Christian Wolmar, one of Britain's leading transport commentators, serves on the board of Cycling England, which promotes cycling. Last month he spoke at three On Your Bike conferences organised by the NSW Government.
ripped from The Sydney Morning Herald
By Christian Wolmar
August 12, 2008

When I came to Australia to talk about cycling, I borrowed a bike and headed off to the suburbs, with the help of an experienced local rider. It was an eye-opening experience. I had no idea how far behind Sydney was compared with most European cities in terms of accommodating, let alone encouraging, cyclists.

There seems to be an almost overt hostility to cyclists not only from many motorists, but more importantly from the planners and highway engineers who create the street environment.

It may be only a small thing, but even the drains in gutters can easily catch a cyclist's wheels because the grooves run parallel to the road rather than at right angles, as is the case in most other cities. When I was cycling on Parramatta Road, I desperately needed the safety of those gutters to have a reasonable chance of surviving the rush-hour traffic but found that I had to swerve out into the car lane to avoid being felled by the storm drain.

Sydney has the occasional bit of good infrastructure, such as the dedicated paths over bridges, the lanes laid out by more supportive local councils such as Leichhardt and the cycle parking hoops that have started appearing in the central business district, but clearly there is no overall policy supportive of cycling. (.cont)

Hi from the west folks!

So we finally got our arses into gear and have some kick ass hoodies and water bottles available over at neinlives. We've got a few brown, a few navy blue and a whole heap of that courier staple... black!

all funds going to helping neinlives stay solvent and towards helping us putting on a darn tootin ACMC in '09

head to http://www.neinlives.com.au/apparel.html to order... you'll get to look cool, stay warm and feel all fuzzy inside knowing your money is going to a good home...

Cheers, Ezy

G'day all,

Was great to catch up with so many lads at Farrer Pl and meet some fresh faces. No matter what is said of bike messengers, as a community, they are as accepting and enthusiastically interested in others as even the most humanitarian group of people.

My little bike shop has had to close under the weight of fiscal burden. Business as usual through my home for servicing etc, spares & accessories if you're looking for stuff. Got some Continental 26" slicks (Achtung! - german made), brand new that I'm trying to move. I paid $50 the pair. Make me an offer! I've got used frames, wheels and heaps of bits and pieces. I just don't have the room to store all of it.

To everyone following Le Tour de France, have a great Saturday night watching, hopefully, Cadel Evans Time Trial his way to an historic win. Hard to believe it's now a very real possibility an Australian will be GC winner.

Stay safe, stay warm, stay dry!
Adrian
0416 494 442

On July 23, 1998, Toronto messenger Wayne Scott made tax law history. For the first time a court decision made it possible for bike and foot messengers to deduct their extra food expenses as a business expense equivalent to "fuel". The Federal court agreed with Wayne's argument that the extra food required by messengers to perform their jobs was similar to the gas required by car couriers to perform their jobs.

The original court decision allowed couriers to deduct $11 per day as a fuel expense for food. As of 2008 the current deduction permitted is $17 per day.

This amounts to a deduction of about $4,250 every year for all bike and foot messenger in Canada since 1998. It's one of the few times someone has put money in messengers' pockets.

Thanks Wayne!

Well im getting warnings in my INBOX about the fact hat we are peaking our bandwidth for the month. Whats going on I think ... but sure enough this site is just taking off... we have almost grown at a rather startling rate we are as busy to the same size of the previous month by the 22nd of that month. CRAZY.. for a bunch of guys who cant even be bothered to log in and just comment as "shadow" or even use their nick and not log on proppa like. Anyway.. Be told folks. I will no longer go though and authorize you posts if you have a log in but are to lazy to use em.

The pope has gone home and last month we had 11637 unique IPs hit sydbma.org.
Our biggest referrer was google images with people looking at messengers and couriers and mtb and fixed as search terms. the toatl amount of pages served was 275862 in the month of June.

now thats huge.
key phrases put in search engines top 10 for June 08 :
sydbma 619 25.6 %
ass 84 3.4 %
bomber forks 42 1.7 %
marzocchi bomber 38 1.5 %
fixie 21 0.8 %
cmwc 08 19 0.7 %
single speed 13 0.5 %
www.sydbma.org 11 0.4 %
toronto messenger 11 0.4 %
messenger bike photos 10 0.4 %

$5, $8 POSTAGE OR PICK UP IN RYDE
THIS HOSE SYSTEM FIT'S STD BIKE BOTTLES AND HAS AN ANTI LEAK TIP THAT YOU NEED TO BITE ON TO ALLOW LIQUID THROUGH, GREAT TO SAVE YOU LIFTING BOTTLE WHILE YOUR RIDING IF YOU NEED A DRINK
YOU CAN GET ME AT BOX.BOY87@GMAIL.COM

for sale is 1 trek hydration pak, only used twice and complete with hose and drinking tip, cleaned properly after every use, no damage what so ever, you can get me at box.boy87@gmail.com :D

this GT is a Medium Sized frame with red and silver detailing

Some footage that is not negative towards couriers is HARD TO FIND

www.fixed-mag.com

You can download it.

Hey boys and girls,

Has Tour De France anticipation reached fever pitch yet? Certainly has for me!

Cadel Evans has turned in as odds on favourite through 'Sports Bet' for the General Classification.

Andy Schleck looks the goods to me. With a strong team (Team CSC - Stuart O'Grady, Brad McGee, Matt Goss, Jens Voight, Frank Schleck, Fabian Cancellara, Carlos Sastre, Bobby Julich - WOW! Nothing but proven talent there.) all working for him, he should see himself on the rostrum in Paris. Good odds to - 9:1 last time I checked.

Bring on Saturday 5th. VIVA LE TOUR!

Good luck to NSW in tonights (Wed 1st) 'State Of Origin' decider.

Peace and prosperity!
Adrian

I can't remember when it was... (maybe i'll look it up when i'm not on limited time at the Library.) But about five years ago the Australian Road Rules were updated and reissued.... I remember a lot of messengers and cyclists feeling angry and unrepresented (or underfunded) when these laws were changed.... I can remember the "all vehicles (including cyclists) must give way to buses road rule".... This rule morally made a lot of sense. Although it caused a lot of problems and got us cut off heaps of times when buses abused the privlige not waiting for the already passing vehicles to get out of the way.... I still agree with this road rule change....

The other road rule that pissed me off was the left turn at red lights for cars.... Hearing about and seeing the problems it caused in Toronto (If you stuff up in a car you kill other people) made me grumpy.... I've always thought that cyclists should be able to turn left at red lights after giving way to pedestrians and oncoming traffic (if you stuff up on a bicycle you only kill yourself (odds)...

sometimes It is scary when you get a mail from the ether and it reminds you of times past more clearly than I could actually remember them myself.

Hey Yogi,
I may be the only person on this site who remembers the things that you do;
-the first and possibly last time you shaved your legs in Richy's roof top garden.
-your white road bike with Mavic cowhorn bars
-your photo shoot with "Campaign" Magiazine
-you driving the tripple M suzuki cars with the Mambo paint jobs
-long nights spent at the Hero of Waterloo pub, and have written on the wall above the urinals
-what it feels like to work for Dennis @ Top Gun and not get paid
-have the pleasure of being friends with Patrick Kennedy from Ireland, 35 @ Top Gun-know what its like to work for Allied
-knew Mark Dutton 534 @ The Bicycle Brigade
-will remember names like Marianne Ferrari, Jim morley, Vlad, Tom Brook, Barney, Girly Kirk, Capain Kirk, Andy, Marti Hutchinson, Ian Gibbins, Brett Maile and the list goes on.....

Hey messenger chaps and chapettes,

Hope everyone is well and pulling in the big "end of financial year" dollars.

I need to tap into the great pool of knowledge that is the messenger community. I've just built up a Bianchi free-wheeling S/S for sale and have installed a lever that does both front and rear brakes. After some effort I've got both brakes set up with equal pull-up. Has anyone out there used or had experience with this type of braking? What kind of life span do you get before they require readjustment? They seem to loose tension quicker than normal, which is to be expected.

I also wanted to get an up-date on how Peter McDonald is going in Europe. I could try the Drapac Porsche website but this way I can get the inside running.

If Baden reads this, or if someone wants to pass on a message, do you still want the 'Poker' book?

Thanks again to all those who've offered support and encouragement to my fledgling business.

I look forward to any feedback re the above questions.

Keep the peace and ride safe.

Cheers!
Adrian

'Sleeping' driver ploughs into bike race

Chances are that you have accidentally hit the closed captioning button on your remote control before. If so, you have an idea of what closed captioning is all about. Generally speaking, this is when words are displayed on the screen so individuals who cannot hear can still enjoy the television. With that being said, closed captioning is not something that happens automatically. In other words, there is a lot that goes into this process.

For live television programs, an operator transcribes the words that are spoken using a stenotype. Believe it or not, this method has been in use since the 1970’s, and has been proven accurate and beneficial for many years. Of course, not all of television is live. There are many programs that are prerecorded. In this case, the captions are prepared well in advance.

Check out this new site

http://skingrowsback.com/

footage and race briefing (most recent) are not part of the same run but nice to watch if you want the vibe.
I am pretty sure I took the pic of Paddy in Crisis outfit with Campbell and Phil Hannam, and that nice guy with the accent who died of cancer.. who is on the far Left... im not sure.
this was in the day when Maquarie Place was a place where Brief Couriers and A1 Based themselves out of the alcove that the vans used to come to to fill us up with deliveries... at 3 buck minimum per job. Once upon a time when 2 way radio and paper ruled and a very few people had motorola Bricks as phones.. and most of them where builders. VIP Files from law firms covered in pink ribbon flowed like water, The fax machine was new and the bike courier was GOLD.

ARROWS to control:up is pedal, Right / forward is lean forward, and Left / back is lean back... Down is the break and backwards
careful not to flip. pity it wont let me do a loop.

just read more to play. I put it on a "Not on home page" cause it a download that takes a while on smaller connections

yo mates,

i remember that shifty asked on the messenger list if someone knows
how to build up pretty good mallets!
dunno if you guys have sorted it already....but anyway...
here is a pretty good link from nyc-bikepolo:
http://www.hardcourtbikepolo.com/?page_id=6

this page is maybe also worth a look:
http://nycbikepolo.com/

play hard, play rough!

Dudes What a hilarious weekend.
while only one current syd single speed society member represented, many an ol school export attended. much riding was had plenty of boozing etc. some danish dude won but coz he aint skip it whent to a melb fella. but the highlight for the weekend was wilson; sun, vodka orange in a bidon, 16inch 4 cross, gravel, no undies and a dress he found in an alley way!!! this was a final statement.

Has face boob left you in the dark and resenting your friends invites. Has my space kinda given you the IM BORED thing.
I have found the next gen in social networking. It will allow pelpe locally (to your location) to check you out , depending on your settings and TAGS. Anyway I'm testing it out

G'day chaps,

Some of you guys may remember me. I was with Mail Call and Allied most recently (2 years ago) but started my journey into couriering with Crisis way back in 1992. I left to open a baby shop with my wife which, unfortunately, is set to close.

I also worked at the Shakespeare Hotel. Remember me now! Baden and Smokin' Joe might, they used to pop in for a steak and a beer from time to time. The last time they came in was around the World's and Baden accused me of pinching his beer! He was very drunk and it was very late so let's not dwell on that.

Anyway, I thought I'd drop you guys a line to say hi and let you know that I'm opening a small bike and sports shop in Redfern (opp the Bar Cleveland on Bourke Street) in early May. Mostly clothes but some accessories, basic servicing and reconditioned bikes too. It would be great if anyone wants to reply or pop in and offer suggestions on what's hot and what's not. I'm certainly not trying to take on institutions such as 'Cheaky Monkey' or 'CBD', just offer an alternative or a place to hang-out on those excursions to the burbs I know you all love so much!

(as promised) I get home late, about 2 am and I crawl into bed. Success - I do not wake the wife and I sigh as I get comfortable. However cause I was last to bed my wife has left me only what can be described as THE NOVELTY PILLOW. From what I can gather it might have ...been full of a large grain or the wheat but this pillow is full of kind oblong loops of plastic. Although I am the only one who claims it to be comfortable it makes a lot of noise and as I get comfortable. It wakes my wife. I get a snuggle not abuse. But I remind you this is about the funky pillow. I really have no idea what is in it but apparently they are in many of the rooms in the hotel. The white guys at breakfast comment about it on the other table

We get up and go to the top floor for breakfast.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/61-bicycles/

hey sydney- and melburn-boys'n'girls!
i wanna use this opportunity to send all of you my sincere thanks!
since i arrived in sydney beginning march last year,
i only made positive experiences (despite my crashes...),
met wonderful people and found a new home.
You welcomed me with so much love and sympathy,
which made it easy for me to establish new friendships
and i'm proud to be part of your family!

Now, i can truly tell storys about the unbelievable courier-guys
down under! ;) ...and i'm sure we meet again, somewhere!

Ride safe, don't break collarbones!
Cu @ farrer!

What a place, made for riding bikes. The city, the rides, the whole kit and kaboodle it's all about bikes.
Check out the images at Pandazams flicker account (click the group photo)

From breakfast in Joslyn to the shutdown on Mondays time trial and track stands and everything in between, it was a great time to be had by all. There was no problems from any angle.
the only problem for me was me marking Simon's (Perth) extra- ordinary skid of at least 310 meters and perhaps longer (but definately 310m (thats 1017 feet). there was no side hopping or weird kinda half pedal it was a real slide that just went on and on and On.

The overall scores must have been tight as there was a variety of winners in a variety of races and games. but then the guy we all love to hate did something remarkable.

Sometimes it is good to share good news.

PEOPLE living in rural areas without electricity will no longer have to travel miles to re-charge their mobile phones. A new telephone bicycle charger has been introduced.
The locally designed charging system is aimed at mostly helping people in villages, where there is no electricity, to have easy access to charging services.
This is another innovation that has seen the bicycle take on more roles than just being ridden.

read more here allafrica.com

read more here http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Bicycle_phone_charger_launched.shtml