CYCLETHE MEMBERS’ MAGAZINE - No. 191 AUGUST TO OCTOBER 2021 COMMUNITY CYCLING NEWS SEA OTTER FESTIVAL A CRUCIAL STEP FOR BIKE SA RUPERT’S CROSS- CONTINENTAL EXPRESS IT’S TIME FOR REAL ROAD CONGESTION SOLUTIONS CONTENTS BICYCLE SA OFFICE Front cover image: 11A Croydon Road, Keswick SA 5035 Elite racing will be on show at Sea Otter Australia. Phone (08) 8168 9999 Fax (08) 8168 9988 CEO and President’s Notes 3, 7 Email [email protected] Web www.bikesa.asn.au Sea Otter Festival is a Vital, Exciting Step For Bike SA 4-6 @BicycleSA @bicyclesa Congestion Busting Starts with Busting @bike_sa the Old, Failed Model 7 Bicycle SA Cross-Continental Express – Rupert’s Ride The Bike SA office is open Mondays to Thursdays, 9am to 5pm for Health and Hope 8-9 Outback Odyssey 2021 10 CYCLE Join The Ride For Fun, Friendship and a Sea Otter Festival Crucial — page 4-6 Cycle is published quarterly Better Future 11 ISSN: 2208-3979 Riding Their Way to a Rare Achievement 13 DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this magazine are not MEMBER SUBMISSIONS necessarily those of Bicycle SA. Bicycle SA does After A New Cycling Challenge? not guarantee the accuracy of information Try Velogaine 12 published herein. © 2021 BICYCLE SA Original articles in Cycle are copyrighted to Bicycle South Australia Incorporated (Bicycle SA) unless otherwise specified. Non-profit organisations may reproduce articles copyrighted to Bicycle SA, with only minor modification, without the permission of the authors, provided Bicycle SA is sent, as a courtesy and condition, a copy of the publications Cross-Continental Express— page 8/9 containing such reproduction. Articles copyrighted to their authors may not be Contributing to Cycle Have you something you would like to reproduced without the express authorisation of contribute to Cycle? If so we’d love to hear their authors. Bicycle SA and the original authors about it. Please contact the Bike SA office. reserve the right to take legal action for breach Email: [email protected] of copyright where these instructions are not complied with. BICYCLE SA EXECUTIVE TEAM President, Maureen Merrick Email [email protected] Vice President, Nathan Petrus Treasurer, Tom Walker Secretary, Anne Smith Committee Chris Beauchamp Real Road Congestion Solutions — page 7 Warwick Cooper Rowan McKeown Michael Killmier Carol Seely Nick Spyrou 2 CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S NOTES CHRISTIAN HAAG state election is on the way so, unsurprisingly, vehicles”. The simple fact is if you plan for cars, A our elected members are out in public you get more cars – the congestion status quo boasting about their achievements over the remains. But if you plan for people, across the past four years. And that is perfectly reasonable, full spectrum of transport modes with an eye to achievements should be applauded. living, not just fast moving, everyone benefits, including drivers. But how should we respond if these achievements, no matter how impressive, shiny and new, are Amsterdam, a city that already has a better taking us in completely the wrong direction? balance of transport priorities than most, is committed to removing 10,000 more parking What should we say if these achievements, which spaces from its streets while Paris is redesigning will dominate our infrastructure and behaviour its world-famous boulevard – the Champs Elysees for decades to come, fly in the face of established – to favour people over vehicles to the tune of patterns that are proving successful for the wealth, 140,000 fewer car parks. The notion of removing efficiency and personal and environmental health so much as a handful of parking spaces in enough of communities around the globe? HOW TO REALLY ACHIEVE to induce apoplexy in Adelaide political circles. CONGESTION REDUCTION On Page 7 of this edition we discuss with you the Nationally, France has a bill in the works to offer ways our Minister for Transport and Infrastructure people 2500 euros to scrap older, dirtier cars if they Corey Wingard has been boasting of “congestion- use the money to buy an e-bike instead. Such an busting” achievements on our roads that are idea could offer a multitude of benefits here. And neither truly congestion-busting nor helpful in Spain has approved its first national cycling strategy the long-term for a modern 21st Century society. with its top priority as “to pursue sustainable Here then, we will point out what could and mobility through a modal shift to cycling”. should be done, backed up by evidence of what is Thousands of kilometres of “pop-up” bike lanes being done in cities and countries where people around the world have been made permanent are prioritised over motor vehicles and their when leaders saw how popular, effective and societies are reaping the benefits of that wisdom. advantageous they were. Adelaide is alone in Firstly, ask yourself who is meant to be the eschewing such a policy and instead voting to beneficiary of all this infrastructure? The promote a “drivers’ month” to actually encourage answer should be “the people” but if you take more cars into a car-centric city. a dispassionate look the true answer is “motor Continues Page 7 PRESIDENT’S NOTES MAUREEN MERRICK Then on 2nd March 2021 the Unley BUG group tours and may be contacted on 0420 858 263. introduced a second ride, on this occasion exploring the cycleways of Unley and beyond, We would like to welcome David Elliott, the again at a leisurely pace with coffee to follow. incoming chair of the Unley BUG group. David may be contacted on [email protected] This ride is held weekly on Tuesdays, commences for further details of the ride and cycling activities at 9.30am and leaves from the front lawns of the in the Unley area. Unley Community Centre, Arthur St, Unley. Congratulations on another year of cycling go to The group is run together with the Unley the Cycle Salisbury Social Ride group, who will be Community Centre and the Daily Moves Programme. celebrating their eighth birthday with a social ride on Saturday 4 September. The ride is led each week by Unley Councillor Monica Broniecki who may be contacted on A variety of rides commencing at 9.00am will 0415 042 468 for further details. leave from the Shelter Shed, Carisbrook Park, Main r David Sutton, until recently the chair of the North Rd, Salisbury Park. There will be fast and David has also been responsible for facilitating some Unley BUG group, has for the past two years lower-paced rides along the Little Para and/or Dry D bike maintenance courses which have been very been the Ride Coordinator of their rides. Through Creek trails and mountain bike rides to Cobblers much appreciated by those who have attended. his leadership the following two rides were Creek. At the conclusion of the rides, lunch (at the riders’ expense) will be at the Old Spot Hotel, introduced into our Rides Programme: We would like to acknowledge and thank David Salisbury Park. for the way in which he has raised the level of In September 2019 David conducted leisurely awareness, interest and social aspects of cycling monthly Cycle Unley heritage tours through the Please contact Jim Binder on 0401 984 767 for and in also the ability to locate those unexplored historic areas of Unley including a coffee stop at further information. areas in one’s own suburbs. La Scala Café after the ride. From September, Jennifer Bonham will be Also on offer was the opportunity to have responsible for the monthly Cycle Unley Heritage bikes serviced. 3 SEA OTTER FESTIVAL IS A VITAL, EXCITING STEP FOR BIKE SA In this article, Bike SA CEO Christian Haag explains why the organisation has made the bold move to launch a unique and significant new event onto the Australian cycling landscape, why it is crucial to take this step and why its location – Canberra – was the best available option. fter a false start last year thanks to the ACoronavirus, Bike SA is on the cusp of launching a new event that is a step beyond anything the cycling industry and community has seen in Australia before. Sea Otter Australia, a huge cycling festival and expo at Canberra’s Stromlo Forest Park from October 1-4, is taking the Sea Otter Classic that has run successfully in Monterey, California for 30 years and bringing it to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. It is big, it is diverse, it is ambitious … and it is also very necessary to keep Bike SA performing at the level of engagement, advocacy and service to the cycling community that we want it to be for years to come. “For many years now we’ve seen that traditional events have been attracting fewer and fewer participants. This is not just a local issue, it is reflected around the country, affecting all our fellow state associations - we are all feeling the pinch,” Bike SA CEO Christian Haag says. “So this, combined with the consumers’ voracious appetite for new styles of events where they can use new products put out by the industry, means that for organisations like Bike SA to rapidly create new events and sell them to the community is a great challenge and an industry’s new products and we saw that an SA to a lack of interest for the government to fund expensive one. presentation of Sea Otter in September/October world-class events that may be perceived to would not only deliver the presentation of all the compete with a government-owned event like “For this reason, some years ago we were looking best bike bits that riders anticipate each year but the TDU.