Monday 27 April 2015

Safety and Danger

There are competing forces at work in the world of bicycle innovation.

On the one hand there are moves to try and make cycling as safe as possible. This can order on the ridiculous as more and more technology and impact protection is crammed into what should, in my opinion, be a simple and immediate pleasure. The latest version of this thinking is this bike that hit the headlines a couple of weeks ago..

To make a serious and unfamiliar bike advocate-type comment, I think that this does a lot to damage the work to make bikes accepted on the roads. A bike that bounces off trucks suggests that we should accept that lorries will hit cyclists. Also, the more protection that is built the less it’s somehow acceptable for people to ride a bike in a relaxed and enjoyable way, whichis what it’s all about.

Much better as far as I’m concerned is the pursuit of fun and perhaps a bit of danger on bicycles. This is nothing new, as the BBC proved this week with a look at the bicycle speedway gangs that grew up racing on bombsites in the Second World War.

More recently the Drop and Roll team have been out and about for a year demonstrating just how to control a bike:


This has been also gathering attention:


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