagen Cycle Route two or three years ago through wet and windy weather. As usual when we are touring through areas we don't know, we each wore a helmet. In addition we could keep our heads dry by slipping a North Sea Ferries shower cap over the helmet. One day we were met by several hundred schoolchildren on some form of organised cycle day. None of them wore a hemet. It's not usual in Denmark. The bicycle is seen as a means of transport and  cycleways are designed to keep cyclists alive, not as a cosmetic excuse that is true for much of Europe. Cyclists in Denmark don't need extra protection to stay alive. We were somewhat bemused to be greeted by "Hallo!" rather than the Danish "Hej!". "Hallo" is  a standard cyclist's greeting in Germany. It was obvious the kids realised we were not Danes. We were wearing helmets. The majority of non-Danish cyclists in Denmark are Germans and some Germans wear helmets. Logical really, I suppose. It was no great problem. Nobody threw bricks at us. It was just amusing.

Surprising Denmark

We are planning to travel along the Danish-German border later this year. We have bought a guide book to the Grenzroute/Grænseruten as the Germans and the Danes call the route. We were surprised to read that the Danes turn left somewhat differently to the Germans.

In Germany you check the traffic behind you,
indicate,
when you can, move to the middle of the road,
check the oncoming traffic before you cross the lane to turn left.

In Denmark you cycle on at the junction,
park at the far side of the junction,
check the traffic and then cycle over.
We have seen something similar in Copenhagen with junctions with traffic lights.

When in Denmark if you try to use the German method, and are spotted by the Danish Police, you can be fined 500DKr (about 67€).  The same fines are charged for broken brakes, reflectors and lights, so a word to the wise, check your bike before you cross the border. Whether these are on the spot fines is not clear, but an illegal left turn or a broken reflector could put a modest hole in the holiday  budget.

Post and Packet Deliveries in Cities - Reduction in exhaust emissions

Some weeks ago I suggested that post and package deliveries in towns and cities could be made less polluting by using a "last mile" delivery with cargo bikes. I was interested to read that DHL, the German Post logistics company has a pilot scheme in Utrecht, Netherlands and Frankfurt am Main, Germany to test this concept using four wheel recumbent HPVs with electrical assistance.
“DHL Express has already replaced up to 60% of inner-city vehicle routes in some European countries with cargo bicycles, and we expect that the City Hub and Cubicycle will both help us to accelerate this approach in other markets over the next 3-5 years,” said John Pearson, CEO, DHL Express Europe. “Bicycles offer a number of advantages in express delivery operations: they can bypass traffic congestion and make up to two times as many stops per hour than a delivery vehicle. The total cost of ownership over their lifetime is less than half of a van. And crucially, they generate zero emissions, which reinforces our own ongoing program to minimize our environmental footprint and supports city governments’ efforts to promote sustainable city living.”
The concept of zero pollution is debatable. Obviously the vehicles deliver less pollution in situ, but some of the electricity to charge the batteries will be fossil sourced.
The Cubicycle vehicles used by DHL in these pilot schemes are manufactured by Velove Bikes AB, http://velove.se/.The website offers some interesting ideas about low emission deliveries in towns and cities.

The photographs are, as far as I know, © DHL.

Nightjet Overnight Sleeper trains across Europe Part II

As we reported some weeks ago OeBB, Austrian Railways have taken over the activities of CityNightLine, a DB German Railways subsidiary company and intend to continue offering them. Fewer services are offered, but more than would have been offered if CityNightLine had stayed in business.There is now an overnight Zurich Hamburg train which now travels via Basel, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. It turns out, or at least it looks like, bikes will be carried after Easter. Check bahn.de if you need to travel.  The hair in the soup is that although the northbound trains leave Mannheim at a minute to midnight and get into Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) at a sensible eight thirty-one, the southbound trains leave earlier, just before eight pm and get into Mannheim at four forty which is not the most convenient of trains.

Another event has been suggested to celebrate 200 years of the bicycle

I read recently that further suggestions were being considered by the City of Mannheim to be included in the festivities celebrating Karl Drais's pioneering hobby horse run in June 1817. The suggestion that caught my eye was a naked bicycle ride. OK, Mannheim is usually hot enough in summer to allow cycling in light weight clothing. In fact it is often too hot. If it is put on the official programme which I cannot see, I won't be taking part in this event. On the one hand I am over 70 and my body is no longer a thing of beauty and on the other hand the thought of my naked lower regions coming into contact with a Brooks' leather saddle does not appeal.

Preparations for an earlier clothed mass cycle ride in summer in Mannheim city centre

Deliveries in cities

We ordered and took delivery of  BioHort bicycle garage recently.

It comes knocked-down in two boxes weighing about 90kg. The two boxes were delivered in a 38ton lorry. We were obviously the last customers on this run as the load area was empty apart from a number of pallets. It struck me that using a diesel powered 38ton vehicle to deliver 90 or so kg was overkill. The same can be said of DHL, Hermes, UPS etc. who deliver smaller packages daily in diesel powered vans with a capacity of up to 14 cubic metres and a payload of two or so tons. 

Air pollution largely due to diesel powered vehicles is a major problem in cities. Air pollution is a problem taken very seriously by city governments all over the world. Two examples of the many programmes suggested:

• The Mayor of London has suggested that the British government pay diesel powered vehicle owners to scrap older dirty diesel vehicles and replace them with petrol engined ones (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/12/london-mayor-plans-to-scrap-diesels). 
• Munich has recently started a programme of subsidising purchase of electric cargo bikes and trikes (http://tinyurl.com/gv6t917). 

Our small German town, Viernheim, is part of a three province conurbation based around Ludwigshafen, Mannheim and Heidelberg with a number of smaller towns and villages in between. DHL distributes packages from a central office. It would ease air pollution if packages were then distributed by lorry to a centre in each town where local deliveries could be made by cargo trikes such as the Musketier (http://www.radkutsche.de in German) which can carry a maximum load of 300kg or the powered or unpowered Carla Cargo bicycle trailers (http://www.carlacargo.de/en/). Most of the settlements have letter distribution centres where the packages loaded on a pallet could be picked up.

UPS has pioneered low polluting deliveries in city centres for some years. In cooperation with the city of Hamburg, only e-transporters have been used  since 2012, and in the inner core there is the package delivery of four mobile parcel depots on foot, with a sack truck, a bicycle and pedelec. Each day, pollutant-free deliveries over ± 800km of were made. The concept is now much in demand and has been adapted to Offenbach am Main, Herne and Oldenburg.
This concept may well involve higher costs, but on the other hand blocked up lungs and heart problems due to pollution are not cheap to treat.

Nightjet Overnight Sleeper trains across Europe Part I

The good news is that OeBB, Austrian Railways have taken over the activities of CityNightLine, a DB German Railways subsidiary company and intend to continue offering them. The bad news is that fewer services are offered, but lots more than would have been offered if CityNightLine had stayed in business.
There is now an overnight Zurich Hamburg train which now travels via Basel, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. The even worse news is that the train does not carry bicycles except between Zurich and Basel. Why bother? Practically every Swiss train takes bikes, but an overnight link between south Germany and Hamburg for me and my bicycle would be a thing of wonder.
Correction 24.02.2017 It turns out or at least it looks like bikes will be carried after Easter. Check bahn.de if you need to travel.  The hair in the soup is that although the northbound trains leave Mannheim at a minute to midnight and get into Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) at a sensible eight thirty-one, the southbound trains leave earlier, just before eight pm and get into Mannheim at four forty which is not the most convenient of trains.

Tern Cargo Node Folding Bike A good idea whose time has come, I hope

Some years ago we when the National Lottery was set up in Britain we would talk to friends over dinner what we would do if we won a million pounds. At that time, a long time before a million quid was the price of a lockup garage in East London, this was a serious sum of money and so it was actually a good way of organising thought experiments about what one wanted to do. A new house always seemed to be priority. After the house came the car. What kind of car would one buy? In our case we'd keep the one we'd got and talk was of what bike/s would we buy: a sporty trike like the Windcheetah (http://bit.ly/2jq8zVU), a long john cargo bike like the Bullit or the renovated version of the vintage Claude Butler we lusted after in our youth. We do save money by not buying lottery tickets, but it is not the way to suddenly accumulate a pile of money, but even if we were suddenly stone-rich, as the Germans say, we don't have any more room in our cellar in addition to the six bikes we are keeping down there - two touring bikes, two Dahon tourers and a pair of mountain bikes. We could build a cellar extension but would need to add a new back door into the garden as carrying bikes down the curving staircase into our cellar is not getting easier as the years go by. 

This scenario has tended to rule out new bikes although I still lust after a cargo bike, but they are big, heavy and unwieldy. The game changer could maybe be the Tern Cargo Node which I came across by chance. It is a full-sized cargo bike that folds. We could fit one in the cupboard that takes the Bromptons in the hall. When folded the chain is on the outside unlike the Brompton. However it can carry 160 kg of cargo as well as a rider, even a fairly plump one weighing 115 kg, has good braking, mudguards and decent lighting. It also has a sensible twin legged kickstand for stability when stationary. More details can be found on the Tern website, but it is not (yet?) available in Germany, but unfairly in the USA and the UK and even in France, so maybe we will have to wait or nip over the border while we still can. 

Whether I can justify buying a £1700 bike will not be easy. Maybe, if we got rid of the car?

Cheaper by train from Stuttgart to Berlin

Deutsche Bahn - DB (German Railways) face little competition in the field of long distance passenger transport. There have been attempts by companies other than Deutsche Bahn to run long distance trains across Germany, but only one has remained and this offers a reduced service in comparison to the start of service: HKX between Köln and Hamburg.

A new service from Stuttgart to Berlin via

• Berlin
• Wolfsburg
• Hannover
• Göttingen
• Kassel
• Fulda
• Hanau
• Frankfurt
• Darmstadt
• Heidelberg
• Vaihingen (Enz)
• Stuttgart

has just started on 15 December 2016: Locomore. This is cheaper than Deutsche Bahn, German Railways. Fares are planned to be under the cost of a standard DB fare with a half price BahnCard 50. Heidelberg - Berlin costs between 20 and 65€. The standard DB fare is 136€ (68€ with a BahnCard 50), though with luck and early planning one can buy a DB ticket for 29€. Locomore tickets can be bought online, per telephone or directly in the train. Tickets bought in the train are the most expensive. The long distance bus fare Heidelberg - Berlin (Flixbus) costs from 19€ but at popular times like Christmas customers are looking at prices above 50€.

The trains are comfortable and reasonably fast: the Heidelberg - Berlin journey with Locomore takes 5h 48m whereas DB ICEs take 5h 15m, The bus takes at least eight hours. The Locomore trains take bikes. Bikes must be reserved in advance.

More information under https://locomore.com/en/. Will it be a success? Who knows? The company has some teething problems at the moment and is only offering a service four days a week until 6 April 2017, but passenger levels appear to be as expected.

World Bicycle Relief a great idea!

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." 

HG Wells

If you read cycling magazines or scan the web for news of the latest road and mountain bikes you will rapidly notice that modern high quality bicycles are built of materials and using technology that would not be out of place in aerospace construction. The prices charged for these lightweight wonders also resemble the prices charged by aeromanufacturers. Although these bicycles are a triumph of modern design and manufacturing, I would like to suggest that the 300,000 heavy (24kg) steel  framed single geared utility Buffalo Bicycles supplied by World Bicycle Relief (WBR) bring more happiness into the world than all the high-tech wonders. 

Buffalo Bicycles are durable with steel alloy frames, forks and spokes and a rear carrier capacity rated to 100kg. Weighing in at 5kg (a complete bike is 24kg), the weight of the steel frame is not a hindrance but evidence of the bicycle’s strength. WBR is committed to using high-quality, well-designed parts. This improves the bicycle’s functionality, reliability and strength, and keeps  Buffalo Bicycles on the road.

WBR has since organised programmes to provide specially designed, locally assembled bicycles for students, health care workers and entrepreneurs across Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. The bicycles help students travel farther to school, help health professionals see more patients a day and farmers and market traders find new markets and increase their carrying capacity. WBR has also created new economic opportunities by training field mechanics and employing bike assemblers to support their localprogrammes. WBR has developed an efficient, innovative and scalable model to successfully address the need for reliable, affordable transport in rural areas of developing countries. WBR works with a number of third world development aid charities and NGOs.

If any bicycle club or organisation is looking for a charity to support World Bicycle Relief should be high on the list of candidates.

A Buffalo Bike at the City of Mannheim's Annual Reception for its citizens January 6 2017

River Cruising coupled with bicycling

River Cruising is a fast growing tourist activity in Europe and several companies specialise in combined cycling and cruising holidays with a wide range of prices. As usual you get what you pay for. Some companies offer barge trips wheres other companies have larger cruise ships.
A sample of the type of trips available:
Aktieve Vaarvkanties offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / Bavaria, Germany  / Lorraine, France on a converted barge that takes eighteen people in nine double cabins with ensuite facilities. 

Aktieve Vaarvkanties

Barend Visserstraat 9
8861 HB Harlingen 

T: +31 6 22418892

info@actievevaarvakanties.nl http://www.boatandbike.eu/ 

Arosa offers bicycle day excursions (surcharge) on its river cruise ships: https://www.a-rosa.de/en/river-cruises/index.html.

Bicycle Tour Europe offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / France / Belgium on a converted barge that takes sixteen people in eight double cabins with ensuite facilities.
www.Bicycle-Tour-Europe.com | P/O Bo 1097, Postalcode 1000 BB, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Bike & Barge Holland Tours offers barging and biking tours in the Netherlands / Germany (Bremen-Berlin) on a converted barge that takes twenty-eight people in fourteen double cabins with ensuite facilities.

Address:
13440 179th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052-1103, USA

Phone:
425.636.8071
800.437.4771

Email: tours@bikebarge.com

http://bikebarge.com/index.php

European Waterways Ltd offer barges for charter by small groups.
European Waterways Ltd 
The Barn, Riding Court
Riding Court Road, Datchet
Berkshire, SL3 9JT
United Kingdom
http://www.gobarging.com/cycling-cruise

Bicycle-Tour-Europe offers week long trips in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours has partnered with Trek Travel to offer guests bicycle tours on Europe itineraries.
Guests aboard the seven-night, all-inclusive Bike & River Cruise sailings will be able to enjoy Trek Domaine 5.9 carbon road bikes on explorations that range from 15 to 60 miles with daily route support and experienced bicycling guides. These tours come in addition to those which Scenic already provides and are available from May to September on the Gems of the Danube and Rhine Highlights itineraries.
Gems of the Danube, aboard Scenic Amber, allows cyclists to ride through Furth and Erlangen, sampling local beers, the vineyards of the Wachau Region, the Vienna Woods, and Budapest’s Buda hills and its architecture. Non-cycling tours include a walking tour of Cesky Krumlov or Salzburg, a Budapest city tour or thermal baths, and spa experience and a Scenic-exclusive concert in Palais, Liechtenstein. Prices start at $6,499 per person per double with departures on May 10, 22, and 31, June 26, July 26, and August 30.
The Rhine Highlights, aboard Scenic Jewel, visits four countries. Highlights for bicyclists include cycling through the Alsace wine route for tastings of Rieslings and Pinot Gris, the Rhine Gorge with its scattered castles and vineyards, the bike trails of Cologne, and Amsterdam’s countryside for a cheese-tasting tour. Non-cycling tours include a Scenic-exclusive private tour and classical concert at the Baroque-period Mannheim Palace, a “Sweet Tastes” tour of Heidelberg, and a trip to the fairy tale town of Cochem. Priced from $6,599 per person per double, departures take place on June 12, August 16 and September 13.
Scenic Space-Ships offer private butler service, unlimited complimentary beverages and spirits, full-size private balcony staterooms, Scenic Tailormade handheld GPS guided tour systems provided to every guest, and up to six dining options.
Visit www.scenicusa.com

Bike Hire on the lower Rhine in Germany

Because of this blog and our website we regularly receive enquiries from people who wish to hire a bicycle in one town and leave it elsewhere. Unfortunately we often need to reply that if you hire a bike in one town that is where you need to return it.  There were a few exceptions:

• You can hire a bicycle in Passau and drop it off in Vienna. 
• You can hire a bike in Berlin and drop it off in Copenhagen.  

There is now a new series of possibilities. The RadRegionRheinland (Rhineland Cycling Region) has set up Radstation, a series of cycle centres offering bicycle repair, parking and hire.
The Radstation in Bergisch Gladbach, Bonn, Brühl, Köln (Cologne), Grevenbroich, Dormagen, Neuss and Düsseldorf offer the possibilty of hiring in one city and returning to a Radstation elsewhere in the system for an extra charge of between 2 and 8 Euros.

Back to Karl Drais and how would he crack the problem of motorised traffic clogging city streets?

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We both have an annual regional season ticket from our regional transport authority. There is a bus stop around the corner that during the week offers a service every quarter of an hour until 20:00 to the light rail service into Heidelberg, Mannheim and Weinheim. The bus service is half hourly at weekends. It's not perfect. The buses follow a circuitous route and the connection time to the light rail service is often a minute which can mean waiting ten, twenty or thirty minutes for the next tram if the bus is delayed in traffic. There is also an hourly free pre-bookable taxi service in the evening when the buses stop running, but the light railway offers a half hourly service. This means we might need to wait in Mannheim for an extra half hour. What this means is that if we are going to Mannheim on a Sunday or will be returning after 20:00, we take the car to the local shopping centre/mall ten minutes away by and park it there. The centre features a cinema and so there is no move to offer time limited parking on the British pattern. The snag is that if we just drive the car for ten minutes, its fuel consumption is higher than when it is warm and its exhaust gases are dirtier. 

What we could do is cycle to the shopping centre. We often do when we are shopping. There are bike racks available. There is a snag though. If a bike is left at the tram stop for a few hours there is a chance that some misguided individual will try to steal it or just jump on it to reduce to a pile of scrap. One idea that would improve matters would be lockable bike storage boxes. They need not be free. Put a few of these near every park and ride facility and more of us would cycle to the railway lines. This is not utopian or even rocket science. Some of the S-Bahn (suburban railway stations) in Rhineland Palatinate have banks of these boxes.

Bicycles in the Hull City Museum

The Hull Streetlife Museum has a good collection of bicycles including a Drais Hobby Horse and penny farthing bicycles.

Hull Culture & Leisure
High Street
Hull
HU1 1PS
England

Ten days on an e-bike

For a number of reasons we decided recently to hire e-bikes to follow the Rhine, Moselle, Marne-Rhine Canal, Rhine loop we have christened the "Riesling Route". There were three of us all on sturdy touring e-bikes hired from Bellorange in Edenkoben, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.

Sturdy touring e-bikes

One of our number had never seen the Rhine Gorge or visited Trier, Nancy or Strasbourg. Our time was limited so we took a train from Mannheim to Mainz. We booked all accommodation in advance, becausr the Moselle Valley is a popular tourist destination in early autumn, due to the wine festivals and the grape picking. In addition it is more difficult to find rooms for three people than one room for a couple.

We felt it was better to take a steamer through part of the Rhine Gorge. Sightseeing is easier.

After Boppard, cycling again.

We also took some time off in Trier. Germany's oldest city needs more than a quick half hour's rubbernecking. To make up the time taken we took a train to Perl to enable us to get to Thionville before dark, where we'd booked a room. The Moselle Cycle Path is excellent and well signposted between Schengen and Arnaville. After Arnaville a rough canal towpath can be followed as far as Plagny sur Moselle where we took the train to Nancy. The recommended cycle route to the city follows the main road and is not pleasant to cycle. Taking the train meant we also had time to look at Nancy.

One of the better bits of the towpath

We cycled along the towpath of the Marne-Rhine Canal without difficulty, much of the towpath has been sealed and tarred. On the next day we climbed over the Vosges on quiet local roads and dropped down the Vallée des Éclusiers - the lockkeepers' valley - past 17 locks and lock keeper's houses. The lower part of the route involves cycling on a viaduct laid in the dewatered canal. Good fun! We reached Strasbourg in the early evening. It was a long day about 80km, but easy because of the electrical assistance and a smooth towpath. The next morning we spent in Strasbourg looking the cathedral and the old city, before following the Euro15 cycle route to Lauterbourg, where we caught a train, free for us as owners of a regional pensioners' season ticket, to Ludwigshafen. The city was chosen as destination as we knew that the lift on Mannheim HBf on our arrival platform was not functioning. The plan was to take the lift at Ludwigshafen Mitte station down to ground level, cross the Rhine and cycle home. The best laid plans do 'gang awae', unfortunately. We found that the lift on our platform was defect and we had to carry the bikes downstairs.

The stairs!

The disadvantage of these e-bikes is their weight. We found the bikes were heavy to lug on and off a ship, but we have become experts at looking helpless and were helped by the crew. All of the trains we took were low level loading, roll on, roll off, so the weight was not really a problem at least as far as the platform. At the majority of stations lifts were available if required.
On the plus side we were not as tired in the evenings as if we'd pedalled a tourer all day. If we met a headwind at the end of the day we turned up the assistance a notch or two. Whether we were much faster is difficult to assess. We were exploring the route for the first time in ten or so years and we spent much time, of necessity, scratching our heads looking at maps. We found on rough towpaths the e-bikes are about as fast as our normal tourers, but I for one was wary of putting the pedal to the metal or turning up the power when a minor mistake could have landed me in the drink. Would we hire e-bikes again? Yes, in the mountains! Would we buy a pair of e-bikes? Probably not! We live on the Rhine Plain and there are few local hills unless we go looking for them.

Wake your Karl Drais! How would he crack the problem of motorised traffic clogging city streets?

Karl Drais was the inventor of the the two-wheeled velocipede, also called Draisine or hobby horse. He was a lateral thinker always looking for ways to solve problems rather than just a mechanical tinkerer. In addition to the hobby horse he invented a device to record piano music on paper and a 16 character typewriter for use in court. As we have written before, next June will mark 200 years since he first had a hobby horse built and set off out in to the countryside near Mannheim on the best local road for a quick pint. 

Obviously the Mannheim city fathers have not ignored this anniversary, neither has the Mannheim Technoseum, the Province of Baden Württemberg's technical museum. The former are busy organising bicycle festivals and events. (Check our blog dated 25 March 2016). The latter has a major exhibition on the bike running until June next year. 

The museum has set up a quiz for school children based on the concept that the motor car is leading to collapse of mobility in cities. The question is: "What would Karl Drais invent now to stave off the death of mobility in urban areas." Participants are invited to suggest a traffic concept, an ultramodern, energy efficient vehicle or a plan for an especially cyclist-friendly city. Entries by 2 May 2017. 

I am not sure that this competition is asking the right questions. Any traffic concept would need to cut the number of motor vehicles in Mannheim whether:

• it's banning any vehicle bigger than, say a Smart car,
• a congestion charge system similar to London's, 
• banning all cars from the city centre  
• or building more protected cycleways, squeezing motor cars off the street. 

All of these are politically impossible until we get to the happy state where there are more cyclists than motorists, even then…

However, there is an energy efficient vehicle available right now. 

• It is called a bicycle or a tricycle. 
• It improves public health. 
• It is non polluting unless the engine has been eating garlicky food. 
• Its use leads to a traffic density that is higher than with the motor car. 
• It is safer. 
• Collisions between cyclists lead to fewer deaths. 


• One major disadvantage is that the cyclist is exposed to the weather. Maybe Karl Drais, a lateral thinker would be designing better waterproof but breathable clothing or an improved front fairing for a recumbent trike (See under accessories).

One way to cheaply improve the cyclist's lot in the Rhein-Neckar three province multi city metropolitan area is to link cycleways, such as they are, and quiet roads with a knooppunt or Knotenpunkt system (bicycle nodes). This system, invented by a German mining engineer, is to be found in Belgium in Flanders, the Netherlands and Germany in some areas of North Rhine Westphalia: Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Düren, Heinsberg, Leverkusen, Mönchengladbach, Neuss and Viersen.

Knooppunt sign combined with traditional signposts in Hook of Holland