Riding around Copenhagen

This week I was supposed to have been in Norway for a conference.  The conference got cancelled at the last minute, but I was already in Sweden by then, so I rearranged some things to meet with some other organisations while I am this side of the world.

The upshot of all that is that I ended up with a day in transit in Copenhagen, with several hours between my flight from Oslo and onward flight to Luxembourg.  So naturally I decided to get out of the airport, and ride around in Copenhagen a bit.

I have already ridden in Amsterdam twice, so I was especially interested in seeing how the "other cycling capital" compares.

My overall impression was that Copenhagen was more of a compromise between a regular car-oriented city and a cycling city than Amsterdam, where bicycle reigns as the overwhelming mode of transport.

Copenhagen has much less cycling infrastructure than Amsterdam, with cyclists and motorists sharing the same physical roadway much more often.

In fact, the key difference with Adelaide was more the attitude of drivers and cyclists to one another, rather than the infrastructure.  This is a bit sobering, given the generally poor relationship between cyclists (who regularly flaunt the law and seem to go out of their way to annoy motorists at times) and motorists (who regularly fail to look for cyclists or other non-car road users, and seem to believe that cyclists somehow don't pay any tax or own and register cars, and thus should not be on "their [the motorists]" roads).

Anyway, enough social commentary, and now for some pictures of my wandering around Copenhagen.

This was the view outside the front of Copenhagen Central Station. Only a few bikes to be seen in this direction, and much more car-oriented infrastructure.

But look in another direction, or go around the corner, and there are lots of bikes.  The bikes are much more varied in style compared to Amsterdam, with many more mountain bikes and racing bikes in the fleet compared with the much more uniform city-bike fleet in Amsterdam.

... and more bikes.

Like in Amsterdam, some bikes find unusual graves.  Here are the bent and buckled carcasses of bikes that have fallen onto the train line and been thrown into the verge.  

A nice view down the river from on a bridge.

... and towards one side of the bridge...

... and looking down into the water which also serves as the grave yard for many bikes.

Here is the nice bike shop guy who let me try out a Christiania two-wheeler.

While I was talking to him, this family turn up and say "You're from Australia, aren't you?" in a Melbournian accent. They are living in Copenhagen for a few months, and getting their new cargo bike serviced after assembling it themselves.

Here is my noble steed that I rented for DKK100 (about AUD$20) for the day.  The Christiania was much nicer and more fun to ride!

Here is the view across the street where I had lunch

And some people riding past on cargo bikes.

And a Mum riding a 3-wheeler.  I really wanted to get a few shots like this to help people in Adelaide understand that cargo-bikes are often ridden by women, and you don't need to be an athletic guy to move your family this way.

This is a road safety centre playground like the one that used to be at Oaklands Park for kids to play and learn the road rules in a safe way.

I am visiting Copenhagen, so had to have my picture taken by the little mermaid.

Cobblestone road next to the Royal Palace.  The queen was apparently in, but I didn't see her.

There is also a Noah's Ark you can go on and do various things.  It was quite rainy as can be seen by how wet Bo was.

The entrance to the Ark.

Riding a Christiania Two-Wheeler in Copenhagen

This week I am on a work trip which got a bit messed around due to the threat of a hotel strike in Oslo.  The net result was that I had a few hours in transit in Copenhagen, and so I took the change to get outside, and ride around Copenhagen a little.

For a long time I have wanted to try riding a Christiania two-wheeler, and also to visit Copenhagen to see the bike culture there.

This post will focus on the Christiania, and I will talk more about riding in Copenhagen in another post.

While riding around I found this nice bike shop where they were kind enough to let me take a Christiania two-wheeler for a ride, despite me being very honest that I was not going to buy it, but just wanted the chance to ride one so that I could write about my experience.

So here is the nice guy from Barholt Cykler in Copenhagen, and the Christiania two-wheeler that I would get to ride:

We had a bit of a chat about it, and some of the advantages, including the nice side door that makes it easier for very little kids to get in and out:

He then explained that he rides a bakfiets.nl Bakfiets Long very similar to the one I ride.  His view was that Bakfiets was a more "finished" bike, while the Christiania felt a bit less refined.

The cover mechanism is different, but I didn't get to play with it enough to know whether I thought it was better or worse.

The stand mechanism on the Bakfiets was easier to operate, and a little more stable with the four feet on the ground instead of two with the Christiania, but both are fine.

The two bikes are quite similar, as I have discussed in a previous post, so I was interested in how the bike felt, and how much difference the reduced weight made.

Copenhagen is about as flat as inner Adelaide, that is there are some fairly gently but noticable slopes on various roads.  The Christiania was quite noticeably easier to ride up the slope than I feel my Bakfiets would have been.  Of course the Christiania didn't have all my junk sitting in the box and panniers, so it wasn't entirely fair, but I still expect that there would be a noticeable difference.

The steering on the Christiania felt very similar to the Bakfiets, and after the first turn, I wasn't really noticing the difference, except that the Christiania has a spring that tries to return the steering to the middle, which could be felt when turning sharply, but was not a problem.

The cargo box is a little smaller, both shorter and narrower, and the bike as a whole is a little smaller.  As I mentioned in my other post, this would suit a smaller rider for whom the Bakfiets feels too large and heavy.

All in all, the Christiania was the pleasant and practical ride that I expected.

8-wheeler cargo bike (requires two riders) and other things

My friend Angus pointed me to this one:

http://notechmagazine.com/2014/04/eight-wheeler-cargo-cycle.html

Basically a bike-truck capable of carrying 450kg with a 10m^2 bed. The cargo bike sitting in one corner of the tray is the same 2.9m long bakfiets lang type as I ride.  See the link for a picture.

I was also impressed by a novel axe design by a Finnish guy which converts the residual kinetic energy of an axe strike into leverage that looks like it makes it much easier to chop and split wood, with much less risk of the axe ending up in your leg:

http://notechmagazine.com/2014/04/the-axe-has-been-reinvented.html

Here is another interesting bike-related post from the same magazine:

http://notechmagazine.com/2012/10/bicycle-trailer-with-solar-panel-charges-electric-bicycle.html

This one is a bike with trailer with solar panel.  I have already ridden around carrying a 40W solar panel in our bakfiets just to move it from place to place and thought about how handy it would be to have one fitted over the box if I had an electric assist motor (which I don't).  The box is big enough that a 80W - 100W panel would be possible.

War on Weapons of Mass Deflation

There is a force of at work that seeks to disrupt our peace and safety.  It is responsible to no government, and has a single-minded objective of world domination.

This force is no terrorist organisation, but the terrorist organism.  You may know it by one of its many common names: three-corner-Jack, bindii, bullhead, burra gokharu, caltrop, cat's head, devil's eyelashes, devil's thorn, devil's weed, goathead, puncturevine or tackweed.  But its true name is tribulus terrestris, the earth-thorn.

This menace has probably existed in Australia since the fall, relentlessly spreading to our fair state by concealing itself, and seeding new terror cells wherever it lands.

Like other terrorist cells, tribulus can lie in wait for many years biding its time for the right opportunity to launch a coordinated attack on Australian our way of life.

Terror Organism Activates in Adelaide

After being forced into hiding in cracks and crevises in recent years by the drought and the surveillance of local authorities, tribulus has seized the opportunity afforded by recent summer rains to regroup and multiply its stocks of Weapons of Mass Deflation, appearing in many places where it was until recently thought eliminated.

Now like something out of the Little Shop of Horrors, this organism of terror is reaching its tendrils out onto parks and paths, byways and highways, seeking to use its Weapons of Mass Deflation on cyclists, walkers and pets, indiscriminately inflicting pain and suffering everywhere.

Like something out of The Little Shop of Horrors, tribulus terrestris begins as a small plant with innocent looking yellow flowers.  But these soon transform into factories producing hundreds of weapons of mass deflation in just a few short weeks. Image credit: Forest & Kim Starr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Starr_030612-0063_Tribulus_terrestris.jpg)

An Opportunity to Defeat This Terror on the Ground

Tribulus is counting on us, the people of South Australia, not being willing to engage in an extensive ground war, to commit the necessary personnel to locate, target and eliminate this terror organism from all its bases of operation.

So confident is it of this, that it has not held back, and has activated almost every dormant seed of activity, with the goal of enlarging its operations and infliction of terror for many years to come.

However, this combination of hubris and lack of discipline is tribulus' weakness: If we can root out tribulus throughout this fair city, we can eliminate its strong-holds, and look forward to a city free from the fear of terror rising out of the ground, unleashing biological weapons of mass deflation on an unsuspecting public.

Chemical Weapons and Indiscriminate Action are not The Answer

In fighting this biological weapon of mass deflation, we must not be tempted into the hypocrisy of fighting with unethical or terrible means ourselves, such as chemical weapons.  

It is unlawful to apply chemical weapons on public or private property, and while they may disable tribulus' biological weapons plants, they do not disable the biological weapons themselves.

Similarly, we must not take actions that violate sovereignty by invading land over which we have no jurisdiction.

Where terrorist organisms are found active on land beyond our jurisdiction our call is to carefully document and collect this information, so that diplomatic solutions can be found.  Diplomatic solutions can include seeking permission to cross borders and fight this terrorist organism on behalf of the citizens or governments resident there.

A Call to form A Coalition of the Willing

Diplomacy among the authorities has already made great progress on the war on tribulus, declaring it an organism non grata.

However, as terrorists know, diplomacy takes time.  Time that tribulus will use to manufacture and deploy massive quantities of biological weapons onto an unsuspecting, peace loving public.

Tribulus cannot be given this opportunity.  We therefore need to form a coalition of the willing, who are willing to strike this foe decisively, while abiding by all local and international treaties, regulations and upholding the rule of law.

We need Weapons Inspectors on the ground who can collect information and share it with the coalition and other relevant authorities, and root this menace out wherever it is found.

We need Analysts who can examine the information, and direct efforts to where they can be most usefully employed.

We need to develop the high-technology tools that will support this mission and give the coalition the tactical and strategic advantage over this cunning adversary.

This will be a short war, as winter will force this terrorist organism to temporarily cease its operations.

A Call to Dig In and Work Cooperatively

We must take careful, targeted action, pulling this menace out by the roots, using mechanical support if required.

We must coordinate our activities, and share intelligence among us, so that we can operate effectively and in a united manner, and so inflict the greatest damage on this terror.

We need to pull together the intelligence tools and resources that will enable this to happen, produce field operations guides for Weapons Inspectors and Analysts.  We already have prototypes of several of tools that can play an effective role in the war on this, and other terrorist organisms, which need to be rapidly prepared for operational deployment.

Above all, we must act quickly, before this relentless enemy of humanity begins deploying its biological weapons arsenal, causing damage to (pet) life and (bicycle) infrastructure. Otherwise we have just days before we begin to feel the pointy end of this terrorist organism.

How to join the Coalition of the Willing

If you wish to be part of the Coalition of the Willing on the War on Terrorist Organisms, join the weapons-of-mass-deflation Google Group, and we will begin coordinating our actions there.  Again, you don't need to be technically skilled to contribute, although we are looking for technical people to help with some of the tools.  We will also need writers, people on the ground to report weed infestations, spread the word, engage property owners and lots of other stuff.

This will be a short war, as winter will force this terrorist organism to temporarily cease its operations.

School run for three by bakfiets

One of our daughter's friends from school lives a few blocks from our place.  So on days when we are organised enough, I pick her and her older sister up on the way through.

It's a bit squishy, but they all seem to love it, with their mum saying that they both get super excited at the prospect of riding to school in the bike.

(Extremely) conservative economic analysis of bakfiets ownership

In the first twelve months of owning a bakfiets I rode a little over 4,000km, averaging about 80km/week.

So I began wondering about quantifying the cost-effectiveness of the bike.  Was I saving money, or was it a false economy?

Short answer

Yes, I am almost certainly saving money at 80km/week.

Averaged over five years, the petrol savings alone are enough to break even.

If you include the variable depreciation component as modelled by the VTPI, then it becomes clear that the break-even point, based on fuel and variable depreciation alone, is at between XXX and XXX kilometres per week.

If, like ourselves, you can avoid owning a second car then the savings are obviously much bigger, as a bakfiets costs about $1,000 per annum including the cost of an expensive personal loan to buy the bakfiets, and making the further extremely conservative assumption that it is worth nothing after five years.

Long answer

Let's make a few purposefully conservative assumptions.  The idea is if these figures work out positive for you, then you should be able to fairly safely assume that owning a bakfiets will save your family money.

1. You already own a car, that consumes approximately 10L/100km.
2. You will retain the car, and will still service it as often as now.
3. You will displace some kilometres from the car to the bakfiets.
4. The sunk-capital costs of the car will not drop.
5. Petrol costs about AU$1.30 - AU$1.60 a litre in Adelaide now.  This equates to AU$0.13 - AU$0.16 per kilometre.

6. Including all accessories, delivery and assembly, a good Butch bakfiets costs about AU$3,500.

7. Interest cost on a bakfiets will be between 4.5% (lowest rate home mortgage) to 10% (expensive personal loan).

8. A bakfiets will cost about AU$120 a year for servicing and incidental items (replacement tyres etc).

9. Dutch bakfiets have a design-life of about 20 years, but let's be really conservative and say that you we expect only five years of useful life, after which it has the implausibly low residual value of AU$0.

This is a very conservative set of assumptions, as eradicating short trips will increase the life of most vehicles through reduced cold-operating wear, as well as pushing out servicing intervals.  But again, we want to be exceptionally conservative here.

In other words, we are looking at the pure incremental cost and savings of owning a bakfiets.

Petrol, as mentioned costs between AU$0.13 to AU$0.16 per kilometre at current prices.

The above assumptions require a five-year loan for AU$3,500 with a prevailing interest rate of between 4.5% and 10% per annum.  That loan will cost between AU$15.04 and AU$17.12 per week. The annual servicing costs of AU$120 will add another AU$2.31 per week.  Thus the total weekly cost of buying and operating a bakfiets over five years will be between AU$17.35 and AU$19.43 per week.

The above implies that you will need to displace between 109 and 150 kilometres per week to be practically certain that you will come out financially ahead compared by owning a bakfiets.

This is more than the 80km/week that I ride to work and doing the morning school/child-care run.

Let's now consider this over the coming five years, assuming that inflation remains at about 3%, and petrol prices will, on average, at least match inflation compared with current prices (which seems reasonable based on historical data).

Year	Expected petrol price per km	Weekly kilometers to break even
1	13c - 16c	109 - 150 / week
2	13.39c - 16.48c	106 - 146 / week
3	13.79c - 16.97c	103 - 142 / week
4	14.21c - 17.48c	100 - 137 / week
5	14.63c - 18.01c	97 - 133 / week
6	15.07c - 18.55c	13 - 15 / week *

* With no loan repayments from the 6th year onwards, there is only the operating cost of the bakfiets to consider, hence the dramatic drop in operating costs.

Again, this analysis is quite conservative, as the cost of petrol typically trends up at a rate nearer to 10% per annum, but with some downward corrections from time to time when the global economy tanks.

Taking historical petrol price trends into account

Looking at the best data set I could find, which records the price of fuel in the USA since 1990 (see here), we see that the cost of fuel increased from US$1.191 to US$3.262 per US-gallon between August 1990 and November 2013, for an average annualised increase of 4.5%, compared with US inflation which averaged 2.7% during the same period (see here).

So let's calculate the outlook where we assume that petrol will increase at 4.5% per year instead of 3% per year:

Year	Expected petrol price per km	Weekly kilometers to break even
1	13c - 16c	109 - 150 / week
2	13.59c - 16.72c	104 - 144 / week
3	14.20c - 17.47c	100 - 137 / week
4	14.88c - 18.26c	96 - 131 / week
5	15.50c - 19.08c	91 - 126 / week
6	16.20c - 19.94c	12 - 14 / week *

* With no loan repayments from the 6th year onwards, there is only the operating cost of the bakfiets to consider, hence the dramatic drop in operating costs.

These figures are still on the high-side of realistic, given that I only average 80km/week. But as I have made clear above, the figures are purposefully very conservative.

Taking realistic residual value of the bakfiets into account

For example, it is likely that a bakfiets would have a residual value of around AU$1,000 - AU$2,000 after five years, and assuming it was well enough maintained to still work, AU$500 would be the lowest realistic figure here.  Recycling the capital at the end of the five years (lets assume AU$1,000 resale value for the bike at the end) to payout the balance of the loan would reduce the weekly loan repayment to between AU$11.61 and AU$14.16 per week.  Adding the AU$2.31/week operating costs for the bakfiets back in, the total weekly cost would be AU$13.92 - AU$16.47, .

So let's see how that works out:

Year	Expected petrol price per km	Weekly kilometers to break even
1	13c - 16c	87 - 127 / week
2	13.59c - 16.72c	83 - 122 / week
3	14.20c - 17.47c	80 - 116 / week
4	14.88c - 18.26c	77 - 111 / week
5	15.50c - 19.08c	73 - 107 / week
6	16.20c - 19.94c	12 - 14 / week *

* With no loan repayments from the 6th year onwards, there is only the operating cost of the bakfiets to consider, hence the dramatic drop in operating costs.

That one simple change of assuming an AU$1,000 residual value at the end of the five years reduces the kilometres to about what I do now -- still without relying on any of the "fixed" costs of owning a car reducing.

Taking variable car depreciation costs into account

The VPTI suggest that the variable depreciation cost per mile of travel is about US$0.055.  That is, driving one extra mile will, on average, reduce the resale value of a five year old car by 5.5c.  On newer cars the effect is even greater.  Thus we can add 5.5c/mile = 3.44c/km to the fuel cost and recalculate the impact:

Year	Expected petrol+depreciation cost per km	Weekly kilometers to break even
1	16.44c - 19.44c	72 - 100 / week
2	17.03c - 20.16c	69 - 97 / week
3	17.64c - 20.91c	67 - 93 / week
4	18.32c - 21.70c	64 - 90 / week
5	18.94c - 22.52c	62 - 87 / week
6	19.64c - 23.38c	10 - 12 / week *

* With no loan repayments from the 6th year onwards, there is only the operating cost of the bakfiets to consider, hence the dramatic drop in operating costs.

Given that the worst case cost of owning a bakfiets (on a 10% loan and no residual value at the end) is only $1,014 per year, you don't need to save much on parking costs, less frequent car servicing and other incidentals to reduce the break-even point.  And that doesn't include using the bakfiets to avoid trailer hire, taxi fares to the airport, let alone being able to get rid of that second car (or in our case, not needing one in the first place).  We have also completely ignored the social, emotional, family and other non-economic benefits of bakfiets ownership.

In fact, my observation is that riding around Adelaide you can collect an average of one 10c deposit container every two kilometres, thus offsetting the cost of running by 5c per kilometre.  5c x 4,000 kilometres = $200 per year -- sufficient to easily cover the non-capital operating costs of the bakfiets.

Cargo bikes at the Adelaide Christmas Pageant

This is not the first year that we have ridden in to the pageant with the kids.  This year it was especially appealing, as our state government is still in the process of upgrading the local railway line, and driving is never a good option to an event that attracts about 20% of the total population of the state in any given year.

This year the kids used the seats in the box to increase their elevation so that they could get a better view:

Caleb's attention span was a bit short, so he and I walked around a bit, allowing Mummy to climb in with Isabel who together had a lovely "girls time" watching the floats:

The Adelaide Christmas Pageant is apparently the largest in the world (179 floats, bands and other features this year, apparently), and is certainly lots of fun for little people (and their accompanying big people).  I didn't get many shots of the floats, but

Walking around with Caleb, I had a good chance to see what other bikes people were riding there.  It was great to see a lot of people had ridden in on various "normal" bikes, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this year was the number and variety of cargo bikes that were there.

I don't remember seeing any other than ours last year, but this year there was quite a variety.  Here are pictures of the ones I found within a few hundred metres of our spot on South Terrace where the pageant starts.  I have no idea if there were more (or how many more) along the couple of kilometres of the remainder of the route.

Another Bakfiets.nl cargo long, just like ours, but with reflector strips on the side.

One of several trikes.

Caleb inspecting another trike with fun space-invaders decoration.

Some other kids loaded in their trike. I don't remember if they were coming or going.

Yet another trike.

The number of trikes was intriguing.  Some of them were from families with 3+ children, which makes sense for the space.  But at least one parent I spoke to, on learning I had a two-wheel cargo bike, expressed what I took as some regret that they hadn't bought a two-wheeler, as he had realised that the trikes are not as stable at speed.

I remember when I was contemplating getting a cargobike that I was leaning towards a trike, and it really was just someone who made me realise that a two-wheeler is the better option (unless you have too many kids to fit).  They simply asked me two questions: 1. Can you ride a bike? and 2. If so, then why are you thinking of getting a trike?  The implication being that the two-wheelers are a better option, unless there is some reason why you can't ride or use one.

I am inclined to support their view.  Two-wheelers are no wider than a normal bike, substantially lighter (possibly the only sentence where a bakfiets.nl cargo long and "lighter" can be used together ;), handle well at speed (we have had ours up to 65km/hour with kids on board, admittedly down a big hill. They are also typically a bit cheaper.

Not strictly cargo bikes, but I still approve of this method of transportation, and unlike us, they were allowed to join in the pageant.

There were a few bike+trailer combinations, but there were more cargo-bikes than trailers.

There was even a bullit, fitted out to seat one fast passenger.  Bullit's are much faster than most other cargo bikes, but with more traditional bike parts (which is part of their appeal for many) are more effort to maintain, like a "normal" bike.

 We also managed a few shots of some of the 179 floats and bands as we walked about.

 

There was even a float with a bicycle theme:

And of course Father Christmas and his reindeer are the cavalry, following the floats to the "Magic Cave" on North Terrace:

Then it was time to get ready to ride home: