Corona Virus COVID-19 and SPEZI - the Special Bike Exhibition

The German authorities have reacted well to the threat of the COVID-19 virus and have recognised the need to slow the spread of the disease. One emphasis is on "social distancing", i.e. you keep well away from others just in case they are suffering from the disease. This has led to nonessential meetings by clubs, etc. being cancelled. 

Just as examples: 

• All of the Heidelberg University Hospital public lectures, coloquia, symposia and the like have been cancelled for the present or at least postponed.  
• The Mannheim Maimarkt, an Ideal Home and Agricultural Show that should have started at the same time has been forbidden by the Mannheim City authorities for the first since WWII. It is a large show with up to 340 000 visitors and 1400 exhibitors. It goes on for eleven days.  The Maimarkt is however of little interest to cyclists, though of considerable importance for the regional economy.  
• The ADFC (German Cycling Club) has cancelled its programme of regular meetings and all local cycle tours.

However SPEZI should have taken place in six weeks time. SPEZI is a major cycling exhibition held in Germersheim, Rhineland Palatinate. Actually for us SPEZI is the major cycling show. It is the world's largest show for recumbents, recumbent tricycles, quadracycles, folding cycles, tandems, family cycles, velomobiles, transporters, electrical bikes, special needs bikes, adult kick scooters, child and load trailers, customised designs and accessories. SPEZI has been postponed until August. The SPEZI organisers hope that by that time the illness will have passed its peak and we can all attend the show.  Keep an eye on the SPEZI website: https://www.specialbikesshow.com/welcome-to-the-spezi.html. 

A view of the main SPEZI hall in Germersheim in 2015

Packet deliveries in cities: the last mile

Diesel powered courier service vans are a familiar sight on the streets of European cities and towns. Unfortunately these vehicles cause air pollution and add more congestion to already crowded streets. Many German cities are compact. City and town centre streets are narrow and follow older patterns from the pre-motor car ages. They are not laid out to take high volumes of motor traffic. The photograph below shows a typical inner city street in Mannheim. If the tram tracks were still in use navigation by car or lorry would even more difficult.

By User:nenntmichruhigip on Wikimedia Commons - Own work, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54876530

Delivery companies have real problems in the last mile caused ironically by their own and other motor vehicles. There is nowhere to park. If the driver leaves the van on the street while he nips off to deliver a packet to a customer. If as often happens in our observation the driver leaves the engine running so that he can move off more quickly on his return, the air quality suffers. There are ways round this. Set up central packet storage and use bikes or e-bikes or e-trikes  to deliver packets to the customers. It has started already. Courier companies have been running pilot projects using these more flexible smaller delivery vehicles.

Grocery deliveries in Vienna

Weekly shopping transport solved

Excellent load carrying capacity seen at SPEZI 2019

A neat mobile bicycle workshop

A secure cargo bike

A German Post Office electrically assisted quad with container.

Speed pedelecs mixing with normal cycle traffic?

A few weeks ago I read about the new EU regulations meaning that e-bikes should be insured and thought this would make e-bikes/pedelecs less popular. I was not in favour of this idea, but I think I am changing my mind with the latest news from Denmark. Although the insurance changes could well be the start of compulsory helmet wearing, licence plates for bikes, bike riding tests and probably insurance for normal bicycles and their riders. A normal pedelec within the European Union is designed to have a maximum powered speed of 25kph (15mph). If you wish to reach speeds faster that 25kph you will need to pedal and considering that most e-bikes are heavy you (at least I) cannot cycle fast for that long. There are e-bikes that can be ridden faster up to 45kph, but these are treated as mopeds or light motorcycles and banned from using cycle paths.

Some Dutch cycle paths especially in cities allow mopeds and light motorcycles to use bike paths and these cycle paths do not make for easy cycling. Playing chicken with pimply-faced youths on souped-up mopeds or scooters is not my idea of enjoying cycling touring. One of my more unpleasant cycle touring experiences was crossing the Belgian city of Ghent on cycle tracks in the morning rush hours. Apart from a group of people moving house towing trailers carrying beds and wardrobes we were continually being harassed by commuters on their work. They made their displeasure very plain at being held up as we checked our route. Just to explain, although my wife and I are well past the biblical three score years and ten, we have both cycled extensively. We are not nervous cyclists. We are not whiteheads who have recently taken up cycling. We are experienced cyclists. I commuted by bike from the central station in Frankfurt two or three km to the office for at least ten years.

We have cycled in Denmark and was impressed by the way that there is excellent provision for cyclists even in cities. Cycle traffic at speeds between 20 and 25kph is largely kept separate from slower moving traffic (pedestrians) and faster motor traffic. I was therefore more than somewhat surprised to read that the regulations in Denmark have been changed to allow high speed e-bikes to use cycle lanes (https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/02/e-bikes-can-now-go-crazy-fast-in-danish-bike-lanes/). The stated aim is that commuters who presently drive cars will transfer to high speed e-bikes. However this ignores the advice of The Danish National Police, The Council for Safer Traffic, The Accident Investigation Board Denmark, The Danish Cyclists’ Federation, and The Danish Pedestrian Federation, who have all warned that  higher speeds mean more accidents and injuries. High speed e-bikes are not only fast but heavy. If there is a collision, it's every man, woman and child for him- or herself. The inherent dangers of mixing high speed e-bikes, e-bikes, normal bicycles and especially in Denmark cargo bikes are plain to see. There is a good chance that many cyclists will give up cycling in spite of its advantages. Whether the Danish move is a deliberate attempt to make utilitarian cycling less popular I will leave to the conspiracy theorists, but I do wonder what the Danish government is doing? To be fair the change will be evaluated in a year, but still…

There is a way around this problem of decreasing the number of cars on the road while still allowing fast commutes: Build special bike tracks (cycling superhighways) for these faster vehicles. These however cost money. The costs of the planned Heidelberg - Mannheim fast bicycling link (23km long) (https://rp.baden-wuerttemberg.de/rpk/Abt4/Ref44/Seiten/Radschnellverbindung_HD_MA.aspx) will cost about 12 million Euros. Eighty per cent of the route will be at least 4m wide,  lit at nights with a smooth good quality asphalt but have a Richtgeschwindigkeit (design speed) of just 30kph - less than a possible 45kph. The Heidelberg-Mannheim link will take several years to be realised.

Free cargo bike loans in Mannheim, Germany

Following the example of other German cities Mannheim now has a number of cargo bikes that one can borrow. Details in German on „www.lastenvelomannheim.de“. It's a chance to use one occasionally or try one out before buying one.

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.

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