Next Wednesday is Ride to Work Day, Newcastle Council is holding a free breakfast for all cycling commuters at Wheeler Place, just arrive on your bike!
Ride to work day is a great way to start your cycling commuting. There are more bikes on the road and you can get to meet other cycling commuters who can give you tips on how to ride safely and which routes are the easiest to ride. Plus, a free hot breakfast and cheap good coffee before work is always a good thing!
The Newcastle Tweed Ride was again an outstanding success with around seventy people showing up to display their bicycle and costume vintage handiwork. It was great to see a penny farthing in attendance again and also to see people getting penny farthing riding practice afterwards. One rider was quite proficient at riding it within minutes! Very impressive!
Bemused bystanders wondered what was going on.
Me with Therese Doyle, Greens Councillor and bike enthusiast.
Our master of ceremonies, Zac Watt, was entertaining and we were honoured to have such an auspicious person to entertain us with stories and poems about the art works which adorn the water frontage that we rode along. You can see him here riding his vintage American cruiser …
Equally wonderful was the attendance of so many tweed ride stalwarts. I was especially grateful to Iain who transformed the hacked fitting of my cheap K Mart vintage style light on my Speedwell to a professional looking installation. Such is the power of vintage bike aficionadoes, who are able to turn a hack job into a professional one. I don’t have any before photos luckily …
I was again impressed with the job Gareth had done on another roadside find this year, using driftwood as handgrips. So clever! And lovely and smooth to use. I think I have an idea for my own bike now …
The usual suspects turned up including the Georgetown Juggernaut with inbuilt picnic table, complete with flowers, teaset and tablecloth.
We had a special award category of ratbike this year for an impressively built cargo bike, made to carry musical instruments. I will try to get a photo.
Style was high on the agenda again, with so many wonderful costumes worn by both men and women, some of who were riding equally impressive bikes.
Everyone was taking photos …
The Newcastle bloggers were there, giving us great coverage. The Curious Novocastrian has some wonderful photo on her blog. You should also check Instagrams of Pink Patent Mary Janes, Curious Novo and the showbag for more and better pictures than mine!
One surprise was the Herald coverage, calling us all hipsters….
Although I have said this will be the last Tweed Ride I organise, there are plans in place for a successor, so stay tuned. The Vintage Tweed Ride was a Make Your Place community project supported by the City of Newcastle and Newcastle Cycleways Movement Inc.
Tweed ride poster
This year’s Tweed Ride will be on Sunday 7 June. Starting at Islington Park at 9am for a 10am start, we ride to Nobbys accompanied by a wonderful story teller. So start trawling those op shops for a set of tweeds, get out your old bike (or just come along for the fun) and join us for an entertaining and easy ride with music and coffee at the end. Free event!
We have had terrible storms here last week and many areas have flooded badly as a result. Four people died in those floods. Many have lost their homes. It has been an intense week.
Now sights like this are common around the streets, and for a time it was much worse. Many roads have been impassable due to debris, fallen trees or flooding water. Now the sun has emerged and we can make our way outdoors again, tentatively. Riding can be a great way to get around after a storm. A bike has the flexibility to traverse uneven ground or to go around a fallen tree or to be carried over obstacles, whatever they may be.
Tunnel on Fernleigh Track
Riding on the streets is quite safe now in most of the areas I’ve ridden and the weather has cleared beautifully, making riding a pleasure. Fernleigh Track is still closed except for a stretch at the Adamstown end. There is still the danger of falling trees and branches along there.
Anzac Day was yesterday, and the newly opened Memorial Walk was packed with walkers.
Although this new construction is not permitted for cyclists, it has improved cycling conditions in the area in one respect.
The shared path up Memorial Drive is now much less crowded and thus is more conducive to cycling, and while it does not have the same spectacular views as the new walkway, it is not as steep.
The convergence of these two events, the storm and the Anzac centennial ceremonies (celebrated here with the opening of the Memorial Walkway as well as record attendance at other ceremonies) has made for a very intense time here in Newcastle. The mingling of grief for those who have lost their lives or homes after the intensity of the storm, along with the sheer brilliance of the weather for Anzac Day has left a somber yet positive mood over the city.
I’ve written before about the Bank Corner Café and how the area around Bank Corner has become a “place” in Newcastle. With its adjoining laneway covered in murals and other art works and its pavement seating and decorative paving, it is picturesque and quirky and you don’t know just what is around the corner. Adding to the ambience of that area is a recently opened bike shop “Metro Cycles”, owned by Bernie Hocking.
The shop fits in well with its surroundings, as there are always lots of bikes parked in the vicinity during the day, so the lineup of Metro Cycles bikes looks just like another part of the streetscape. Additionally, all the posts here have been yarnbombed, which fits in nicely, adding to the placemaking feel of this small area. The fact that car parks are hard to find around here makes it even more attractive to cyclists.
With its lineup of commuter, folders, ebikes and cargo bikes and appropriate accessories for them, Metro is catering to a section of the cycling market that has not been strongly recognised before in Newcastle. This provides the opportunity for those in the market for utility cycles to shop in Newcastle rather than buying elsewhere or via the Internet.
Bernie’s choices of bikes on his shop floor has been strongly influenced by trips to Europe and a cycling study tour he has done there. It shows in the diversity of town and cargo bikes that are on display and European and British influences are also evident in his selection of stock. Bicycle art work adorns the walls …
Bernie, on the right, talking to a customer
Tigra mount on my Speedwell
This bike mount would be very handy for those who want to use cycling apps or to record their rides or to take photos while riding.
The mount for the casing fits easily onto the handlebars with the use of an Allen key, then the casing clips into it. There is a two part system which attaches the casing to the mount which involves a small screw and a clip, both of which need to be lifted to remove the casing. This is not difficult and the casing clips out easily while being quite secure while on the mount, even when the phone is being rotated. I found fitting the whole thing quite straightforward.
The casing has a double locking system, which involves clips at the front of the phone which are hinged to another clip at the back.
There is a slightly papery feel to screen and a small loss of sensitivity but not enough to interfere with normal use of the phone.
The selfie camera gives a slightly grainy picture, but the main camera is fine. The blurred effect of the selfie camera could be used to advantage if you wanted a softer focus photo. Photos are not distorted or blurred around the edges, which was sometimes the case with the previous model I had for the iPhone 4.
The case is larger and chunkier than the previous one I reviewed but is still easy to hold and looks as though it would be more water resistant if immersed or used in heavy rain. The casing is very sturdy, and it makes the phone feel much more protected in case of a drop, although this has not happened yet.
There is some loss of screen visibility in sunlight but not as much as with the previous model.
The ports for charging and headphones are accessible through the casing, as is the on/off switch at the top of the phone, but the volume/camera buttons on the side are not. The camera button can be used via the screen.
The video quality is ok when using the mount, there is a slightly wavy quality in it which would be unacceptable for some, but it is perfectly suitable for use if you wanted to record your ride for safety purposes. I would need to mount the phone onto the other side of my handlebars for the best view for this purpose. The rotational capability of the device allows for some variation however. You can see an example in this short video I made …
Many thanks to Mobilezap for providing this mount for review.
On a recent trip to Melbourne I was able to borrow a bike for a few days, which gave me an entirely different perspective on this city which is touted to be the leading Australian cycling city.
The bike I was loaned was a little too big for me, which presented a few challenges as far as mounting and dismounting it, but once I got used to making sure I had enough space to lean it over to get on and off, I was at ease on it.
Riding in an unfamiliar area is always a challenge and even more so on a unfamiliar bike. I find that I need to plan the trips I intend to make via Google maps and even then it is no guarantee that the ride will be along optimal roads for riding safely. The maps can indicate that there are bike lanes present but the quality of them, and of the streetscape for cycling, is not information that is on the maps. So often it’s a case of setting out and taking unexpected turns if the streets around appear better equipped for cyclists or if all the cyclists are going a particular way. And in Melbourne there were plenty of cyclists around.
I was most interested in this street, which had a former bike lane marking scrubbed out and a much wider one painted in. While this improvement took away much of the car lane, making the bike lane feel quite safe, it amounted to making the bike lane almost as wide as the car lane. Even so, I rode as far to the right as the bike lane allowed, placing me closer to the passing cars, but well out of the door zone. This was just as well, as a car door did open as I was passing, but it was not the faintest threat to me, placed as I was in the bike lane. Later that day, I discovered that just a few streets away and at about the same time, a young man was killed by car dooring. The bike lane he was riding along was not nearly as safe as this one, but even on a bike lane such as this, riders need to know where to ride safely.
There have been many changes around Newcastle lately. The biggest one is the cutting of the rail line and terminating of trains at Hamilton. This has created a lot of havoc as it means the traffic around the station has doubled, with more pedestrians and now shuttle buses taking people into town after they get off the train. Bikes are not allowed on buses and many riders don’t know which way to ride safely into town. The Throsby creek path is not far away from there and is the safest way to get into town at present.
Other bike related projects are also progressing with the Bathers Way project along the sea front. This will connect all the beaches from Nobbys Beach and the harbour to Merewether Beach for both pedestrians and cyclists. The most spectacular part of this project is the Anzac Memorial Walk which accesses scenic views over both city and sea.
Photo credit: Newcastle Herald
Meanwhile, however, Hunter Street languishes as decisions are not being made about the future of the rail line which may impact on how new bike paths are to be installed.
But that has not stopped the growing cycling culture in Newcastle.
Old bikes being restored and ridden and new bikes all around town. See this shot taken outside Bank Corner Cafe, it was hard to find a place to lock up my bike that day …
And with a new bike shop opened right next door and murals around the corner in the laneway, it is working well as a place where people like to gather …
With state elections getting closer every day, promises for new bike lanes have been an election promise made by one of the major parties, demonstrating that the need to adopt cycling as transport is becoming a major issue in this region.
It’s been four years since I started this blog and I’m evaluating whether things have changed much in Newcastle to make it more bike friendly.
There are now green bike lanes in some streets and I recall the first time I rode in one of them and how it made me feel much safer. They are used in the lead up to traffic lights and act both as a bike box and a way of better enabling filtering through the traffic to gain a position at the front of the traffic queue. These are both good things.
Vintage Spring riders in action. Photo credit Peter McNaughton
I’ve also organised three vintage rides which have helped to promote cycling in the city, as well as being good fun. Vintage bike owners always like the chance to showcase their bikes and many thanks to the City of Newcastle for funding them. I’d really looks forward to being able to attend a tweed ride but never thought that I would be the organiser of them.
Girl with dog in her rear basket
What I am most interested in though is seeing more bike around the streets and this is something that is much harder to quantify. I think there are more bikes, even though bike counts organised by NCM do not show this. When I am out I unconsciously count the bikes I see and while I used to count up to a dozen on a ride during peak commuting times, I now count twenty or more, once I reach a count of twenty I stop counting …
Family riding at Bar Beach
What I am sure of is that the number of people riding fancy street bikes, old ten speeds or other vintage bikes has increased. This is heartening as it indicates that there are more people just pootling around on their bike because its convenient. I also see more upmarket bikes than were ever around before. Also, more cargo bikes. Every year after Xmas there is an increase in the number of shiny new bikes, which has to be a good sign. I no longer get told that my speedwell is a nice bike by random strangers on the street and I take this as a sign that it is no longer unique, there are now so many nice bikes out there.
There has been progress made in the creation of separated bike lanes and shared paths in Adamstown and in Tighes Hill. They are not fully separated but are an improvement over bike pictures in the car door lane. There are also lights for both bike crossings at Kotara and at Throsby Creek, and the bike paths along the foreshore have been linked to the Throsby Creek path. At Merewether Beach, a properly separated lane has been installed and infrastructure all along the beachfronts have improved cycling there.
Family riding at Merewether Beach
Looking to the future, the biggest unanswered question is what will happen with Hunter Street and the inner city. This is still the biggest black spot in Newcastle cycling and with the rail line being made inoperable recently, everyone is watching to find out how the rail corridor will be used. A separated bike lane on Hunter Street would be just as good, but that seems to be an obviously needed improvement that does not get made, even though its revitalisation is supposedly high on the agenda of the council and, perhaps, the state government.
There are other improvements that I know of but have not ridden such as at Wallsend and Carrington.
Photo credit; Grant Donnelly
Westfield Kotara has installed a bike parts vending machine, a nice touch to encourage riders.
