Viv had starting using a bike to get around having spent too much money maintaining “old bombs that were always breaking down”.

Mark had starting using a bike to get around during the oil crisis of the 1970s and a desire to live without being “dependent on cars”.

Both had friends taking on the 1991 Great Victorian Bike Ride and both decided to tag along, lured by the scale of the challenge and chance to try something new.

That year’s event included a stopover in the coastal town of Port Fairy, where the Star of the West Hotel played host to a Rolling Stones cover band and a crowd of Great Vic riders with some energy to spare – Viv and Mark among them.

After taking a liking to their respective movements on the dance floor, the two became romantically involved and the rest is history.

“From there we hit it off, it was magic,” says Viv.

The rest of the week was spent together riding and camping, before the pair returned home and launched into a new life bound by bikes.

Marriage and children followed but bicycles remained a focal point as the family grew and baby seats, trailers and tandems joined their home’s array of transport solutions.

The bike adventures continued and came to involve family camping trips and more Great Vic bikes rides. Viv and Mark passed their penchant for pedalling onto their offspring.

“The kids always rode their bikes to school and they now ride everywhere,” says Viv. “It’s a real church of bikes. It’s just our way of life.”

More recently, this way of life led Viv and Mark on yet another adventure involving multi-day touring and some dancing – Bicycle Network’s Great Outback Escape.

“I saw it in an email and it really captured my imagination because we’d never been to the outback before, and this was the perfect way for us to visit the Northern Territory and see Uluru,” says Viv. “We just wouldn’t have made it to this extraordinary place otherwise.”

The pair took to the outback together on their bikes, enjoying the challenge of a multi-day riding holiday while revelling in the social atmosphere and “delighting in everybody’s company.”

Another highlight?

“We had a good dance at Kings Canyon, which was maybe a nice little flashback,” says Mark.

They may be about 30 years older than that fateful night in Port Fairy, but there are still a couple of party animals in there somewhere.

“There was a container that had been converted into a bar and we were all up there having a drink and watching the sunset over the canyon and there was this one-man band, he was fantastic,” says Viv.

“Everybody was on an absolute high, people were dancing and were just so happy, it was an amazing experience.”

Viv and Mark now continue riding around inner Melbourne and beyond, where they marvel at the progress being made on the city’s bike infrastructure and weigh up their next adventure.

“I know there are all these great rail trails out there, but I just need to get out there.” says Viv.

Now in it’s 39th year, the Great Vic Bike Ride heads to Gippsland in 2023 for a Snowy to Sea adventure riding (and camping) alongside the Snowy River before heading through Gippsland’s breathtaking regions to Wonthaggi. It’s the perfect holiday for you and your loved ones, or perhaps, a new romance of your own awaits.

The post A 30-year romance born on the Great Vic Bike Ride appeared first on Bicycle Network.

The government has announced $1.2 million for incentives to get people buying e-bikes, e-scooters and e-vehicles.

The only detail in the plan is that a grant program to encourage people to buy e-bikes will be delivered in the next two years.

There is no detail yet on how much of the $1.2 million will be available for e-bikes, who will be eligible or what the grant program will look like.

Bicycle Network put forward a strong argument for e-bike incentives in its submission to the draft plan.

This is because e-bikes have the potential to cut emissions faster than e-vehicles because they are so much cheaper to buy and offer a genuine transport option for many of the trips taken in urban centres.

When people are thinking about switching from a petrol to electric vehicle it’s also an opportunity to get them thinking more broadly about their transport choices.

While electric cars charged with renewable energy will produce fewer emissions than petrol and diesel cars, it’s still not a particularly efficient travel mode for shorter trips when compared to cycling.

Incentive programs to get people on e-bikes are being successfully implemented in other countries as part of emission reduction plans.

The government has several options available for how it can deliver an e-bike program.

1. Try before you buy

People who have never tried an e-bike don’t always understand their potential as a transport option, and that they replace car trips rather than bike or walking trips. Try-before-you-buy schemes can just be a hire agreement but can also include an option to buy the bike at a subsidised cost at the end of the loan.  

These schemes operate by people leaving a deposit or paying a small loan fee to take a regular or cargo e-bike for 2–4 weeks to see how it could fit into their lives. If the bike suits them the government could then use a grant to lower the cost of the bike. This also helps ensure grants go to the types of bikes that are useful for transport rather than recreation.

2. Assistance to buy

An e-bike no-interest loan scheme would help overcome that initial barrier of high purchase cost, and people can pay back the loan with the money they save from parking and petrol costs. Such a loan scheme could have two categories – standard e-bikes and cargo e-bikes. There could also be streams for individuals and for businesses to buy staff e-bike fleets and cargo bikes for deliveries. Scotland provides loans of up to £6000 interest-free for four years and for businesses up to £30,000 to buy e-bike fleets. An e-bike scheme could be set up like the Tasmanian Energy Efficiency Loan Scheme that allowed people to buy energy efficient home appliances and pay the cost back over three years. 

3. Direct subsidies
   

These types of subsidies are popular in European countries to help people get onto e-bikes and are increasingly being used in North America.

The Netherlands’ region of Arnhem-Nijmegen granted a subsidy of 30% of the purchase price and found that 84% of people who bought an e-bike using the subsidy kept using the e-bike.

Some places have focused on cargo e-bikes, recognising they can get more people out of cars, especially if they have children or being used by businesses for deliveries or carrying tools and equipment.

They can also be associated with a vehicle trade-in to ensure the e-bike really is replacing car trips, e.g. California’s Clean Cars 4 All program or the City of Ghent in Belgium which provides an e-bike grant when a car number plate is handed in.

Other actions listed in the plan that will benefit bike riders include existing plans from the Department of State Growth to update the Walking and Cycling for Active Transport Strategy and working with local government to improve cycling infrastructure.

Work has already started to develop a transport sector emissions reduction plan by the end of the year, which will come with $2.3 million for implementation.

The post Government to help people buy e-bikes appeared first on Bicycle Network.

The city is undertaking a new revitalisation project, rather than resting on its laurels, and will turn a notorious route for bikes into a low-traffic street prioritising walking, riding and public transport.

De Pijp, a neighbourhood on the southern edge of Amsterdam’s CBD and Van Woustraat, serves as a main thoroughfare and winds through the area as a lively shopping strip and key access point to the city.

It’s also considered the city’s worst place to ride a bike, viewed as an lingering relic of urban Amsterdam in the 1970s and ’80s before the city began its renowned transformation.

While many of Amsterdam’s main roads have been overhauled to become more amenable to bike riding and walking, Van Woustraat has gone unchanged.

But work is underway on refurbishing its busy and narrow northern section, an area that covers five blocks and leads to the fringe of the downtown area. This renewed section of Van Woustraat will be reinvented as a low-traffic city street. 

On-street car parking will be removed and wider footpaths and bike lanes will take their place. The design also incorporates loading and unloading bays for deliveries.

The project involves the redesign of nearby intersections to improve the flow of bikes and prevent cut-through motor traffic in the interests of rider and pedestrian safety. 

The Amsterdam city council approved a concept plan in 2019 and began work on the project in May. The plan will be completed in phases and is expected to be wrapped up by the second quarter of 2024.

The post Amsterdam gives notorious street for bikes a low-traffic makeover appeared first on Bicycle Network.

The Moore Park Road cycleway was installed in 2020 to act as an important but temporary link between Bondi Junction and the Sydney CBD, until the Oxford Street East cycleway was completed nearby.

The City of Sydney has voted 9-1 in favour of its continued operation until 2026.

The NSW Government released new, high-level strategic designs for the bidirectional Oxford Street East cycleway earlier this year, but construction delays have pushed a start date back to late 2023. The project continues to face fierce opposition from small business.  

A Bicycle NSW petition to ensure the cycleway goes ahead attracted more than 100 signatures within 48 hours on Sunday 28 May. People are encouraged to write to their local MP to voice their support for the project, and contact details are available on the petition page. 

Meanwhile, the temporary pop-up Moore Park Road cycleway has proved increasingly popular for bike riders moving through the area. A trip counter installed by Transport for NSW logged an average of 1915 trips per week in February 2021. As of February this year, it was recording 500 trips on weekdays and 350 on Saturdays and Sundays, amounting to around 3200 per week.

Bike riders appear drawn to this 1.7km stretch of separated infrastructure and demonstrate the demand for safe routes through this part of Sydney, although it too has attracted its share of backlash.

Detractors include Rugby Australia, who raised concerns over access to its driveway and described the cycleway as “extremely dangerous for cyclists, pedestrians and road users”, in a letter to the City of Sydney.

There have been no crashes reported to police since the cycleway was installed, while previously an average of 2.3 where reported each year between 2009 and 2019, Bicycle NSW noted in its submission to the pop-up extension proposal. A bike rider died following a collision with a truck on Moore Park Road in 2018.

Further to their advocacy efforts in getting the pop-up cycleway extended, Bicycle NSW, BIKEeast and other advocacy groups are pushing for Moore Park Road to be made permanent.

Keeping the Moore Park Road cycleway and the forthcoming Oxford Street cycleway will create a close but complementary pair of protected bike routes. 

“There is some horse-trading going on with this opposition to these cycleways, and guess where the opposition is coming from? Motorists,” says advocacy coordinator at BIKEast, Andrew Moss. “You wouldn’t say to drivers, you’ve already got a good route into the city, you don’t need another one, so why should we do the same to bike riders?”

The post Sydney pop-up extension puts key bike corridor in the spotlight appeared first on Bicycle Network.

• AL2024
• AL7075 (purchased after May 2020)
• PRSS0440 Vibe stem SB black           80mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0441 Vibe stem SB black            90mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0442 Vibe stem SB black           100mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0443 Vibe stem SB black           110mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0444 Vibe stem SB black           120mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0445 Vibe stem SB black           130mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0461 Vibe stem SB black            90mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle
• PRSS0462 Vibe stem SB black           100mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle
• PRSS0463 Vibe stem SB black           110mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle
• PRSS0464 Vibe stem SB black           120mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle
• PRSS0465 Vibe stem SB black           130mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle
• PRSS0450 Vibe stem 1 1/4 SB black      80mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
• PRSS0451 Vibe stem 1 1/4 SB black      90mm / 31.8mm / -10 angle
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• PRSS0475 Vibe stem 1 1/4 SB black      130mm / 31.8mm / -17 angle

The post Shimano recalls faulty stem appeared first on Bicycle Network.

But with a little knowledge, converted into an instinct, you can maintain your safety around them.

A large proportion of truck collisions with riders and pedestrians occur when trucks turn left. Being long, a truck needs a bigger radius to make a turn, so it takes up more of the road. 

Our streets are designed to take account of this, using the concept known as “swept path”  the road space a truck occupies as it moves through its turn.

If you stand on a corner and watch a large truck make this manoeuvre, you might be surprised how close the back of the vehicle comes to you.

And it gets more complicated if the truck is articulated.

Often, to make space for this turn, the truck will move closer to the centre of the roadway as it approaches a left turn.

This is where riders can be tricked.

If you are following a truck and you see it move to the right as it slows down approaching an intersection, you might see a gap that you can take to get ahead of the truck.

Wait! Don’t be tempted to seize the opportunity and ride up the left side of the truck.

What the truck is doing is legal. Drivers can move their rig across to the right and take up two lanes in order to make a left turn.

Once the truck starts to make that turn its rear view mirrors may no longer be in a position to reveal the driver the presence of a bike rider.

Develop the instinct to always stay back. When another rider sees you do that it will alert them to the risk, and over time we can spread this survival skill across the riding community.

The post Take care with turning trucks appeared first on Bicycle Network.

Drop-off and pick-up zones surrounding the school in South Daly Street have opened up for families to ride, scoot, skate or walk to school on selected days. Active travel to the school increased by 16% in the first week.

Bicycle Network’s Ride2School team partners with schools and local councils to conduct Open Streets trials, when motor traffic is diverted with clear signage, traffic control and pre-event communication with the community. 

This encourages school kids and their families to use active transport instead, and the idea is catching on. 

In 2021 Bicycle Network delivered its Open Streets program at two schools – Coburg North Primary School and Brunswick East Primary School – in partnership with the City of Merri-bek.

Last year Merri-bek Primary School, Brunswick North West Primary School, St Oliver Plunkett Primary School, also in the City of Merri-bek, took part.

Five schools are signed up for 2023. The first Open Streets for the year was Lloyd Street Primary School in the City of Stonnington in February. More than 75% of students reported using some form of active transport during the event, an increase of 27.6% on normal school days.

All participants said they felt 100% safe walking or riding to school on Open Streets days, compared to 59% on normal school days.

“I think it was a great concept to broaden the boundaries of the school – making the kids feel safe and doing activities that energised the kids before school. It gave the kids a sense of fun connection – making the street ‘their place’,” said one Lloyd Street Primary School parent.

“It got people talking about active transport when they wouldn’t otherwise normally have. It was good to have less congestion at the drop-off zone and the kids looked forward to it each week,” said another parent.

Oak Park Primary School, Fawkner West Primary School and Glenroy West Primary School, all in the City of Merri-bek will join in Open Streets later this year.

Bicycle Network’s National Ride2School Day is Australia’s biggest celebration of active school travel. This year, 366 students from 871 schools across the country joined in. In Victoria, that included a record-breaking 210,000 students from 500 schools.

The post Open Streets change the daily drop off appeared first on Bicycle Network.

However, a fat pipeline of ongoing projects across the transport sector will continue to deliver active transport outcomes.

A $694 million top-up was announced for key road and intersection upgrades and another $62 million was allocated to deliver better local roads and safety upgrades.

Fortunately, under the state’s integrated transport policy, bike facilities must be considered in the plans for all new transport infrastructure.

This means that all new projects — level-crossing removals, bridges, tunnels, arterial upgrades — are taking opportunities to create and improve bike routes across the state.

For example, the next stage of the Barwon Heads Road upgrade, now in the planning stages, will continue the construction of a high quality bike route to the south of Geelong.

And the removal of the eight level crossings through Brunswick will create a new section of the Upfield Trail under the elevated tracks.

At the local level, funding will be provided for councils to bid for active travel upgrades at every local government area across the state.

The announcement that another 23 new V/Line VLocity trains will be built for regional Victorian routes will have significant benefits for touring bike riders and commuters.

The early generation VLocity trains have inadequate bike storage, and much of the space is often occupied by luggage.

The most recent designs have better bike storage and six accessible spaces on each train, which allows more flexible storage options for bulky luggage.

Twelve of the new trains are under construction and the next 23 will follow.

The $650 million upgrade and electrification of the Melton rail line will indirectly benefit bike riders in future years.

For significant distances along the rail line there will be a future strategic cycling corridor and while much of that may be built by developers as new suburbs spring up in Melbourne’s west, the rail upgrade will need to make provision for essential crossings and underpasses.

The post No budget bounty, but fat pipeline still flows appeared first on Bicycle Network.

The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) has announced that active transport  (bike riding and walking) measures will be removed from the Shrine to Sea Master Plan.

Provision of an active transport corridor was the raison d’être of the Shrine to Sea concept, so its removal leaves the project mostly a shell of the original dream.

Planning has been underway for five years and active transport has been a key element in the development work and in all stages of stakeholder and public consultation.

But now it’s gone. 

Bicycle Network CEO Alison McCormack said Shrine to Sea had been an active transport project from the get-go.

“This route along Albert and Kerferd roads is a strategic cycling corridor in the state government’s network plans and is a high priority route in the plans of the City of Port Phillip.

“A protected bike lane is vital and would link to the new St Kilda Road protected bike lane. This would result in more people using these safe paths and increase the numbers of people who travel actively.

“Bicycle Network will work together with all parties to ensure that this commitment is fulfilled.”

DEECA says that the protected bike lane will be separated from the Shrine to Sea masterplan to be “considered at a future time”.

“In reviewing the draft masterplan, the Victorian Government considered a number of issues, including the Department of Transport and Planning’s decision to remove temporary Pop-Up Bike Lanes from the City of Port Phillip, and decided that further targeted engagement was required regarding a safe active transport solution along Kerferd Road,” DEECA said in a statement.

“The decision to separate the active transport solution from the Shrine to Sea project will allow for a robust and concentrated engagement process to occur in the future while preventing delays to the other proposed design elements in the draft masterplan.”

DEECA says it anticipates the revised draft masterplan will be released in mid-2023.

The post Bikes severed from Shrine to Sea project appeared first on Bicycle Network.

The campaign ran between 2012 and 2016, nabbing thousands of drivers for a wide range of offences that put riders at risk.

In 2016, 570 car and truck drivers and 45 motorcycle riders were caught in the net. Police also fined 45 bike riders and 12 pedestrians.  

Police analysis shows vulnerable road users — people walking and bike riding, motorcyclists and e-scooter riders — accounted for almost half of all lives lost on the roads last year.

In what police describe as the “hidden toll of injury”, there were about 1500 collisions where a pedestrian was injured and around 1200 where a cyclist was injured in 2022. 

Vehicles blocking bike lanes and pedestrian crossings, distraction offences, speed and impaired driving will be prime offence targets. Roadworthy checks, especially for defective brakes, bald tyres and illegal window tint, which can make it difficult for a driver to see pedestrians and riders, are also high on the list. 

Police will also target pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and e-scooter rider behaviour on the roads. Fines for offences such as blocking a bike lane range from $277 for an infringement notice to $925 at a Court appearance. Using a phone will driving is $555 for an infringement notice and $1849 at Court.

Operation Halo will initially focus on four council areas — Melbourne, Yarra, Port Phillip and Merri-bek, where pedestrian and bike rider numbers are high.

The operation will run until the end of September and involves Victoria Police’s State Highway Patrol, local highway patrols, the Road Policing Drug and Alcohol Section, Solo Unit police and police bicycle patrols. 

Police will conduct foot patrols at high-risk intersections and look for behaviour that puts vulnerable road users at risk.

Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir, Victoria Police Road Policing Command says the operation is about protecting the most vulnerable road users: “That’s people walking and cycling and that’s people on motorbikes and e-scooters”.

“We are especially grateful to our council and advocacy partners, who are supporting this initiative to improve road safety. Too many vulnerable road users are being killed or seriously injured and it’s all too preventable.

“We all have a part to play in road safety.

“Victoria Police is in for the long-haul with this operation. We want everyone to think about not only their own safety but how their behaviour can impact the safety of others,’ he said.

Bicycle Network CEO, Alison McCormack says a recent member survey shows that bike riders across the state are “deeply concerned about their safety”.

“Thousands of bike riders responded to our survey. They told us that while they feel the roads are there to be shared, they are treated with a lack of respect and courtesy by drivers.

“Most of all bike riders tell us they want a network of effective, separated infrastructure that gets them from A to B in safety,” McCormack says. 

“There are many people who want to ride, however are concerned due to safety. We have seen internationally that if we invest in and provide safe routes for bike riding, people will use them.”

The post Police bring back Operation Halo appeared first on Bicycle Network.