Many people in NZ still perceive “bicycles” as only either a mountain-bike of some sort or a sleek road bike. When that is your worldview of bikes, it’s not surprising that you might struggle to comprehend that they could also be used to carry stuff (and other people) or that they could be useful in less-than-fine weather.
A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting the City Council and parked my bike at the Hereford St entrance. As has been mentioned before, there never seems to be quite enough bike parking at Council but what really struck me (and why I took a photo) was the variety of bikes on display:
In amongst the more usual assortment of MTB and road bikes, let’s see what we can see:
- Two cargo bikes
- Three bikes with baskets
- Two bikes with panniers (disclosure: one was mine) and a couple more with racks that could take panniers
- Eight bikes with mudguards
- Some interesting semi-bike/scooter device…
(a good number of bike bells too…)
It’s encouraging to see people choosing a wide variety of bikes and accessories to suit their respective needs. More and more local bike retailers are catering to these needs and if they don’t do the trick then the internet is a pretty impressive marketplace too.
Have you noticed a wider variety of bikes around Christchurch lately?
Thanks LennyBoy for this great pic!
When we arrived in Christchurch about 6 years ago, we brought with us our Danish Nihola cargo bike in a container from Belgium. At this time we were virtually the only ones in ChCh with a cargo bike. People were cheering us on the streets because they had never seen such a ‘thing’ which we found funny and sad at the same time. Such bikes are very common all across north-western Europe, and we really felt we had arrived at the very backwaters of cycling culture. Nobody would actually believe that this was our car-substitute and that we used it for everything from shopping to transporting our kids.
Six years on, it’s fantastic to see more people cycling and a greater variety of bikes including cargo bikes. They are a great alternative to the car! Six years on, we are still a car-free family and seeing more cargos gives me some slight hope for the future of this unfortunately still much too car-dominated town. The MCRs have certainly been contributing to the success and I hope that the council continues its great efforts to make cycling a more pleasant and popular form of commute in ChCh.
Check out this crazy event from February 2014, Andreas. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cargo_bike_race_Christchurch_2014