The week’s top bike news from around the world, brought to you every Friday.
Local news
A great education
Melbourne school teacher Ross Schubach heads to Gippsland with a group of his students tomorrow to make RACV Great Victorian Bike Ride history as the teacher who’s lead students on the most rides, with this being ride number 23. It’s an impressive achievement, getting kids active and exploring parts of Victoria they’d never discover on a typical holiday.
Rider awarded over $380,000 in compensation
A Queensland rider has successfully won his case against a taxi driver who veered in front of him and stopped suddenly causing a collision that left the rider injured and unable to work.
The price of congestion
Congestion currently costs Australian tax payers $13 billion each year, and obesity has overtaken tobacco as the number one cause of preventable disease, costing us a whopping $60 billion annually. An increasing number of studies show that active transport, including walking and cycling, can help unclog both our cities and our arteries. Melburnians can check their congestion score at Unlock the Grid.
Adelaide gears up for change
The City of Adelaide Council have relseaed a new ten-year plan to combat riding congestion in the CBD, discouraging car traffic and improving bike, pedestrian and public transport and infrastructure.
International news
Batman goes mountain biking
Blind aeronautical engineering student Dan Smith uses a bike kitted out with ‘bat echolocation’ technology to take on a mountain bike trail.
Super six wunderkinder
Some of these kids may be yet to learn their times tables, but they’re giving some of the world’s best riders a run for their money.
Infrastructure key to bike safety in numbers
In the UK the rate of cycling related injuries has been increasing faster than the number of bums on bikes, disproving the idea that there’s “safety in numbers”. Bike advocates claim that in order to make the roads safer road laws must be more strongly enforced and improved infrastructure for riders is needed.
Where to bikes come from?
An inside peek at the Giant factory in Taiwan.
Health
Exercise slows brain shrinkage
As we age, our brain begins to shrink, reducing memory and cognitive capacity. However, a new study has shown that those who exercise regularly have more grey matter (where messages are formed) and less damage to white matter (used to transmit messages). Exercise increases the flow of oxygen to the brain and is now believed to be more effective at keeping us sharper for longer than mentally demanding tasks, such as crossword puzzles and reading.
Video
Life blood of the city
Pedro Miguel Cruz reimagines Lisbon’s traffic as blood through arteries to highlight where and when congestion is at its peak.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31031656 w=500&h=281]
Lisbon’s Blood Vessels – A mapping experiment from Pedro Miguel Cruz on Vimeo.
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I’d like to know more about the Whistler Wunderkid’s bike rack