Many Australians are caught in a
vicious cycle where they own or are paying off older cars with intrinsically high running costs, with maintenance, fuel
inefficiency, loan repayments, insurance and registration costs all
adding up to several thousand dollars per year.
The high cost of participating in this
cycle contributes to poverty, and makes it a difficult cycle to escape, for example, by finally purchasing a newer, more reliable and
fuel-efficient vehicle. Even then, many of the costs remain, and for
Australians on low incomes this represents a significant drain on
their limited finances.
Car ownership is practically a
background assumption for suburban Australian life. Most of us don't even question the need for a car if you live in the suburbs, and so
this cycle continues to hold many Australians in financial bondage.
As a long-time cyclist I had long found my own way to step outside of
this cycle riding my bike to work, and easily saving enough to buy a
good new bike and go on a pleasant holiday each year.
But I am aware that the traditional
Australian approach to cycling just doesn't work for many people.
The kinds of bikes we ride in Australia are fundamentally pieces of
sports equipment, and you need to have a sporty or determined
approach, and a willingness to endure a bit of pain, mess,
inconvenience and difficulty in the process. If you needed to cart
your kids to child care or school, or carry reasonable loads around,
e.g., to do the weekly shopping, then the inconvenience rapidly turns
to impossibility.
Then through some Danish friends and
work trips to Northern Europe I discovered the utility cycling
cultures thriving there. Bikes in Berlin, Amsterdam and Copenhagen
aren't sports equipment – they are practical, comfortable and
convenient transportation appliances.
The differences include many seemingly
little things, that together make a profound difference, like a more
comfortable up-right riding position and comfy sprung seats, the
ubiquitous AXA frame-mounted locks where your key stays in while
unlocked, sensible stands that will hold a loaded bike upright
(locked and parked in under 10 seconds), proper fenders, chain-cases
and skirt-guards that stop you getting dirty when riding,
low-maintenance internal hub gears and sealed drum brakes, and
thorn-proof tyres with built-in reflectors, through to dynamo lights (with
battery backup for the rear, and with the dynamo built into the front
hub), low step-through frames that are easy to mount, and copious
integrated storage options.
As a result, these statfietsen (city
bikes) and bakfietsen (box or cargo bikes) as the Dutch call them are
much more practical for life in the suburbs than sports bicycles, in
much the same way that a station wagon is more suited to suburban
life than is a racing car. Millions of Dutch, Danish and Germans
(including many, many Mums) cart children, groceries, building
supplies and themselves around comfortably and cleanly using utility
bikes.
We tend to view these countries as
something of an oddity, and their experience as irrelevant to
Australian suburban life. However, the reality is that most of
suburban Adelaide is about as flat as Amsterdam, and has considerably
less wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail, steep bridges and narrow crowded
streets than Amsterdam. In short, Adelaide is arguably better suited
to a utility cycling culture than in Northern Europe.
In the year or so that we have owned
our cargo bike, I have ridden almost 5,000km, made innumerable
shopping trips, carried loads of compost, firewood, bottles for
recycling as well as taking the kids to school and childcare and
carrying my gear to and from work each day.
One of the less obvious benefits is how
the daily kid-run commute is transformed from a stressful necessity
into daily quality time with the kids as we sing, play games, avoid
traffic snarls, park in the middle of the school yard, and sometimes
give little friends a ride when we get there or stop for a few
minutes at a playground on the way. Similarly going to the shops is
now extremely convenient, parking right outside the supermarket door.
But perhaps the most unexpected benefit is avoiding taxi fares when flying for work, as I now load my suitcase into the bike, ride to the
airport, park the bike for free for as long as I am gone, and reverse
the process on the way home.
It also turns out for us that it is
faster to do the morning kid-run by cargo bike than by car –
despite the fairly sedate speeds one attains on a cargo bike full of
kids and gear, despite the fact that I only average about 15km/hour
on the bakfiets. Part of the gain comes from the ability to ride in
the school yard instead of having to find a park, and not have to
remove, walk at toddler-speed and re-harness Mr. Two when delivering
Ms. One to school.
With the advent of electric-assist on
bikes, it is possible to average more like 25km/hour on the flat, in
your work gear, and without breaking a sweat. This further improves
the competitiveness of utility bikes, especially when you consider
that peak hour speeds in Adelaide are mostly between 20km/hour and
35km/hour (not counting the nightmare of parking near schools and
child-care centres), and that there are often short cuts available
for cyclists, and in most cases there are routes that allow you to
mostly avoid the main roads and enjoy a pleasant commute that add to
your day, instead of ruining it.
In short, while we may not realise it,
there is an option for many of us to escape the car trap – or in
the least the two-car-family trap – and save money, time and sanity
in the process. But first we have to understand the difference
between bicycles that are sports equipment and those that are
practical transport, and stop thinking about practical utility bikes
as a European oddity. As is often the case, it is the cultural change
that is the limiting factor.
