Extra Channels New Zealand

Dear loyal subscribers,

I’ve got a new blog called Extra Channels New Zealand and on it is my first post – Why New Zealand should fund SBS the Australian public broadcaster.

The blog will be about receiving TV channels that aren’t Freeview or Sky, mainly through satellite TV, but also internet TV, because life is too short to watch Shortland Street.

As for the cycleway blog – I’ve been pretty quiet. It’s not defunct. I haven’t had much to say. I still have a few ideas formulated in the old noggin, but I’ve recently lacked the wherewithal to write them up. I also don’t live or work in Welly anymore so its hard to see what goes on day to day. I could hazard a guess that work hasn’t begun on the Petone – Ngauranga cycleway. Patience is required if you were waiting for any posts (or a safe route to Petone). I’ve not moved far, but I seldom come in to town these days.

Cheers, Matty T

Quality used Japanese bikes in Wellington

This is a free plug for some people I’m yet to meet, but I love their idea. It’s such a great idea:

Quality refurbished Mamachari bicycles from Japan are being restored and sold in Wellington.

Prices start just under $300 for restored foldables and sit-ups.

See this link Mamachari.co.nz to see what they’re up to and what’s in stock.

Something brilliant in Palmerston North

Over on the Gondola Project there is an interesting titbit about a thing called PalmyLink. What they’re calling an aerial ropeway, but otherwise known in New Zealand as a gondola. Also known as Cable Propelled Technology to others. From the Square along Fitzherbert Avenue, over the Manawatu River and up the hill to the University. Brilliant!!!

Look at this: Palmylink – have a look at the website and this video.

I hope it gets built – and extended to the train station and the airport (and the Capital Connection runs more than once a day). And I hope you can put your bike on it. It’ll be the 4th reason why Palmerston North is cool. Being truly clean and green it could be powered by the windfarms.

After all Palmerston North is the south of the North Island’s premier city.

It seems to bypass the Hokowhitu campus though.

http://www.palmylink.org.nz/

Something to be proud of New Zealand

Apparently New Zealand roads are unsafe, and our drivers are aggressive and dangerous. The German Embassy is considering issuing  a travel advisory telling it’s citizens that it is unsafe to cycle in New Zealand. Two German cycle tourists have been killed in the last year. Here is the story in the Dominion post.

And back in Adelaide, yet another cyclist has been killed on the roads and the comments are once again interesting, because apparently it is all the cyclists faults because they just don’t get out of the way of the speeding truckies and motorists who think they own the roads.

Contrast this to this blog post in the Netherlands. It’s in Dutch of course, but look at the photo. Between Zuidhorn and Groningen this cycle lane is being replaced with a better one, because it isn’t good enough. In New Zealand we can only dream of having anything half as good as what isn’t good enough for the Dutch.

So there you go. If you live in Germany, save on the airfare, and have a cycling holiday in Holland. It’s safer, and you’ll be saved of all the embarassing Lord of the Rings references too. Afterwards in your holiday photos you can photoshop in some mountains and just pretend you came to New Zealand. It could save your life.

Good news and bad news about the bicycle in Australia

Bad News

As an Adelaidean, living for the moment outside of Australia, it is sometimes hard seeing things back home and wondering what the hell is going on back there. Australia is already viewed by the rest of the world as a place where cyclists are hated, and where the helmet laws are viewed as an example of what not to do. And Australian kids are amongst the fattest on Earth.

Which is all why stories like this of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce calling for bike licenses (and the comments it inspires) are disheartening.

But at least one bit of good news is that the Victorian Roads Minister (note, not a Conservative, but a Labor politician) doesn’t buy it for a second :

Roads Minister Tim Pallas said he did not support the idea of registering bikes.

“There’s not one country in the world that has in place a licensing or registration system for bikes,” he said.

“We’re about encouraging people to look at cycling as a viable transport option.”

Good News

There is some good news coming out of Adelaide: This Greenways and Cycle Paths Policy Document from the South Australian Labor Party. They were facing re-election, and they won, so it looks like the Adelaide to Marino Rocks Greenway is going to get built. Curiously on the map I don’t know why the old steam train route to Glenelg that is now the East-West Bikeway isn’t on the map. I had a few nice rides on that in ye olde days (and a Hope Valley to Glenelg walk once, where no one would sit next to me on a packed tram on the ride home)

So everyone in Adelaide, and in Melbourne keep cycling, and keep voting to keep those evil Chamber of Commerce type people out of positions of power.

Take a gander at these fun bicycle related links

Urban Electric Cars

Firstly here is a link to a story on the Australian ABC’s Catalyst programme. It’s definitely worth watching for Dr Jonica’s stack at the end. It’s a story about the MIT City Car and the MIT Green Wheel.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the MIT City Car is a better type of electric car than other electric cars, because it is not much bigger than a bicycle. I also like the idea that it is going to be rentable, like a bike share scheme, and of course there is nothing to say that there couldn’t be the one scheme with the two hireable vehicles, the pedal bike, and the small footprint electric car. And such a scheme would work best, if all other cars were banned from a city’s streets, and if they were limited in number to a level such that congestion won’t occur and their price was linked to the current demand for hiring them. The bikes would always be cheaper by at least three fold, but when the car price rockets in the peaks, the rentable bikes would still be the same price. Of course private cars would be banned from the streets, but the privately-owned bike would be welcome, and you could spec it out with trailers and electric motors as you saw fit. If the electric cars were then speed limited to 25 km/hr when a bicycle was detected in proximity to the car, the road surface could be shared, and there isn’t a need for separate cycling infrastructure.

Anyway enough about the Catalyst story.

“Dave on a Bike“

The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is one dog better than the Mexican state of Chihuahua. When I travelled across Newfoundland in 2007 I discovered the joy of listening to the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean. There are free podcasts available on the web and sometimes they’re a little hokey and sentimental, but on the whole I love it, and think it is the world’s best radio show. This week’s story is “Dave on a Bike” and it is hilarious. Get it here at the CBC , (you can also subscribe to the podcasts here) and it is much the same as any of the shows. (If unsure if you want to subscribe, listen here to see if you like his style in this story about the boy who went over Niagara Falls. Definitely it is worth a listen, as is last week’s show, a repeat, sacre bleu, about Winnipeg, and it has great music from the Weakerthans) He has a bit of talk, this week about Gander, Newfoundland. (I’ve been to Gander twice, once landing there to refuel because of headwinds on an Icelandair flight from Reykjavik to Halifax, and the other I went there by choice, and neither time did I go and visit the Gander Airport Lounge, apparently the 8th Wonder of the World) Then it has some nice music and then it has a story about Dave, the owner of the Vinyl Cafe. This week the story is bike related and as I said it is pretty funny.

The Gander Airport lounge is a 1950′s modernist wonder. If you think that means yucky poo architecture, then I recommend a visit to the Oslo City Hall, or even in St John’s, Newfoundland, Confederation House is quite a handsome building. (Update: so many people are getting to my blog looking for info on the Gander Airport, after hearing the Vinyl Cafe Show – here’s a link to a picture of the mural)

I went to Newfoundland to look for the Golden Spikes. A Golden Spike, or a GSSP (a global standard section and point), which shows the stratotype where a division in the geological time scale has been placed, is like one of these. This one showing the base of the Ediacaran Period at Enorama Creek in South Australia. Above the line it is Ediacaran rocks (a cap carbonate), less than 635 million years old, and below it are Cryogenian rocks (a tillite), older than approx 635 million years old.

The Ediacaran is when the Ediacaran, sometimes called Vendian, fauna, existed. There are some Ediacaran aged fossils at Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, and I went there, but didn’t find them. Somewhere down on those slabs apparently:

I also went looking for the base of the Cambrian period at Fortune Head at the end of the Burin Peninsula, and apparently the stratotype of the base of the Cambrian is somewhere amongst those rocks, but I didn’t find a little bronze disk. Anyone know if there is one?:

And I went to Green Point over on the west coast to look for the base of the Ordovician. I found similar to the South Australian palaeomagnetic drill core holes and a few graptolite fossils on the Ordovician side of the point, and I’m pretty certain the stratotype is in one of these layers, but which one, I don’t know. I couldn’t find a little bronze disk.

Later in 2007 I went to Atoka, Oklahoma to find the GSSP for the base of the Katian Stage of the Ordovician, and couldn’t find it either. I’m like the world’s most inept geological tourist.

In bicycle news this weekend I rode my bike only as far as the Manakau Pub for lunch and got a flat tyre on the way home. I’ve written about that route before, Manakau is halfway on the ride from Otaki to Waikawa Beach.

Now if there are any rich publishers out there willing to give me enough dosh to fund a trip where I write a book where I try to go and find (and inevitably fail to find) each golden spike in the world, riding between the sites on an electric bike (and my girlfriend wants to come too, and so that will be two electric bikes and 4 or 6 batteries) then please get in touch. A $100,000 advance should cover it. I’d love to ride an e-bike through Newfoundland, England, Italy, China, Texas, Nevada, and the Czech Republic.