Category: Blog

10th August 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 336: ‘We’re crazy about human bikes’: Mike Sinyard on e-bikes, the new Tarmac SL8 and more

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Mike Sinyard and Ben Edwards

TOPICS: Interview with Specialized founder and chairman Mike Sinyard at the UCI World Cycling Championships, Glasgow.

Video snippet of this interview on YouTube

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 336 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered Thursday 10th August 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www. ternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:04
I recorded today’s show in Glasgow at the UCI world cycling championships. I’m Carlton Reid, and as well as a 50 kilometre hilly bike ride on the all new S-Works Tarmac SL8 road bike, I got a chance to talk with Specialized founder and today’s chairman, Mike Sinyard and the company’s global marketing lead Ben Edwards. You have a very very nice bike. Yeah, here. Yeah, you’re not here just to launch the bike. There’s a kind of a nice event happen. Event. Many, many events just happening outside here. So you’ve been to quite a few of the world championship events?

Mike Sinyard 1:48
Yeah. Through the through the years there this year coming on 50 years for specialized. Wow, it’s a long time. Yeah. No, but this is quite beautiful to have the super worlds, you know, and everything. Yeah, the events here at one time is is quite special. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 2:06
Yeah. That’s cool. We’ve been to Glasgow before. No, no, no. Scotland has been to Scotland before. For various championships down the years and stuff.

Mike Sinyard 2:16
No, I haven’t really known for different championships. No.

Carlton Reid 2:20
So the bike that you’ve you’ve you’ve launching? Yes. Here. The people writing it in these events? Or why why launch it just because tonnes of bike media, tonnes of bike people out? Why are you? Why here? Well.

Mike Sinyard 2:37
So we’ve been working on this bike, we say this is everything we know for 50 years. And although it doesn’t look that exotic it is, it really is. The sum of everything that we’ve done with this bike is very, very special.

Carlton Reid 2:55
So that that that I know you were going to call the snot rocket at some at one point. It’s good not to be that it’s not rocket. But that is quite a bulbous nose. You’ve got there, Mike,

Mike Sinyard 3:07
we call that. The nose. Speed. Speed sniffer?

Mike Sinyard 3:13
Yeah, yeah, we

Mike Sinyard 3:14
thought that was good,

Carlton Reid 3:15
better. That’s not rocket I definitely agree. So is that is that because I also read that almost 50% of the arrow savings are coming from the handlebars. So it’s what’s what’s happening here is the handle, right?

Mike Sinyard 3:28
Ben knows more of the detail than I do.

Ben Edwards 3:30
Right? When it comes down to is after, you know, like Mike said, you know, decades of development. And you know, now we’ve been in a wind tunnel for a decade, the aero understanding of the team is, is incredible. And they’ve really identified that look, we need to attack the leading edge of this bike in a brand new way. That’s at the leading edge in a way we haven’t seen before. And attacking the leading edge like that, whether it’s the bars, the head to the fork blades, gave them incredible opportunity in the rear of the bike, to work on lightweight ride quality, to bring all of those features together in a way that has never been done before. So really, when you look at the aero of the bike, it’s really about attacking the aero where it truly matters. And then everywhere else, we’ll work on that ride quality, that lightweight. And that’s how that combination comes together.

Carlton Reid 4:15
That’s Specialized global marketing lead Ben Edwards there. And you can see him Mike and me in a video of part of this interview that I’ve embedded on the show notes page on the-spokesmen.com. But now back to Glasgow, and then you’ve had your gender neutral stance for two years, more than two years. But beyond gender. Yeah, much more than two years, more than two years. Yeah. So this is a bike that this is not going to be shrink it and pink is a different version. This is gonna be the same for women.

Mike Sinyard 4:48
And we discovered I think it was like, five years or six years. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And, in fact, when we you know, we have all the retrieval data and we had all this data from the different writers And we’ve and we really found that there was, sometimes there was more difference between two men, in some cases than a man and a woman. And the same thing out, we’re taking that analysis also on the shoes, so it was like, but in areas that really make a difference under saddles and other areas, then we really go deep. But we didn’t want to try to create a difference where there wasn’t a difference.

Carlton Reid 5:27
That kind of makes sense. But yeah, and it has less SKUs as well.

Mike Sinyard 5:30
You kind of like, well, yeah, and it was just more logical a lot of times that when we’re saying, hey, I want to ride the regular, the regular tarmac instead of the So, so it was kind of like one of those aha moments.

Carlton Reid 5:44
So that’s an exotic beast. And is that the one I’m riding tomorrow? Or is it what are we riding tomorrow? So what are we riding that tomorrow? So that’s an exotic English money. That’s 12,000 pounds. So it’s an expensive beast?

Ben Edwards 5:57
That’s one’s Remco’s. So you’re not riding that one.

Carlton Reid 5:59
Not that particular one. No.

Mike Sinyard 6:01
But yet, what is cool is like, you know, the one that we sell is the same one. Yes, yes. That you buy, right. It’s very, very special.

Carlton Reid 6:11
And the bikes, we’re gonna be riding tomorrow and the course we’re on. Fantastic that we are riding such exotic, beautiful 12,000 pound machines. But anybody out there who hasn’t got 12,000 pounds to spend the technology on here is on the other layers of bike as well, the other iterations but not the handlebars. Is that right? Is that handlebars is on the top.

Ben Edwards 6:36
You can get the handlebars on the top two levels of bike. Right? So yeah, we do bring the handlebars down. But when you look at the frame set itself, that same technology, so if you buy an expert level mic, you’re gonna have the exact same type of ride quality type of field stiffness, the arrow Evander the frames that you get out of that $4,000 is worse. It is a different carbon.

Mike Sinyard 6:57
Yeah, the layup the material of the carbon and the layup is a lower level.

Ben Edwards 7:02
I think what’s what’s so impressive about it, though, is this bikes frame was 685 grammes, right, which makes it the lightest frame on the World Tour. You look at the fact that 10R carbon, which is that next level down that lower level bike, that weighs only 100 grammes more, which still makes it potentially the second or third lightest bike.

Carlton Reid 7:22
And Ben much is that?

Ben Edwards 7:24
So we can get you all the presses and sell sheets? Everything. So you have all those details? really accurate based on the latest news?

Carlton Reid 7:33
Okay, it’s frightening the way that you said that it’s dollar dollar pound parody. That’s quite frightening. But normally we’d like almost half, you know, when you say don’t use could be, it used to be anyway, that’s, that’s our economic problems, not yours. So when when I was with you in Morgan Hill in 2015, one of the questions I know I asked was about how much of your company will become an electric bike company? And I probably said in 510 years. And I’d have to go back and actually see with my notes and see what you said there. But has that accelerated faster than you thought? Or you think it’s the same? The kind of the trajectory is what you maybe thought in 2015? Where we’d have a as a global bike industry where we’d have a bikes today?

Mike Sinyard 8:23
Yeah, good point, I would say it’s definitely accelerated. It’s accelerated more than we thought. And I would say, because the acceptance on two fronts on a one day enthusiast Bronto going, that’s really cool. And it’s not pedestrian or this not because I’m a weak writer, it’s even cooler. Right, on that side. And then I think, on the other side, a lot of people that maybe weren’t writers who are hadn’t written for a long time, come in. And so it’s kind of made made it easier for cycling, to really be social. You know, I mean, it’s a pretty tough sport, right? It’s all about, you know, dropping people and things like that. But it’s like, with, with the electric, hey, everybody can have fun, and you can determine how much you want to work. Right. And so I think it was just made, like years ago, when the mountain bike came out, I, I would say the beautiful thing about the mountain bike is everybody was invited in young kids, middle aged kids, or kids, you know, whatever. And it was like, it wasn’t who was the fastest it was who had the most fun. So it really made the activity of cycling much greater. Whereas the road thing historically was a little bit too narrow. So so for that reason, and I think just the fun of it, and people realise As in, hey, I can get around quickly on the bike. And I can still get a lot of workout. I mean, there’s so many people I know they’ve got one of our limos or one of those other bikes, and they go, she’s you know, I’ve lost 1010 kilos, you know, just from riding this bike, and I feel great. So now beautiful

Carlton Reid 10:20
bikes. I’ve had one on test. Thank you.

Mike Sinyard 10:22
So it’s, it’s great. I think from that standpoint, I would say it’s gonna continue to go.

Carlton Reid 10:28
So you’re known for these bikes here. Of course, the alternative to E bikes. So how, what’s the proportion between specialized e bikes and specialized road? Or just any other bike? That isn’t electric?

Mike Sinyard 10:40
Yeah. You mean as far as the business? Yeah, I would say it’s, it’s getting to be about a little less than half the electric. Okay. Yeah. In the business.

Carlton Reid 10:53
So other companies are definitely almost 60% 70% Yeah, they are going bad. Do you? Do you see, specialized Yeah,

Mike Sinyard 11:00
I see is going there. And, and but I would say this part. We call it the, the muscular bikes. This one guy in Latin America, he calls it the human likes to laugh. Sometimes we joke in the US that these are the Amish bikes. But I would say they were always known for this. Right. And the mountain bikes as well. So we, we keep going with that. So

Carlton Reid 11:29
to 50 is pretty good. I must go back to my notes from I should have done this before I can just as find out what you said back then.

Mike Sinyard 11:36
I don’t put much No, you probably

Carlton Reid 11:38
thought it might last

Mike Sinyard 11:39
No. adoption has been really good. And and I would say the people that came in with the electric, I would say we brought new people into the activity, for sure.

Carlton Reid 11:53
Because I’m a historian. So I’m a historian of cycling in the 1890s, early 1900s When all of those bike companies actually morphed into either motorbike companies, or an awful lot of them, like dodge or Chrysler, they all became car companies. So the bike became a car. And it’s very, you can you can imagine the Segway of a bike becoming a motorbike quite easily. But oh, yeah.

Mike Sinyard 12:19
Well, Honda is a car. Example. Yeah, Euro Honda, right? Yeah.

Carlton Reid 12:25
So my question would have been then, would have been probably the same would have been? Can you ever imagine a time where specialised is almost like Harley Davidson? In that it only motorised bicycles? Do you think there’s always going to be a space for the human bicycle in specialised? Because there are all those bike companies that were bike companies 100% within 2030 years, you know, we’re, we’re motorbike companies, right? Could the same happen to specialised?

Mike Sinyard 12:58
No, one no. Because we’re too crazy about this part of it. And, and, in fact, you know, it’s funny when you’re a peddler like you are. And then you get on, like, a vivo or a creo. You appreciate it even more. Right? Because, you know, you know, it’s kind of like, that’s why we say it’s you only faster, right? So the appreciation is you and then the extra. So I would say for us. No, no, we’re always going to be with with the human bikes.

Carlton Reid 13:37
Yeah, but it is gonna get smaller.

Mike Sinyard 13:41
Yeah, yeah, I think so I think certain of the segment like the road bike and the mountain bike, and there’s this, as you know, there’s a certain purity to that this really enjoyable, right?

Carlton Reid 13:55
I’m gonna cut in there for a quick commercial break. And I’m gonna take you across to my colleague, David.

David Bernstein 14:01
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast and of course, the spokesmen. And I’m here once again to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for Tern is to make sure that your ride is safe and worryfree and that’s why Tern works with industry leading third party testing labs like E FB, E, and builds it bikes around Bosch ebike systems which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded, and perhaps with a loved one behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame and the rigours of the road. For more information, visit www.ternbicycles.com to learn more. And now, back to the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 15:10
Thanks, David. And we are back in Glasgow, with Mike Sinyard and a little bit of Ben Edwards. And we had a the industry had a good COVID in that we sold a whole tonne of bikes, kind of it was pretty well expected that it probably wouldn’t last and we would have this major falling off a cliff, which we did. Where are we now? Are we are we climbing back up that cliff? And we have we suffered so much from that glut of inventory? Van? It’s it’s even a take a few years from now. Where do you see the industry as a whole? Not just specialized? Yeah. Where do you see the industry right now?

Mike Sinyard 15:47
Well, I would say, yeah, it was like, You know what I loved about, I guess you’d say the good thing about the COVID, right. In some ways, it brought people back to the regular to their values of the family, in the home. And whenever there’s a lot of stress in the world, a lot of time people returned to the bicycle. And even sometime when there’s like, in different parts of the worlds, there’s a lot of layoffs like a Silicon Valley, everybody laid off. Well guess what? Bikes, people riding their bikes like crazy. And I think we saw that during COVID. And so I think there’s a lot more cyclists out there. Now, I would say, okay, it went up a little bit, it went up a lot, and nobody can keep up. But I would say, Did it come, it hasn’t come back to the lower level that it did before, is still higher.

Carlton Reid 16:46
Right? Because you founded your company. When the bike boom was based that the 70s Bike boom was pretty much finished. It was it was in the death throes when you wrote when you found your company. So you’ve been through an enormous amount

Mike Sinyard 17:00
of everything seemed like an improvement.

Carlton Reid 17:03
We think there’s enough people kind of came along like Cannondale was at the same time track obviously was rough at the same time. So those companies came about an angular eight Schwinn’s breakfast eventually. But they came about because of the boom, and then stuck around, do you think the similar is going to happen in that the industry will kind of catch up and stay at a higher level than pre COVID?

Mike Sinyard 17:29
Yes, I think it is, I think it is already to a higher level, it definitely is for us at that higher level. And I think it’ll maintain there. And but probably not for all, as you read, there’s been a lot of people leaving, you know, because of this because of the crunch. But I think long term, or even this year, and next year,

Carlton Reid 17:56
is better given there are too many brands, do you think there are too many brands?

Mike Sinyard 18:01
Well, that’s for the consumer to design? Yeah, it seems like seemed like a lot. But you know, there’s all kinds of flavour for different people and and I think cycling, you think about all the forces coming together, right? environmental things. And for sure, the the thing of people wanting to express themselves and, and feel free riding the bike. And then people, I think we’re ended up with so many lifetimes, cyclists now. Really believe that, and the ebike is adding to that the momentum continues that way. And

Carlton Reid 18:48
as you mentioned, environmental there. So that was one of my questions now would have been, where do you see the bicycle in a climate change? In a world of climate change? Do you see that as a growth area? Or do you still see it’s going to be health? Where’s where’s the future growth going to come from? Do you think there’ll be any boost from the growing awareness of climate change? And maybe how we should be getting around in by different means?

Mike Sinyard 19:14
Well, I think we already see it. And I think there will be even more in the future. And for people living in the city, whether they’re doing it for climate benefit, as just practical, you can get around, whereas in the car, you’re stuck, you know, maybe take you hour and on the bike and take you 15 minutes and you feel better. And I believe that more you know, we have the outride that we’ve been working on and and started 11 years ago with Harvard Medical and now working with Stanford and all these students we have 50,000 kids go through. So I would say we have proved that. The kid And, and the research has proven as a fact, not a hypothesis, but a fact that how cycling lights up your brain, we even have that device, right? The device, the helmet device, and you can see like a person, you know, before and after enduring. And it’s a fact, right. And it’s just opening it up. And so you know, as we say pedals, pedals, not pills, sometimes these characters need to get out and ride and in light up their brains. And so we prove that that works. That is a fact. And I’m proud of that. And it’s not about specialising in the bike industry is a much bigger thing. But that was the thing I wanted to happen is just to prove it, to where at some point, even your next door neighbour will know that that is a fact.

Carlton Reid 21:02
And where does gravel fit in for you?

Mike Sinyard 21:05
Yeah, gravel? Well, I think it’s it’s a wonderful thing. Being able to hear you think about gravel and it’s like, I think the road bikes even all the road bikes are gravitating. One thing I wanted to mention about the outright. It here’s another thing is in the world, you know, the thing for Ageing adults with dementia, that one of the things we believe, and we believe that we can improve that even more impact for Ageing adults, in staving keeping off their dementia, from lighting up the brain, where we’re sure that in some of the early research shows that right? Because it is a circulatory issue. But you know, and then you talk about gravel? Well, I think the idea of the of the bigger tire, like the writing your son is doing or whatever. It just makes sense, right? Going into gravel, you know, you hear a car behind you, you pull over keep riding on the dirt. I think it’s just it’s the way to go. Right?

Carlton Reid 22:18
I’m assuming that you’re still doing your lunchtime rides, you’re still going out? Are you going on a gravel bike? Are you going on a road bike? Do you mix it up?

Mike Sinyard 22:27
Well, where we live is more on the on the road bike. But most of the riding I do now is off road, on the mountain bike or like on or diverge or something like that a lot?

Carlton Reid 22:40
And then have you? Are you part of the design process? Do you do you put input in or you like,

Mike Sinyard 22:46
I like I like to taste it? On some things? I’m not to the level to communicate about this, but I definitely I can feel the difference of things. Yeah, so yeah.

Carlton Reid 23:07
What do you ride? Do you kind of get a brand new bike all the time, I’m gonna do something new.

Mike Sinyard 23:14
I always like riding with different people. So so. So I’ll ride the epic go off in the, in the woods, right in epic, or some time we have a bigger group from this one house that I have. So we’ll all go out on Levos so everybody’s equal. I love riding Diverge.

Carlton Reid 23:34
It’s happening. I got a favourite bike from the 1990s or something that fits you and it’s just you know, what bike? Would you always go out on the latest iteration the latest model that you’ve got? Or would you

Carlton Reid 23:49
go to ride the new one.

Mike Sinyard 23:52
And then, and then I realise you then I can feel the difference of the new one. And then I still liked the old one. So I ended up keeping it. But the difference is a lot. And then you look at the old bicycle. That’s good. And then you ride it and go

Carlton Reid 24:09
oh, obviously, bike industry people or any product people in any sphere, say the latest bike, the latest tin of beans or whatever. That’s the that’s the greatest. But you’re saying here because well, I’m now going to bring us all way back to this bike. So you’re saying that is the one bike and that fits on all the technologies which you’ve been you’ve been premiering over the last 50 years, that it’s all in that one bike. And that’s now what you would say is the ideal bike which then makes begs the question, well, what you’re doing next year and the year after.

Mike Sinyard 24:47
Sometime, that’s when the team does something I go. Now what are we going to do next time to make it that much better? And what I like About this bike is like, also, this could be the race bike. This is the race bike for the top top riders. But also, we just want a great bike. This is the bike. And it’s also because the compliance of the bike, I always like a bike with a lot of compliance, because I like going for the long rides. And I like the feel of the bike, you know, to be like, I like bigger tires and that feeling. I don’t like it like too sharp like that. I like the feel. And like, that’s why I like riding the crux a lot. And writing in that in the dirt. I almost feel like it has a certain suspension with the with the frame. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 25:48
just based on my question that on like, almost on the iPhone, like the the new iPhone is coming out next month. But you know, for a fact that the engineers, you know, in two years time have got this even better. iPhone, so they come on the stage. This is remember had,

Mike Sinyard 26:04
Is 15th? That’s going out?

Carlton Reid 26:06
Yeah, and they’ve got to say, well, actually, in their heads, they must know if we’ve got even better, you know, iPhone coming out next year. And how do you sell that? Yeah. What is like, the progression can you make in the bike?

Mike Sinyard 26:19
Well, you know, what, is always the question, right? And as soon as you get it, you get that down, you’re thinking? Well, you know, there’s always material advancements, and other things and other ways of testing. And it’s like, you kind of make it a bike like that is like Formula One, if you ever read about that, you know, like we work with McLaren before, and just like, every little thing, everything, every little, tiniest thing, and all those little things added up makes a big difference, right? You know, sometimes, like the team will do something new on the tire with the compound, or the or the other things and you go, Oh my gosh, is you can what I love is when you can be right it and you can feel it. And you go God, how’d you do that? Well, it wasn’t one thing. It was maybe a couple of 100 things that adds up together as a tanky. Right. I always liked that like Formula One. I’m not really a fan, but I liked the process of like a car crashes and they bring all those parts back and they look at this and every you know, like McLaren when Dennison was there doing that it was like that’s a it’s a way of thinking. Right? That that we apply into something like this.

Carlton Reid 27:44
Thanks to Mike Sinyard there and a little bit of Ben Edwards too. And thanks to you for listening to Episode 336 of the spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern bicycles. Show notes, and more can be found at the-spokesman.com. The next episode will be a traffic counting special out later this month. But meanwhile, get out there and ride …

12th July 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 334: From Bam-bu to Dott via Sustrans, Fettle, Flitbike and the Diagram Club

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Dave Walker, Joana Saavedra, Ilma Barbaroviciute, Andy Lu, Alex Murray, Xavier Brice, Henri Moissinac

TOPICS: This is the third and final episode recorded from the Move mobility conference in London last month. Hear from cycling cartoonist Dave Walker, Joana Saavedra from the Bam-bu bicycle company from Portugal, two bike mechanic folks from Fettle, Alex Murray from Flitbike and Xavier Brice, the CEO of Sustrans. Plus, after the ad break, there’s a fireside chat with tech entrepreneur Henri Moissinac cofounder of the city share scooter and e-bike company Dott.

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 334 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Wednesday 12th of June 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:04
This is the third and final episode recorded from the Move mobility conference in London last month. I’m Carlton Reid and, if you listened to the first episode — with Councillor Emily Kerr — and the second one with a bunch of bike infrastructure folks you might have noticed a difference in the audio. With the magic of AI I removed all of the background hubbub from the interview with Emily, but left some in for the second one. Due to popular demand — well, a Twitter poll — I reduced the distracting show chatter by a few decibels but left enough so you could tell that I was recording in an expo hall, not a studio. And I’ve done the same for this episode’s interviews. You’ll hear from cycling cartoonist Dave Walker, Joana Saavedra from the bamboo bicycle company from Portugal, two bike mechanic folks from Fettle, Alex Murray from Flit bike and Xavier Brice, the CEO of Sustrans. After the ad break there are some extracts from a chat I had with tech entrepreneur Henri Moissinac cofounder of the city share scooter and Ebike company Dott. The background audio for that sounds different again because I was interviewing Henri in front of an audience from the show’s main stage. Anyway, kicking us off his Dave Walker. Well, fancy bumping into you here we haven’t met before day.

Dave Walker 2:45
So it’s good to be here.

Carlton Reid 2:48
Yeah. What the hell is is a world famous cycling cartoonist doing at this conference?

Dave Walker 2:58
Well, I’m here to learn, I guess really, in that. I, I normally spend my time shut away in my cartooning lair.

Carlton Reid 3:11
Away from the world. More you meet in real people now. Yes,

Dave Walker 3:15
yes. So it’s nice to be out of the house. So yes, I’m here to essentially I suppose I’m focusing on the micro mobility side of the, of the show. We call it a show, by the way.

Carlton Reid 3:31
Yeah, so it’s talking heads, and then a bunch of like, booths and stands on the outside. So ya know, it’s a show.

Dave Walker 3:40
So I’m here to go to some of the talks and maybe hear a few different perspectives. Because although I focus largely on cycling, I’m interested in sustainable transport generally. And so I’ve got one or two ideas bubbling up things I’ve heard already. And

Carlton Reid 4:01
because when we started talking before, you made a good point, and it is pretty obvious when you start going around even the bicycle elements of this show. It’s basically e elements, everything has got an electric element to it. And the industry is just clearly everything is got a battery now, and it hasn’t got a battery. It’s not innovative, and it’s not Yeah, it’s not going to be an individual conference like that. Is that a worry? Are we old in the tooth? Here we are.

Dave Walker 4:31
We are. But I suppose I can see the if you’re developing something new, then I suppose this is the kind of place you would you come to show off your new direction. And so maybe people who are doing things that are more conventional. This isn’t where you choose to come. But yes, it does seem to be the way things are going because of it that bikes tend to be moving towards having Moto as the standard,

Carlton Reid 5:03
yeah, so the reason I brought you to this particular part of the Startup Village, and the guy’s not here, because he’s Spanish, and he’s gone for a six hour lunch or whatever. But he’s Lane Patrol it so this is basically you’ll get a kick out of this, because he’s doing infrastructure. So it’s a cycling infrastructure. And so it’s of interest to you. And the reason the reason I brought you here is because it was so cute when I was talking to him, and he’s showing me his, his product on his laptop, up popped one of your cartoons, and it’s like, this is somebody in Spain. Yeah, opening up, he’s you. So you’re world famous. And I actually told him, I said, Dave is actually coming, I’m gonna bring him across to see how do you feel? Exactly. ,

Dave Walker 5:56
It’s unexpected that in a very small niche, at least, my work is, is known by people involved in the world of cycling and cycling infrastructure. In other countries, it’s yeah, it’s,

Carlton Reid 6:15
it’s, it doesn’t put, you know, Kit Kats on the table. There’s really no not necessarily. It’s building a profile to making money. Yes.

Dave Walker 6:28
And so you know, there’s a possibility that more people might buy a book, or might join my currently my diagram club is my way that I’m hoping to make a bit of a living from from what I do. So yeah, so it’s good that the works out there and let it’s being seen and enjoyed.

Carlton Reid 6:52
Hopefully he’ll come back and you can get to chat to him and you can probably invoice him. Literally, what’s his screensaver was one of your cartoons, which was which was a new you were coming into the show. So yeah, that was great. I’m, I freely admit that I will rip off cartoons, probably with a cycling element and private eye. And and put that on social media. And I, I probably wouldn’t do that with a photograph. But I saw I have no compunction to do that with a cartoon. Is that something that? Does that annoy you? Or is that just something that I know? It’s part and parcel of what you do as a cartoonist? And other cartoonists go through exactly the same thing? Yeah,

Dave Walker 7:29
I suppose. Yes, I suppose on the one hand, I see lives, probably a bit too short to get too annoyed about this, because it is just going to happen, people do enjoy funny images. And once they have a funny image, they will share it and use it themselves. But on the other hand, is somebody trying to make a living from it? You know, I’m always you know, it’s encouraging when somebody’s willing to pay for something. And so I suppose if somebody’s getting professional use, and if something particularly, and it’s helping them tell their story, get their point across, then, you know, I’d prefer to be

Carlton Reid 8:14
you’re cutting through the illustrations, you’re cutting through an awful lot of, of language and putting an illustration and that’s it then becomes much more visual, obviously. Yeah, but it cuts through the argument.

Dave Walker 8:26
Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s yeah, encouraging to hear, because that’s, that’s, that’s what I hope it will do. And, you know, using a little bit of humour, which I think is these days is a good way to make a point and something that we, you know, we we love the world of stand up. So humour is a useful tool. And that combined with having, you know, a little bit of knowledge of the experience of the world of cycling and

Carlton Reid 8:58
well, that shines through, you know, yeah, you absolutely have nailed a lot to it, which is why people share your stuff. So we’ve established that you are a global superstar. Certainly in Spain, you got a fan there in Spain. Where can we find your stuff? And where can we find out about the club where we can get tickets?

Dave Walker 9:18
So my website is Davewalker.com. So that’s where you’ll find everything that I do I try and link to from there, or I’m very active on Twitter, Instagram, where you can find by searching and but yes, I do. I’ve changed slightly the way I do things. So my cycling stuff originally was in books and the books are still available. One that’s slightly more sports focused and others more about getting just everyday getting from A to B. But as I was saying to you before the last eight Months. So I’ve been running something called diagram Club, which is where people who enjoy my work, pay a small fee and get reused the work in kind of nonprofit ways. Or cycling campaigns or local cycling campaigns will use it

Carlton Reid 10:19
so that they can use it without having the guilt of Oh, yeah, we shouldn’t

Dave Walker 10:24
leave it to people, you know, the, the price for this starts very low. And honestly, if people feel like they’re getting more use from it, then they can, they could pay me more money, which is, you know, obviously welcome. So, so yeah, so that was my way of allowing people who want to support what I do. So I have a way of doing so. And hopefully over time, that will grow and and there’ll be kind of new benefits to those who do join. And yeah, and they’re funding their funding new work, which so even yesterday, I spent the day working on something that wouldn’t really be possible were it not for for that so it’s a way of funding new cycling work that maybe wouldn’t have an immediate commercial backer.

Carlton Reid 11:14
Okay, brilliant. So who are you?

Joana Saavedra 11:16
So I’m Joana the co founder of bamboo bicycles.

Carlton Reid 11:21
What’s your second name?

Joana Saavedra 11:21
Saavedra.

Carlton Reid 11:24
Okay, and you have a co founder, Sorry, I interrupted you there. You’re the co founder of

Joana Saavedra 11:28
Bam-bu bicycles. So we are a Portuguese startup that is exploring bamboo as a natural fibre and natural composites and who are designing and building bamboo bike frames?

Carlton Reid 11:39
In Portugal?

Joana Saavedra 11:40
Yeah, so the frame is entirely made of bamboo, hemp fibre, and a BL based epoxy.

Carlton Reid 11:46
So there are very many brands. I mean, even in the 1880s, and 1890s. There were bamboo. And then there were forgotten. Yes. And then, you know, we’ve we’ve, we’ve got some today, and there’s like an African angle. So what’s what’s the angle of because our bicycle is actually it’s bam.bu? You Yeah. So what’s the angle? What what’s differentiating you? Yeah, from the few others not not a huge amount, but the other bamboo bike maker,

Joana Saavedra 12:13
basically, yeah, the first bamboo bikes that happened was in the UK really long time ago. But then the Industrial Revolution came, and then the natural materials just got forgotten, right. We do know that, you know, in the in Asia, in Africa, and even in Latin America, you have a lot of bamboo, you have a few bamboo constructions, even around in product development. But also bamboo is still seen as the poor material, you know, because it’s you have it’s in such abundance. And some of the companies are some of the startups that are doing a few things with Bumble in Europe, they either do workshops, or they sell you a kit. So you can do it at home, you make it yourself perfect, or they just import the frame. So while we want to do is to bring the know how of working with bamboo on a structural like in Europe, because there will be an industry of bamboo coming up soon, the bamboo plantations are coming up as well, in Portugal, in Spain, in France in Greece,

Carlton Reid 13:06
so where are you sourcing the bamboo from?

Joana Saavedra 13:08
Now it’s in in Indonesia, okay, so at this point is still in Indonesia, because the bamboo needs to be kind of in the right timing needs to be dried needs to be created. So you don’t really have that structure now in Europe, but we are now currently where that’s why we also were founders of the Burien bamboo Association. And our goal is to put the first level is to map the bamboo plantations that already exists in Portugal and Spain understand how long are they do they exist? What are the species for what are they used for so that we can explore ways of Okay, can we create an industry around product development or product design or more for construction or for recessed for textile, or something else? So we’re working with the University now in Lisbon, to do this mapping and to do this analysis of the species and we hope to continue that further to understand in which direction can the bamboo industry goes in Europe?

Carlton Reid 14:04
So potentially you could be growing it in Europe? Yes. So how old this bicycle which is now in front of us beautiful, beautiful bamboo bicycle, how old is the bamboo? What’s What are the age is that bamboo?

Joana Saavedra 14:17
So this bamboo will be always used, usually between three to five years old, okay. So after that, they will be good enough to cut to dry it and to then be used for for construction or for product development.

Carlton Reid 14:32
So in Europe, you can have that soon. Yes,

Joana Saavedra 14:36
yeah. So normally you have the rhizome needs to be developed first, right. So that will take two to three years first, and then the rest of the bamboo Yeah, will grow between three to five years. It really depends then on the species as well. And then as as long as you go, you can then just get it and it grows again. After three, five years. You have it again. That’s why bamboo is such a great one. ress because yeah it’s not a three they’d such a great a great a great plants for it because it’s besides that it regenerates the soil it’s really good for the gives nutritions to the to the soil is that after you plant it once it’s done then you can cut it because otherwise it will, it will dry while it’s there, it’s also not good. So you can edit you can use it for so many different things in the utilisations and then it grows again it’s a really beautiful it’s not a monoculture you can plant other things around and it’s a very magical as well forest normally when you plant them but so we really think it’s it’s important to see it as a as a potential for for restore as well. The nature then biodiversity as well then we can have

Carlton Reid 15:47
carbon composites Yeah, that’s basic plastic. Yeah, you’re writing a plastic bicycle? Yes, you can maybe recycle ish. Steel, okay, that’s a bit of a better material, titanium, these are all kind of like, non sustainable product really? Yes, material in many ways. Whereas of course, this is organic as in grow. Yeah. And you can literally replace it. And then if it breaks, you just basically I’m not saying it’s gonna break, but if it breaks you then that’s a product that can be okay, basically put in a cotton ball.

Joana Saavedra 16:23
Okay, yes. So normally a frame would definitely break because of the alignment of the fibres of the of the bamboo tubes, it could possibly crack. But if it cracks, you can fix it. But in the worst scenario, yeah, that if it breaks, you can either apply toilet and I don’t know, do some crafts or you know, out of it, or you can probably then burn it as well and transform it into biomass or something else.

Carlton Reid 16:51
Yep. So is there any lacquer on there? Is there anything on there that’s not eco that you need? Or can you say literally that’s just

Joana Saavedra 16:59
so the the resin that we’re using the epoxy, it’s a br based epoxy, so it’s not 100% Echo, but he has like around 60% echo on the rest and because it’s still you can for this type of structural that you need, you have to get that that part of it. So the epoxy is

Carlton Reid 17:18
just the joints, yes. Just the joints. Okay, so the rest is okay. Yes.

Joana Saavedra 17:23
And the joints are hemp fibre and epoxy, that is B of a step.

Carlton Reid 17:28
Right. Okay. And are you direct consumer? Do you think? Or will it be any bike shop?

Joana Saavedra 17:35
Okay, so up to now, and one of the reasons also why we’re here is we’re looking really to distributors or wholesalers in the UK. So we can have a representative here, our strategy in Portugal and also what we are looking is also to focus with in tourism and corporate for two reasons. One, to really promote sustainable tourism cycle tourism with a completely different bicycle riding and even inspire those persons that are not really used to cycle but they will be attracted to the bike because it’s a beautiful piece of design, and at the same time corporate so that you can really have corporate fleets for for staff. And we see those two reasons The best way as well to get to the b2c clients because people are still not really used to bamboo bicycles. So they will be you know, not very comfortable, probably not trust the material, you think about a cane, and you think is going to break. So we think that the best way to get to the final user and to gain their trust is through either tourism or corporate so that they could try the bicycle and really get comfortable and confident around the camera. How

Carlton Reid 18:44
much does this cost? How much the as the spec is here? Yeah. Yeah,

Joana Saavedra 18:52
we try as much as possible to use as well. Portuguese suppliers and industry. Yeah, this is Brooks. Then we also have here it’s TBird. We have Miranda on the crank set and we have Vaude so we try as well

Carlton Reid 19:05
to some noise kit, which is not gonna set me back. What’s that gonna cost?

Joana Saavedra 19:08
It starts in 2500 euros. Yep.

Carlton Reid 19:12
So that’s expensive.

Joana Saavedra 19:13
Yeah. For a made in Europe bicycle. Yes.

Carlton Reid 19:17
And because Portugal is actually coming up as a manufacturing nation of bicycles. Yes. So you aren’t you’re not like some strange? Yes, your niche Yeah. But Portugal is now becoming known. Yes. In the EU for making bikes. Yeah.

Joana Saavedra 19:33
So Portugal has this really old history as well or really known by bike brands right that were really built from scratch there. Then we started to to this level of we were really maybe one of the biggest assemble it so we really assemble a lot of the bicycles in in Portugal. So we probably designed but then we import the frames and all the components from Asia and we are assembling and now we are starting To see a bit of a shift, but until now, even a lot in terms of product development and prototyping is really not in Portugal. So it’s a little bit more outside. But now you’re starting to see and you do have one of the biggest some of the biggest as well, factories that are now starting to

Carlton Reid 20:20
visit. Yes, that’s all I know, it’s

Joana Saavedra 20:24
probably been to carbon, the carbon team and triangles, and some of them Yeah, so they are starting as well. And they’re, they’re building some of the frames. So we’re really want to shift to give the shift in terms of working with different materials, because we know that the industry is starting to talk about it now, like looking for natural fibres, how can we replace or at least combine some of the components will with some more of like natural fibres. So that’s a little bit our our goal here to just step up, we know that because we’re doing small production, because it’s still a different material, you cannot really just scale up or I cannot just go and subcontract to someone else to build it up. So of course, that makes that the product has a different level. Also, the choice of our components and brands made the bike as it is because we wanted something a little bit high end with really high quality, low maintenance so that you can have really a bicycle to be durable, as much as possible. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 21:25
sure. And what’s your background? So why are you

Joana Saavedra 21:30
okay, so I’ve studied economics, but I’ve been living abroad, I lived abroad for more than 11 years between Spain, Mexico, Holland, and China. So and that’s why six years in China got me closer and got me passionate about bamboo. And I found out bamboo I started like really researching about it, travelling around Asia as well to into some of the events around bamboo to get to know more about it. And my brother that is my co founder is an industrial designer, he had previously working with arbeta, that it was one of the big brands as well before in the bank industry in Portugal. So we just challenge ourselves. And we saw that no one in Portugal was working with them boom. In Europe, a very few persons were really working with bamboo in a structural way, or building their own brand or really trying to build their own friends here. So we really saw that there was really a space to evolve. And our dream is really to be a bit of the hub of innovation of bamboo in Europe, so that people can also come to us and try to understand how can we progress and collaborate with big brands in order to move in into the right direction? And so would

Carlton Reid 22:39
you say your your you were more bamboo? Bicycle? Yes. Yeah. But you’ve kind of educated yourself on the bicycle side because you’ve you’ve you’ve zeroed in Yeah, on the bicycle as something that can do something with bamboo as well. But bamboo first and bicycle second. Yes,

Joana Saavedra 22:56
bamboo first and then bicycle second. And then with a background of of the our industrial designer of Tiago that he was on the bike industry as well and are passionate of bikes. We really saw that there was really a match there.

Carlton Reid 23:13
And how long have you been going? So how new is this company?

Joana Saavedra 23:15
So we we’ve been going up like three years ago, I decided to move back from China to Portugal. And we launched this this models last year. So yeah, it’s been a baby with more or less two years.

Carlton Reid 23:28
And how is it going?

Joana Saavedra 23:30
It’s going good. It’s been the first time outside of Portugal really to present the brand and the project? I think, definitely the feedback here. It’s way more exponential than anymore. It’s you Well, I think the you know, in in Portugal, the markets in the mindset is completely different. For you know, urban cycling, we don’t really have that culture as well still. So here it’s been really, really interesting. And we’ve been approached for some big brands that are interested to collaborate so we’re really keen on seeing

Carlton Reid 24:01
big brands as in corporates rather than from bikes Yeah, because right now you have a referee now is Eurobike is happening yeah, that’s why we’re also there are you also you could have been there but yeah.

Joana Saavedra 24:14
Nobody the standard but we are that was a you you are industrial designers there Yeah, exactly. Right. That’s the goal. But we were

Carlton Reid 24:21
you could have exhibited there. Yeah, but you’ve come here instead. So that’s interesting.

Joana Saavedra 24:25
Yeah, but here was well it’s it’s in terms of like investment at this point. Right the standard it gets a bit of a in here we got invited to so we got the chance to have like split the team and be here as well to understand a bit the market and our goal was really to look for some partnerships on on the corporate world as well and to look for potential distributors or wholesalers so working to then tomorrow as well. We have a few meetings so that we can explore that way.

Carlton Reid 24:53
What do I know I wish you all the best with with getting more corporates to get on bamboo bicycles. Tell us how we can Get in touch so put it on tape your website or your socials how do we get in touch with you okay,

Joana Saavedra 25:05
so you can follow us on Instagram on bam-bu bicycles and so be I am bu Yes, exactly. And you can also check our website that is bam-bu how do you ash this yeah bambu-bicycles.com and follow as well subscribe our newsletter we always like get some either promotions or new product developments or we will let you know the next events are going to be in

Carlton Reid 25:36
Ilma, How do you pronounce that second name?

Ilma Barbaroviciute 25:39
It’s Barbaroviciute. Difficult.

Carlton Reid 25:44
Yeah. I’m glad you said that. They’re not me. A lot. What is this Fettle? Yes, is a bike because it Fettle isn’t like a northern English word. Yeah. For when I do an American podcast. And whenever I say the word Fettle Americans go northern English. It’s like, yeah, yeah. So I know what Fettle means. It means like, you know, repair something, but you tell me what it means in your context.

Ilma Barbaroviciute 26:13
Yeah, so Fettle is a fastest growing bike repair network in the UK. So at the moment, we have four workshops in London. And we recently opened the one in Bristol, we actually partnered up with quickfit, not long time ago. So two of our workshops are in quickfit locations. And we’re actually about to open the sixth one. And it’s going to be the third one, which in partnership with clixsense, basically. So yeah, so we do everything. Everything to do with bike repair, basically. So we don’t sell bikes, because we believe every single bike can be repaired. So you can bring your bike into our workshop, and we’re gonna fix it. And we also do a lot of fleet maintenance, We do manufacture partnerships, an important part of our business is making sure at the moment, it’s only affected in London, but making sure that people who commute to work, they do it on the same bike. So we a lot of our businesses, like b2b. So let’s say we go to the corporate and we maintain employees, bikes, and we also do workshops, or we people teach people how to maintain their own bikes, and all this sort of jazz. We have a lot of community rides, events as well. So it’s, it’s yeah, it’s a really white business.

Carlton Reid 27:33
So do mechanics. Are they all like Cytech? accredited? What? What is the accreditation that you’re using? Yeah, so

Ilma Barbaroviciute 27:39
all of our mechanics like in the workshops, obviously, we have mechanics and people who go and like teach people, they’re also mechanics. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 27:47
For that. Cytech. That’s, that’s what accreditation using? Yes. Yeah.

Ilma Barbaroviciute 27:51
I mean, I assume Cytech.

Andy Lu 27:54
Separately, Cytech. But there are other accreditation schemes out there such as Evans ran one on their own at some point. Yeah. And will will take into account, not just accreditation, but more importantly, experience. So certainly, you know, accreditation can only speak to a certain degree, if you don’t see the experience of the computer by versus, you know, the high end kind of an electronic race bikes. There’s certainly kind of gaps in between their accreditation doesn’t always,

Carlton Reid 28:26
I’ll tell you Cytech came from so Cytech was founded about 35 years ago, by a bike shop owner, it was it was basically the Association of Cycle Traders. Tell me stop me if if you know this history, and they went into this particular bike shop, went into a court case, yes. Where a bike had been fettled, of course, and the judge said, yes, very well. Shuttleworth was the guy Albert Shuttleworth. Sorry, I’ll dive in here. Quick fact check. It was actually Albert Shucksmith. And he died in 2001, a few years after the setting up of Cytech. Okay, back to myself getting a lecture at the Move conference. Very well. What’s your accreditation? Oh, we haven’t got one. Well, this case is now closed. If you haven’t got an accreditation, you’re an official trade body. Doesn’t matter how well experienced you are. Yes, I beat because the guy who said I’ve been doing bike mechanics for 30 years and the judge said, I don’t care. I want to see your accreditation. And he then went back to the association recycled traders and said look, yes, if we do not have accreditation, so they founded their own accreditation way ahead of the American industry, which is got all sorts of different weird ones. So accreditation is incredibly important to have. So that’s that’s where the question was coming from like, Yo, do you actually do If a customer comes in and gives you a very expensive buy, how do they know that? A it’s been handled by somebody who knows what they’re doing? And be they’re insured. They know that this bike has been battled correctly. Of course, you’re sorry. It’s your Andy. Okay, so Andy, I’m going to try and lean in my microphone as well. So are you partners in the business? What’s what is the what’s the how is the business formulated?

Andy Lu 30:29
What is the partnerships manager? And I’m the stock so I’m buying and purchasing manager in terms of what was your question? Sorry, the in terms of I was,

Carlton Reid 30:42
how big is the company? Has it formulated as a limited company? Is it all that kind of?

Andy Lu 30:47
Okay, so we are a limited company. We operate five workshops at the moment, three, sorry, for which are in London. We’ve recently opened a new workshop in Bristol. That’s our first workshop outside of London. And we are looking to expand very quickly with with the assistance of with partnership with Kwik Fit through their centre network. Through that through that can be

Carlton Reid 31:12
quite rapid. Yes, yeah. It could be like boom, boom, boom, on the on a sudden, you’ve got how many? How many stores do they have?

Andy Lu 31:17
So they’ve got around 650 or 600? Plus, I’ll say, and we started the partnership. Operationally, in April, I believe, we’ve already opened our first workshop in Bristol with the assistance and establish workshop is in our centre, we open that last night.

Carlton Reid 31:40
So they know or maybe you’re telling them this is a high cycling area. You should open it here whereas you could like some of them and outskirts of a city on the mainland where there’s no you don’t bother opening one there. Is that? Is that how you’re handling it? We would

Andy Lu 31:55
like we would prefer to say it’s more about priorities. So we will aim for the high traffic. I guess conurbation is first and then we’ll work towards I guess, belong outside of as as a trickle down to the tree

Carlton Reid 32:13
and talk about trickling down. Mechanics traditionally never used to get paid a huge amount bike mechanics I mean, scientific actually helped that because you get that you know, you have your level whatever money do you think federal could raise their game could raise it makes it a more of a career opportunity for somebody? Because there’s a career path you’re going through? Is that Is that something that you’ve considered? And they’re like, Yeah, we want to pay more money.

Andy Lu 32:43
That certainly was a, I believe a one of our vision part of our vision in the beginning. As we started, we started four years ago, I guess, just as the industry was starting to tail off before the pandemic, and then everything else happened. Part of our commitment to that was that we had sought a new way of participating in the London living wage. So our mechanics certainly were paid, what our paid above market rate at the time, and we are now starting to see that market rate is starting to catch up to us, which is great news for everyone, particularly the industry. And yeah, we certainly see that as we already are starting to see the arm mechanics as they kind of go on to other opportunities is that they are they are viewed as being of, shall we say higher quality because of their association with this.

Carlton Reid 33:37
Okay, brilliant. And what’s your second name?

Andy Lu 33:40
Lu. I’ll give you I’ll give you a card.

Carlton Reid 33:43
Because we got your name on tape and I won’t say it again. But we didn’t get your name. Thank you. Yeah, great stuff. Brilliant. Thank you. In fact, I’ve got your business card here so I actually put this on tape of fettle.cc people get in touch with you anybody who wants a job or wants to expand your empire happy Kwik Fit could be

Andy Lu 34:06
well at the moment it’s it’s an exclusive wellness exclusive partnership our network is our own we we own and operate our work our network so it’s not a kind of like a franchisee model we already doing it with Quick Fit as a as a partner.

Ilma Barbaroviciute 34:24
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, and you can also follow us on social media. It’s at fettlebike everywhere. And we upload all the news about your workshops about community rights, community events, so people can join us, even if they’re beginners or even if they’re like advanced in their cycling journey. Everyone’s welcome.

Carlton Reid 34:43
Next up here is Alex Murray, of the folding ebike brand Flitbike. Right Alex? This is where we’re basically taking our lives into our hands here. We’re in the middle of the test track. Basically, people are going around on scooters at Move at Excel, but you in the middle are also allowing people to have a go. And this is this is version two iteration two of the Flitbike Yes, yes. So what’s different to this compared to previous version?

Alex Murray 35:14
so at flitbike we specialise in making lightweight folding electric bikes mainly for urban commuters so think of anyone who needs to take a train into a major city as part of their commute. A few years ago, we developed our first bike it was called the Flint 16. We manufactured hundreds of those sold them to people all across the UK and Europe. But then, as a common with a lot of companies in the bike industry, the supply crunch happened that lead time on welding factories went from two months up to about 18 months in some cases. And once you include getting all the components and shipping bikes over from Taiwan, and so on, lead times could go up to nearly two years. So we decided to go back to the drawing board got a grant from Innovate UK. And we use that to develop a whole new manufacturing method. So the bike you can see here has no welding on it whatsoever. It’s a non world bike, it uses the same adhesives that are used in the aerospace and automotive industries. So the bike is mechanically fixed together. And then we use industrial strength adhesives to put it together. Now, that’s not actually that new those techniques have been used since the 1980s. However, where it doesn’t necessarily make sense for a full size bike for a folding bike, it makes a lot of sense. Because if you’re working in aluminium, when you weld the frame, and then you do something called heat treatment to to refrain from the frame afterwards, you introduce distortions every time you do that. And by by not using welding, we don’t have any of those distortions. So it means we can be very accurate with how the parts fall together. That’s allowed us to get more compact. So this bike is about 20% more compact than our original version. And it’s also lighter, it’s about a kilo and a half later.

Carlton Reid 36:54
So the Brompton and many other bike having like a removable battery pack on the front or wherever. So Where’s where’s the battery on this? Where’s everything hidden? And how do you recharge it?

Alex Murray 37:05
Sure thing? Yeah, so the Brompton fantastic bikes, when they came to making an electric folding bike, they didn’t want to change the design too much. So they essentially sort of retrofits, a lot of the components onto the bike motor goes in the front wheel, the battery clips on to the front, as you say, we started from a blank piece of paper, which meant we could put things where we wanted. So the battery frost lives in the top tube here. And it’s got the charging port there on the side. So it can all be charged. The battery is removable as well. So if I just take the seat posts out, appreciate your listeners won’t be able to see this, but the battery slides out there. Right. And that’s a custom a battery that lives in the top tube with an integrated real I

Carlton Reid 37:44
was gonna say there’s a there’s an LED at the back there as well. And there’s there’s something at the front as well. Yes. So we have on the front, though. Yeah. You mean speaking of mono blade as well. So there’s like no, Mike Burrows influence? Yes. Rip, Mike.

Alex Murray 38:00
It’s been sorted by us. So we’ve just had our patent fully granted across the European Union, which is I mean, main market, the UK and European Union, I should say. So that patents have been granted, it’s a unique fold that. Okay, so folding bikes have been around for a very long time, 100 years at least. So there’s very little new under the sun. However, not many people have been designing folding bikes with lithium ion batteries integrated into them that’s quite new. So the way this bike folds, you would only do it if you get a battery that was small and light enough from the lithium ion technology to fit inside the bike. So uses a unique fold that uses an offset headset and an angled fork hinge to bring the front wheel to the side. So you mentioned Brompton earlier. So I’ll just use them as a reference point, Brompton achieved something similar, but they use a hinge on the top tube. It’s a great design. But if you want to put a battery in the top tube, it’s not going to work. So this is a this fold is patented, and has been through the examination process and everything

Carlton Reid 39:02
is going to set me back if I’m going into a shop or if I’m buying direct, I’m gonna tell me the two parts that question and where do you buy it? And how much does it cost?

Alex 39:09
Sure, sure. So at the minute, we’re direct consumer only, so you can buy them from us. We have partnerships lined up with shops in the UK, but we’re going to be launching that in a in a later phase. So at the minute, it’s just from us, the full retail price of the bike is two and a half 1000 pounds, which is alright, which is okay for folding, folding ebike, particularly in the premium category. But because we’re doing pre orders at the minutes, people are ordering them in advance, it’s actually 2000 pounds. When you add on top of that, that most people are buying through cycle to work, the price can drop another 40% or so. So we think we’re pretty well priced.

Carlton Reid 39:44
And Alex tell me where we can learn more about Flitbike, your website and your socials.

Alex Murray 39:51
Sure thing so we’re we’re to be found online at www.flit.bike and then to find this bike in particular, it’s flit.bike/m2, and on social sites, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we’re at flitbike

Carlton Reid 40:06
So, Xavier it’s just tech, tech, tech at the Move conference. It’s e scooters, its autonomous vehicles, lorries that emit only water, not spewing out. awful stuff back there. So the thing that’s missing is shanks’ pony, is pavements, because you’ve been given a talk here. And you were talking about how we move. Yeah, and how we show some slides of dystopias and other words, those kind of motor centric cities of the future where almost walking isn’t in Wheeling and wheelchairs, can I just almost not there or you know, why really separate? See, you are the opposite to everything that’s here. Are you here as some sort of agent provocateur?

Xavier Brice 41:05
Well, to a certain extent, I mean, that’s just this conference is called Move. So it’s about movement. And my argument was, movement is one of the fundamental things that makes us human, that shape. And therefore how we move is a fundamental question about how we want to live together. And I don’t think that, that were the kind of opposite of all of this. I mean, there’s some practical stuff isn’t there isn’t much money to be made from walking and pavements. And this is a conference with exhibitors. And as you know, there’s a commercial side to it, which needs to be recognised. And I think that’s just commercial reality. Not that there’s not much money in active travel. So and so I think that that impart shapes what you’re seeing here. And the other thing to say is that transport technology, transport innovation, a lot of what you see here, there is nothing wrong with it, per se, there is nothing wrong, per se with the car, it’s often the unintended consequences. And so I think that highlighting the unintended consequences, talking about those and reminding people that ultimately just as transporter derived demand, transport technology is is serving a purpose, which is to connect us to move us. And actually, we need to go back to the question of, of not only how do we want to get from A to be as quickly as possible, but how do we want to live? How do we want to be together? How do we want to move together? And given that movement as an opportunity for human connection? How can we maximise that, while still enabling people to have convenient, comfortable journeys, that in a way that helps bring us together helps us be the society we want to be, rather than pushing us apart.

Carlton Reid 42:52
So you’re talking about connected connections you have when you when you walk into, potentially, when you when you start community, you can’t just stop on a dime, and talk to somebody which you tend not to be able to do in a car. And you showed one slide, which is the famous study of Sheffield, where a great grandfather, you know, as an eight year old, had eight mile radius, coming right down to the modern generation of that family 300 yards away from a house. And you mentioned that your total right now that’s probably even less than that. And the other study, you could have mentioned, you will be familiar with the Appleyard study, which is the amount of connections you’ve got across the street, across, you know, we’ve got cars coming here, then where’s people you can get people go at different angles on there’s no cars, basically. And that’s also something to do with with a human connection? Absolutely. So that’s something that we’re losing. And you’re what you said in your talk is what we travel in teleporters when travelling to get places as fast as possible, whereas that for our mental health? And for many other reasons, that’s probably not the most optimum thing to do.

Xavier Brice 44:08
No, indeed. And so it’s always the danger, isn’t it? When you optimise for one thing, you optimise for that one thing, and therefore you will have unintended consequences. And so to go back to that notion of human connections, the point I was making there was so when I used to want my daughters to school because the school was close enough to the house to do that. And during that walk, I would always see somebody I knew. And I knew them probably through I might have met them on the walk to school Bachalo and got chatting and and that’s making a human bond. And it’s non trivial. There’s lots of evidence don’t trust is built over time, not in single big acts. So So community trust is built through those social bonds. I talked about you know, when you drive I do drive, and I now drive my children to the station on a fairly regular basis has been safe enough to cycle sample Okay. When I when you do that, literally anyone you come across That’s like going the other way. See, anyone else you come across from the road is in your way somebody crossing is slowing you down the car in front of you, it wasn’t there. You could go faster if they’re not speeding,

Carlton Reid 45:16
or you try to sorry, you’re trying to stop yourself from thinking that or you are thinking that when you’re driving, you know, this is the impulse is

Xavier Brice 45:23
the impulse, isn’t it? Because because when you get enough factors as people are in your way, so I was at an event that we already see foundation about the future of the car. And Richard Hammond was one of the talkers who was being provocative on you, standardly. And he was talking about him, the goal is to get somewhere and ideally get somewhere quicker than someone else was his words. No, that’s an exaggeration of it. But there is something about it’s that notion, is that famous thing of people complaining about the traffic, not recognising that part of the traffic. We all do it. Yeah. It’s the nature of being enclosed in your own personal mobility device, your own teleport. And I think that and beyond that, go back to what you were saying about. That’s the Appleyard study. So So increasingly, car travel is about door to door. So one of the things I talked about was the scourge of pavement parking, a huge impact that has on disabled people in particular. And it seems again, like a minor thing. But it’s huge, actually. And, and one of the reasons I think this come about is more than one reason. One is certainly the increase in private car ownership I saw you on Twitter tweeting about recently, so that there are simply more cars and less space. But one of the things that I regularly see, matching UDT is actually where there are perfectly sensible places to park, people are not parking there, because it’s not directly outside where they want to go. And what seems to have happened is, there’s a sort of a view that it’s not my right to park outside my destination. So this notion of the car is sort of pseudo teleporter is becoming more and more the case, if you think about from autonomous vehicles, especially when you summon up on your phone, you are getting close to teleportation, you are getting close to this ideal of, you know, I tap on my phone, my pod arrives, I get it, I get to my destination, I have no contact with anyone on the outside world bank on that amazingly convenient. And living in suburban Surrey with children who do after school activities, but very limited safe cycling infrastructure, and an adequate bus service. You know, I know how much time gets spent preparing children about oh, my goodness, the thought of being able to put them in an autonomous pod. You know, let’s face it, that is a that is that would that would improve quality of life, but at what cost? At what cost of their own sense. And and and it’s not one cost of the society we’re building. And if you think about some of the images I showed, and poked fun at which were these kind of tech visions of a tech enabled transport future, you just want to step back from and say, well actually focus on looks amazingly convenient. But where did it take us? Does it take us somewhere that we actually want to live, that we actually want to build communities in that we want to know where chip where our children will be able to play where our children will learn their independence. And those things are really important, especially in an increasingly polarised world. And especially with the public health crisis that we have, and we’re storing up for the future, where actually, movement is good for us encountering people who are different than us, is good for us building community partners. And actually, a lot of the way we do that, it’s not at a destination. It’s getting an axe on the way there, it’s leaving our door and walking to the bus stop. It’s it’s those so on the way here today, actually the railway station, I bumped into somebody you I haven’t spoken to for years, and we caught up. And it helps it made me happy actually, then it helps increase our social capital. And these are not trivial things.

Carlton Reid 48:57
You mentioned, not trivial things you mentioned. polarised world. Yeah. And in your talk, you mentioned that there are some LTNs that are brought in at breakneck speed potentially, that’s where some of the friction has come from. But then you predicted that the going forward. Some of the conspiracy theories around LTNs, around 15 minute cities is not going to go away could potentially even increase. Is that Is that a fair reflection of where you’re going with that?

Xavier Brice 49:37
I think it’s not comforting thought as a but I think I think when you when you look at the challenges around climate change, to rail on what those elite into and if you look, you know, the US is often ahead of the UK on many things. It’s a predictor of what’s to come. And there’s I Let us for several years in the early 2000s. And I think if I was to go back, it would feel very different. Certainly talking to people who live in the States, you know, and clearly and and, and you look across mainland Europe that’s on the rise advisor far right parties as well as far left. So I think I think it’s difficult to say that on one side lightsaber, we’re not going to polarisation is going to go away, the conspiracy theories are going to go away evidence or evidence of that. And in things that get taken into the orbit of different conspiracy theories, right, going back to what I talked about movement movements are fundamental human part fundamentally being human. And it’s where conflict occurs, because it’s where we come together. And movement and transport is often it’s one of those social dilemmas that isn’t, you know, it’s by maximising what we own personal gain my own personal mobility, my own personal convenience, can act against the greater good as good of a hole, which ultimately will come back and bite me traffic. And so I think it’s no surprise that transport finds itself in the crosshairs. Especially when, where people will live. And it also is, again, deliberately pulled in in some areas. So So I think it’s not going to go away. And and it’s not just climate change, because because a lot of what some of what we’re talking about, you know, you replace cars with electric cars, or Can’t you imagine, if you were able to snap your fingers and replace all cars and electric cars tomorrow, choice is impossible. You would still have challenges around LTNs, you will still have issues around traffic, traffic, destruction, people, all the stuff. We haven’t even talked about emissions yet. So I don’t think that the electrification we see around us here today and what’s going on is really needed is a good thing. That’s not going to solve some of the fundament fundamental dilemmas and transport which actually is what makes it so fascinating, so interesting. And so worth influencing living has changed for the better.

Carlton Reid 51:55
Thanks to Sustrans’ CEO Xavier Brice. Next up is Henri Moissinac, co founder of Dott. But first let’s go across to my colleague, David for a short ad break.

David Bernstein 52:05
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast. And of course, the spokesmen. And I’m here once again to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles, the good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for Tern, is to make sure that your ride is safe, and worryfree. And that’s why Tern works with industry leading third party testing labs like E FB, E, and builds its bikes around Bosch ebike systems which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded, and perhaps with a loved one behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame, and the rigours of the road. For more information, visit www.ternbicycles.com to learn more. And now, back to the Spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 53:15
Thanks, David. And we are back with audio from the Move mobility conference. I was one of the interviewers on the shows main stage and I snuck on my microphones so I could record my fireside chat with Henri Moissinac of the city share scooter and ebike company Dott

Move announcer 53:33
Up on stage for our next session Carlton Reid and Henri Moissinac.

Carlton Reid 53:41
Good morning, we are miked up, and we are ready to go. So I am here this morning with Henri Moissinac. You live in London, Henri. So we’re gonna be talking in a minute, about 15 minutes cities. And if you’re aware of all the conspiracy theories, around 15 minute minute cities, we’re going to not try and go down into that particular rabbit hole, we are going to try and keep it all positive. Neither of us are in the pay of the World Economic Forum. Let’s just put that out there at the moment. But first of all, before we get into the the absolute gubbins of what we’re gonna be doing here this morning, Henri. Let’s find a little bit about you. Because you’re with Dott, we’ll get into the biography of Dott in a moment, but let’s get a biography of you. So tell us about your background because he started in E commerce. And even in social networking, both of these things before they became big. So give us your your biography, and then we’ll get into Dott.

Henri Moissinac 54:54
is great question. So yeah, actually, I started in E commerce. It makes me think about mobile because when I started in E commerce CES was like, three, four years before it started become becoming popular. And I remember vividly people were telling me is just never going to work, you know, people are never going to put their credit card on the internet. And some of the things we did, and some of the companies that work for became massive, massive successes, and there were hundreds and hundreds of millions of users. I was just saying, when I started in social networking, so I was an early employee at Facebook, we have 300 employees. And when I joined Facebook, people were telling me, it’s never going to work, you know, people, you’re only going to see photos of cats and dogs on the internet. Look how many users now. And I, to me, mobility was made the same way I started getting interested in shared mobility. And people were telling me you’re never going to work here. I think what we see here with the move, you know, if you look how much progress from the first one in 2019, to today, look how vibrant this industry is becoming. So I think it’s going to be the same, like E commerce like social networking. Some of the other things you’ve seen massive changes, I think shared mobility or micro mobility, these type of things that you see behind is going to be become very popular. And the one who’s going to disappear as the personal income within cities. Yes.

Carlton Reid 56:12
Now let’s go into Dott. How did you get into dott and describe how dott has not just shade scooters, it also has a n ebike. So described the trajectory of Dott. started in France? Yes, in Paris.

Henri Moissinac 56:29
Yeah. So maybe just a few words about that. And how do we stop this so that we operate in at 60,000 vehicles, about 1/3 of this is E bikes, and the other the rest of it is e scooters. We are in 35 cities in Europe, and most of the main cities in West Europe. So London, Paris, Brussels, Milan, Rome, Walsall Madrid, we also in Tel Aviv and surroundings. And then we operate plenty of smaller cities in in Belgium, France, Italy, bit of UK a bit of Spain. When I started when I was actually on a refreshing trip in China, I wanted to take a personal break and go through the bucket list. So I went to China because I wanted to see how vibrant and how China was not not the tourist year aspect of it, but you’re spending time with entrepreneurs and so on. And so this wave of shared bags, mobile microphone, you may have heard of these companies. And then we also heard about the stories about bird coming up with a new form factor. And so Maxine microfauna. And I, we took a piece of paper and we say, okay, what are all the things we like, of the of the things we’re going to copy? What are all the things we don’t like? And we are going to do none of that. So for example, the gig economy of birth, we said none of that for us. And then the last question was, what are all the things neither Chinese or American will understand? And that’s typically the relationship with the cities and the stakeholders. And so we thought, okay, well, if we do very well, what they’re good at if we avoid all the things we don’t like, and if we do think that neither the Chinese or the Americans can understand, we have a chance to win. So that started, we were probably the last company to start, I mean, among the big players, everybody thought we would have zero chance against realignment and burnin look where we are today. And we are very healthy, we are going very fast. We feel very safe about the future of this industry. So yeah, it was That’s how it’s happened.

Carlton Reid 58:30
So we are gonna get on to 15 minute cities. But let’s dig a little bit more down into into Dott. You the bikes came on after that the scooters. So I’d be interested and I’d be interested for you to tell the audience about the share between bikes now and scooters. And does that change compared to the way the city is and what they’re on the ground would have seen for instance, bike lanes now.

Henri Moissinac 58:57
So first, let’s step back and understand what’s the vision and strategy and then how they compare to each other today. So the vision is we want to go after every trip that is not walking in public transit. But when we are younger and we only have a piece of paper and a few doors, you got to be a bit naive and optimistic and you got to start simple and be very focused. So we thought that scooters would be the form factor to start with. We know all the data proves it today scooters are a bit edgy gives you more freedom for you feel younger, it’s you know typically a bit more male and female a bit younger than the typical average citizen of a city. So we thought okay, let’s just scooters when we got it right in many cities, we stopped bikes. And also we wanted to wait a bit to see what type of share bikes we could come up with because we felt the early pieces of hardware weren’t going to be sustainable enough. So now in most capital cities, London we operate in London for example, we are both in Paris processes on the bikes. They are typically older and more female They are they go a bit faster. So to be key commuters, they tend to like it a bit more. When it’s cold people prefer to do bikes. But when it rains, people prefer to do scooters. And typically we have three types of users. We have people who are heavily on scooters, and they love it. And it’s just a lifestyle for them. And they don’t want to touch a bike. We have people are more pragmatic like me, that will just switch depending on availability, the weather where they going, if they know traffic or not. And then we have people that just don’t want to touch the scooter and they will never get on one and the only comfortable on bikes. So that’s why you need to get to both.

Carlton Reid 1:00:35
And the bikes that the bikes so they’re limited in their speed. But on downhill sections for instance, you’re not limited you can go as fast as you like on on. The scooter, of course, is limited. So why why do cities? Why does the industry that the sector limit one mode doesn’t mean the other mode because of course motorists are not limited.

Henri Moissinac 1:00:59
Yeah. So for remediation facts first, answer your question. So typically in cities the bikes I’ve sold our bikes are kept in speeder same for scooters. And in some cities, most cities, the bikes have a slight senior higher speed cat again, then in scooters. But then there are sometimes bigger differences. For example, in London with a bike on that you can go through a park, but you can’t do it on the scooter. Either backing walls also can change. So in take, for example, in Paris, when the gap is the most important. So these like 10,000 parking spots for bikes, and only 2500 parking spots for for scooters. So it doesn’t really give it exactly the same experience. I think it is. The reason for that is because scooters is new and bikes is not enough stakeholders have decided to limit the speed, I think actually the speed of a scooter is is quite good. I mean, it really goes well. It’s not too fast. It’s not too slow. And London is the only city where it’s slightly lower than the other cities. And then the bikes they are they can go faster, but they don’t go at the speed of a personal bike. Most of the personal bikes, too, as we share bikes, the speed of our bikes is designed so that if you ride in a bike lane with Santa the bikes, for example, you’re going to be in the flow, you’re not really you can pass but you’re not going to disturb everybody. So not too, not too slow, and not too fast.

Carlton Reid 1:02:26
15 minute cities, which is the conspiratorial thing of the moment. But it’s a very, very nice concept you would think, to live close to education, to shops, to nice restaurants. Why on earth would that be subject to a conspiracy theory? It’s quite strange. However, Carlos Moreno, who is the guy who came up with concept in Paris called Paris. He describes it as something there, the proximity to all of these amenities is mainly by foot. So a bicycle or share bike or by standard bicycle or a scooter actually extends that to not being a 15 minute stick, because you can get quite a long way on a scooter on a bike compared to the walking 15 minutes city. So do we still talk about a 15 minute city when we’ve got a bicycle or a scooter involved?

Henri Moissinac 1:03:27
So the concept of 15 minute cities is it’s really a vision I I follow and I believe a lot when these type of messages came from not just parents actually your loved cities, I think you at least London is the perfect example of this vibrant neighbourhoods, young there. But yeah, you’re right, your job, your university, maybe your next job interview or your friends, they’re not going to be 15 minutes walking away, but would be great if they could be 15 minutes with public transit or your personal bike or a shared bike and you can do quite a long distance and 15 minutes on the dots whether it’s a scooter or bike, so it just widens the possible network. So I don’t know why they didn’t just take an example. If you in Piccadilly Circus, you know centre of London, it takes to go to the other side of Hyde Park, it’s about 18 minutes with with Russia bike, it will take a lot longer in public transit. And yeah, so if you have your personal bank, if it hasn’t been stolen, you can go even faster. So I do believe that micro Rutaceae scooters, share bikes private bikes, they help you live within 15 minutes but just increases dramatically the rich the distance you can get them. The average distance in Paris for example, I’m just French so use that example. The average distance in Paris about three kilometre for us and it So completely when we talk to people the price in terms people are not in the industry doesn’t matter. They, it’s very hard for them to realise exactly what tricky matter because that’s not how they think. So you tell them when it’s about 2500, for now, in metro or in Cuba, by the time you get there maybe and if the connections 45 minutes. And so that’s how people think. And if you’re telling them 45 minute trip with one connection, now you can do in 20 minutes on a shared service. I mean, I’m going to see my friends, I may take a job that is further, I may have this other business meeting and business relationship face to face that wasn’t able to do so. So I really believe we are bringing good here

Carlton Reid 1:05:41
I got here from Kings Cross on a folding bike. And most of the way it’s on CS3, which is the cycle, superhighway three, which is great. But then there’s one little bit. The last, basically, last mile, in fact, is not on bike paths, and you’re on a road. But there was no cars on that road. And all of a sudden, what would have been quite an awful journey. If there are 1000s of cars on that particular busy, what would normally be think a busy stretch of road suddenly became this is great, because there are no cars or no trucks. And so I can now go on what in effect was like a dual carriageway motorway quite happily. So is that the future for cities because cities like London, you know, private motor cars are disappearing. Paris and Hidalgo with all her content, are also trying to get rid of parking spaces trying to get rid of cars. So is the future for cities going to be? It’s not the bike lanes, it’s going to be there are no cars around. And it’ll be the scooters, the bikes, the private banks, the private scooters, that’s going to take over and you’re not going to have to build bike paths. You’ve got the existing infrastructure or these beautiful roads. It’s

Henri Moissinac 1:07:02
probably the hardest question for the stakeholders and cities because they have all these conflicting messages and so on. But the reality is that a city needs infrastructure, it needs logistics, it means delivery trucks, your restaurants will be able to serve you pizza in the evening, if there is not a delivery truck in the morning, so you’re still going to have motor vehicles. And some of them are quite big to, to, for example, the delivery people. And how do you combine all these modes, the one thing I think most cities are clear on is the private ownership of cars to do small trips within cities. That doesn’t make sense. And we’ve been living for 30 years. And that’s the transition were doing it reminds them you’re talking about ecommerce is the same transition of I go to someplace to do some shopping, because I don’t I can’t just have it delivered. Or if you take, for example, email, I had to send faxes in the past and I can read over that transition takes time. But I think this transition, how they’re going to rethink the centre of cities, it’s moving really fast. I’ve been in London for 10 years, if you look at embankment used to be a kind of highway, and now look how much better so that was for sure is that to really get mobility to change, you need to have safe paths for for for people to be comfortable on their private bike or shared services. That’s really important. And so that’s why most of the time, the primary better is to get safe space. And just specifically the intersections are healthier for pedestrians and for shared services. I agree with

Carlton Reid 1:08:39
the safe space. But kind of circling back on that question. Just if you get rid of the colours, you have got that safe space. So that’s not an easy win for a legislator, get rid of the cars. Why can’t cities just get rid of the cartels?

Henri Moissinac 1:08:57
It’s really interesting to see the conflict between the stakeholders within one city so I do have a lot of respect. Take Take London for example. The people in London that built the bike lanes, they’re really Crusaders, you know, they are really trying and good for the city. But every time there is a project for a bank lien is plenty of opposition’s takes forever to convince the local residents that removing parking spots. Because if you if you remove the parking lane, you know, like it is like 50 cows that are sitting there forever moving maybe once a day, at best at best. Just move that to a bank then think about all the people that could benefit from the space. So it sounds obvious, but it seems to be extremely difficult to do. And I think it’s really important to have statistic owners are thinking about the long term and not the short and the long term is having a personal car parked in the street, not movie when you can remove dance and do a bank pain or delivery spot inside the parking spot for deliveries. So obviously they just do it.

Carlton Reid 1:10:00
Why don’t you talk before about shopping in with a scooter or with a bank, you can’t carry a sofa, you can carry lots of heavy shopping, for instance, if you do a weekly shop, so the private car still as van, that perfection, you can carry lots of stuff. So, you know, do you argue that we should get rid of cars? Because cars are actually quite useful? Maybe only sometimes, but they’re still useful. So can you argue them? So I’m basically I’m being a devil’s advocate here. So can we argue for getting rid of cars when they’re actually incredibly useful?

Henri Moissinac 1:10:41
People will adapt their usages there will always be a need for cars, for example, if you have kids, or if your luggage if you’re going very far away, I’m not saying the opposite. Yeah. And I’m thinking a lot of the things can be adapted. And the the average consumer does change their habits. You were talking about shopping on the bike and scooter, it works very well. And I mean, the best training course is EasyJet, you know, think of all the people that used to have luggage, big luggage and so on. Amanda just had a backpack. Thank you EasyJet, for training us to have a small backpack, you have your pay for luggage, the same if I spent a lot of time in the streets with users and so on. A lot of them start to carry the backpack, love them. You go to dinner or sample class, you see them they come out of the train and the hub they go off on the shuttle service, but he can’t zone the zone carrier tray anymore. They have a backpack? So yes, he I mean, life is full of possibilities. And people want to enjoy it as much as possible. You give them mobility, they do more things. And yes, if they need to carry a say I will say the bigger backpack because they want to do that. And I’m not worried. We are about creating opportunities for people.

Carlton Reid 1:11:52
Henri, thank you very much if we could give Henri Moissinac round of applause. Thank you.

Thank you and thanks to all my guests today. And thanks to you for listening to Episode 334 of the spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern bicycles. Shownotes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. The next episode will feature two Swiss academics talking about a new report on the growth of cargo bikes. That’ll be out next week. Meanwhile, get out there and ride…

27th June 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 332: Emily Kerr

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Cllr Emily Kerr

TOPICS: Oxford Green councillor Emily Kerr talks about 15-minute city conspiracy theories, LTNs and cycling to your wedding. Recorded at the Move mobility conference at ExCel, London.

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 332 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Tuesday 27th of June 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com. To learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:04
I’m Carlton Reid and today’s show is a bonus episode recorded when I was at the move mobility conference at London’s ExCel last week. It was there that I bumped into Oxford green Councillor Emily Kerr. We had earlier bonded on Twitter, over our use of the Telraam citizen traffic counter. And we met on the Telraam stand at Move. We talked about Oxford’s 15 minute city conspiracy theories, low traffic neighbourhoods, of course, and cycling to Emily’s recent wedding.

Emily Kerr 1:43
Yeah, so there’s a decision happening right now about the Cowley low traffic neighbourhoods in Oxford. So we’ve sort of had two sets of low traffic neighbourhoods, one is in Cowley one is in East Oxford, my ward’s in East Oxford, but obviously anything that happens to Cowley has implications for for my ward. So the decision being made right now is whether the existing on lockable fixed bollards should be replaced with ANPR cameras or not. And if they are, who should be allowed through that ANPR. So there was a consultation that proposed that it should just be emergency services. And in fact, you’ve been lorries, you know, other kinds of those kinds of services. But a recommendation that came out is that taxis should also be exempt. So I think there’s a discussion happening as to whether, you know, whether that will, we know that any additional car on the road creates additional road danger, right? And I think there are some situations, for example, that ambulances were the trade off is that, you know, you have quicker ambulance services. And so maybe that’s worth the additional road danger. Whereas the if you start adding more and more and more, it depends how many cars are coming through and how fast they’re going, how much more dangerous those roads will be. Yeah, I think the taxi firms are professional drivers, you know, I’m optimistic that they will stick to the speed limits. But if we suddenly started having a hugely increased flow of cars, it does increase road danger. Those routes are key for kids getting to school. And suddenly you see a situation where people won’t feel safe for their children to walk and cycle or people will only, you know, will revert to driving. And I think that’ll be a real shame when that decision is.

Carlton Reid 3:20
You can imagine it’s a no brainer for emergency vehicles. But the decision is also for taxes. So what is the actual decision?

Emily Kerr 3:28
The decision is whether the ANPR replacement should be should happen at all firstly, right? Because in fact, we’ve seen in Cowley that the ambulances are not very delayed by the existing LTNs structure, they can unlock the bollards and the rerouting system. So in fact, there doesn’t seem to be from the data, much delay to emergency services. So then there’s a question about whether you should replace the bollards at all. And then secondly, the second part of the decision is whether that should just be for emergency vehicles or whether it should also exempt taxis as part of the public transport infrastructure in Oxford.

Carlton Reid 4:00
Here at the show yesterday, Mete from from Hackney. Yes, we’re saying the reason they brought in their LTNs Yes, clean air and stuff, but it’s very much to remove through traffic. And he was saying the according to their stats 40% of motorists going through on the main roads of Hackney, we’re never ever going to stop. They’re using it as a through route only.

But if you have ANPR to let residents, you’ve still got 60% In that case, even in Hackney, which are very low car ownership, you’ve still got 60% of the people in that case, potentially using cars. So ANPR is no solution if you’re going to allow residents in for instance, because that you still got an enormous amount but so you haven’t got that decision and not gonna be residents.

Emily Kerr 4:54
As you’ll be familiar with, like a lot of people are asking for a lot of different things. There’s a lot of different suggestions and and some people have mooted the idea that residents should also be exempted. And I think that’s extremely dangerous. That ends up in a situation like South Fulham, where it’s used as a as a mechanism to control congestion. But actually, it doesn’t promote active travel, because there’s simply too many cars going too fast, people are not switching to cycling, and walking, and they’re kind of scared to walk in cycling, we’ve got a survey in Oxford from Oxford share from a couple of months, a couple years ago, which shows that sort of 70 to 80% of the reason people don’t cycle more is fear of traffic, like and that’s consistent when you look at so. So if you have more traffic, you necessarily have less cycling. And again, at low levels of traffic, we know that every percentage increase in traffic provides a corresponding increase in road danger. So if we’re going to let five times as many vehicles through, for example, you’re making it five times more dangerous. So I suppose I’m, I’m also very keen, you know, you and I’ve talked about tower encounters, right, which are brilliant, because they can measure what’s happening. So regardless of what happens in this decision, I’d really like to see better measurements. So we can see, you know, I’m concerned if taxis are allowed through that we might see some speeding and a lot of increased rate data. But you know, we might also not taxis or professional drivers, maybe everyone will stick to the speed, maybe we’ll find that, you know, and they only use it when they really need to, to to drop off and they take the long way around. And you know, also in Oxford, we are having traffic filters, you know, in the next 18 months. So there’s sort of opportunities to tweak the scheme. You might concerns might be baseless, we may not have any problem. And I think that’s why measuring it is so important.

Carlton Reid 6:31
Yes. And I told Telraam guys, I’m talking about land because I believe that tech is ground changing for people like me and you and any person on the ground trying to get these kind of like counters. Now on the stage this morning. I was talking about 15 minute cities. Yes. And I kept it very positive. I just mentioned about the conspiracy theories. I said, and neither of me and Henri who was from Dott, we neither of us are paid by the W E F. Oh, geez. Oh, okay. So you are pay. Okay, we have my scoop of today. Emily is drinking from a World Economic Forum water bottle.

Emily Kerr 7:11
Yes it was quite amusing present from someone. Yeah, I like this. Yeah. Brilliant.

Carlton Reid 7:14
Yes. Yeah. It’s just to throw it in there. So you’re not a shill. I’m not a shill Henri wasn’t a shill as well. But there is an enormous amount of conspiracy theories. Yeah. So my question really is, how on earth are you getting through this? Because you must be getting bombarded with I’d like to say fringe. It’s almost no longer fringe. It’s almost a sizeable proportion of people. I know that you are absolutely the locus for this in Oxford. Yeah. How on me? How are you coping with the abuse you must be getting?

Emily Kerr 7:56
So I think that, weirdly, it’s not been as bad as it sounds in Oxford, because what’s happened is, it’s been such a big deal, that people have gone away and informed themselves. And so I think it’s actually within Oxford, it remains friends. You know, we had a massive protest, almost all of those people came from outside Oxford. And so that started to make people in Oxford that went and fought, you know, really question what was going on and be like, and in fact, you know, I had a couple of, uh, several people come up to me and say, I don’t agree with the LTNs. But I don’t agree with people coming in to Oxford. And I like Co Op, this debate even more, and actually, now I’ve been reading about them. And you know, maybe there are some advantages to the LTNs. I’m still not sure about them. But like, you know, and so I think it’s not been as bad as it probably looks externally. In Oxford.

Carlton Reid 8:45
But you’re still getting threats?

Emily Kerr 8:46
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But

I think, you know, I’m a woman on the internet, like, it’s, it shouldn’t be like this, but it is. And I think what you really realise is it comes from a very small group of people. So I was interested in that the Harry and Megan story, right, I think there was some stat that showed that sort of 80% of the abuse came from like, 50 accounts, or something like that. I’m sure he was one of them. But you know, I think it’s the same thing, actually. Right, particularly on Twitter. I blocked people that are personally insulting to me, that’s really the main reason I blocked people. Otherwise, if they make ad hominem remarks, I just block them, I actually now get very little abuse, because it’s a very low number of people that are aggressively attacking pretty much everybody that does anything in active travel. And I think, you know, I’m kind of optimistic about the population and people’s level of education when they decide to understand something and actually, I think you’re not so good. We’ve seen a lot of people decide to understand and get interested in traffic. And you know, you and I talked about this with Telraam, it’s like citizen led reporting, like how can we I think getting people more involved can only be a positive except for the fringe of people who probably are trying to co op the debate for their own purposes. But so yeah, it’s, it’s okay. It’s

Carlton Reid 9:55
very positive and good to hear, especially from an Oxford point of view because I assume You must mean you must be at the centre of the maelstrom there. But as you’re saying it’s people who are outside mainly Yeah. Who are doing this. And if you look at all the people who were the main ones, yeah, these are coming travelling. Yeah,

Emily Kerr 10:11
Exactly. And also, I really did enjoy, and the council’s recently pedestrianised Broad Street, which is the main area in the centre of Oxford, which is obviously where the anti 15 minute city kind of parade gathered in this beautiful place. And it had been pedestrianised just a few months previously, and they would have had no chance of getting in there earlier, because obviously, it was filled with cars, and now it’s no longer carpark. It provides a sort of gathering for people that want to protest. And you know, I’m from the Green Party, I support people’s right to protest peacefully. And even though I don’t agree with it, like, you know, they should be allowed to come and protest

Carlton Reid 10:41
In your pedestrianised area, but beautiful pedestrianised. Yeah, I think I made the point at the time, if you count the number of people who are walking down Broad Street, if you had them in cars, and they were protesting, you’d have basically gridlock for city for hours, hours and hours. Whereas you get one group of you know, okay, there was a hundreds and hundreds of protesters there. But they then walk through and there’s no, no exact nothing is basically happening to the city whatsoever, because they’re just walking through. Yeah. And that was almost an advert for why you should be having 15 minutes cities, it was like, why are they not seeing this?

Emily Kerr 11:17
Exactly? Yeah, you know, we, I had a, particularly when the move was first announced, and it when it first became a kind of, you know, a global conspiracy theory, I had people coming up to me at the school gates and being like, is it true? We’re not going to be allowed to leave our houses bike? You know, I thought, Well, no, it’s not to actually what’s happening is you’re going to have to drive to a bit like, you know, we have had on Oxford in Oxford for more than 20 years, you’re not allowed to drive through the high street in a car between 7am and 7pm. And everyone’s like, Oh, is that it? And I’m like, Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you’re not gonna be able to drive through the city centre. The reason for that is we need to speed up the buses, we need to improve access to people in bands, yeah, et cetera, et cetera. We need to lose private cars from the city make it safer for people to switch. And people are right. Is that it? And so, you know, I think that, as I say, it was obviously very alarming for people when it was first announced because they hadn’t understood it. But I suppose in general, I think people down do now understand that and support the idea. Oh, that’s really good.

Carlton Reid 12:12
Really nice to hear.

Emily Kerr 12:13
Let me caveat this with obviously, people that

Carlton Reid 12:17
Where I’m from Jesmond, also, it’s actually a very posh area. Yeah. It’s a high level of education. Basically, it’s university lecturers, it students, this should not be this level of misunderstanding on this, and I don’t think there is a misunderstanding as they just want to continue driving. Yeah. And it does tend to be I get told off for this if I bring the age thing in. But there ain’t that many young people. The students are not protesting. Yeah, actually, it’s the, again, I’m getting told off of this. But it’s inescapable. It’s the boomers. Yeah. And you see the comments on the petitions. It’s my eight year old mum kinda is like, sorry, it’s basically an age thing of people who have grown up with a motorised society cannot imagine not using cars and also on the petition, you find that people are, they’re not saying they’re trip chaining, they’re not saying, you know, I probably get 20 miles away. And it’s, you know, the last mile has been, they’re saying, I want to drive 500 metres I want to go from, they give their location, I want to go from here. And I can’t any no longer get to these posh shops 500 metres away. And they can. But it’s the older people are just they are so married to their cars. And it’s like, Why are you driving in Jesmond? Even if you’re older? Why are you driving in Jesmond? Are you finding the same isn’t the same demographic.

Emily Kerr 13:36
So there was something that I did find particularly funny, which was a person that was very outraged that they were going to have to take a long but right way round to drive to Merton colleges, real tennis court. I was like, I mean, you know, like real tennis is an Etonian sport that only a very few people play, you know, fundamentally in my ward, 50% of people don’t own cars. And I don’t see why someone that should be able to drive a quicker route to Merton to play real tennis, you know, and do it through doing so impose road danger, bad air quality, you know, on my residence, like, so. So, I think that’s true. I also think, though, that probably what we see in Oxford, where we already have a high cycling share, is that there are quite a lot of people who are much older, you know, in their 80s and 90s, who don’t drive any longer because they don’t feel safe to drive, but they cycle and tricycle. It’s amazing, you know. So in fact, that there are, of course, people whose parents in their 80s will suffer through not being able to, you know, get somewhere as quickly or they’ll have to take them but in front, there’s actually a lot of people that it’s given freedom and the ability to get around on like low car routes. And actually, you know, it’s amazing. My mother is one of them. My mother won’t drive she’s in her late 80s. And when she comes to visit us, she can cycle around, obviously, she can go anywhere. I did an interview with a 94 year old cyclist you haven’t driven for years, but he has the freedom to get around Oxford, you know, on a bike and we see this In the Netherlands, you know, when you look at someone that’s got truly high share of cycling for older people, that people talk about the freedom of it, you know, and in fact, I talked to some refugees, we have this amazing charity in Oxford that does refurbish cycles for refugees. Now, those people cannot afford four grand a year to run a car, because that’s what cost you know, and so they’ve got a cycle and this, you’re talking about cycling, giving them freedom. So they’ve been given this cycle, that’s like 100 quid, reconditioned lights, you know, helmet, lock, all of that kind of stuff. And suddenly, it’s like, oh, I can visit my friends in Oxford, I can visit other people from my community, I can get to church. So I think the narrative of cars is freedom applies to a specific demographic. And actually, for a lot of people, that’s not true. If you’re poor. If you are, you know, unable to afford the space or, or the money to own a car, like actually safe cycling provides freedom. And I find it really kind of motivating and interesting.

Carlton Reid 15:53
And I agree with you, because I’ve interviewed people. Yeah, it’s actually in my local sourdough shop. First worle problems, yeah. But as you cycle then it’s like, it’s actually 15 minutes to get there, literally 15 minutes for me to cycle there. Which is handy. But I was, I was I was talking to her in the queue. And she’s telling me that exam kind of, um, well known, yeah, my area. Yeah, you know, I’m stalked by the opposition, who take post photographs of me on bikes. And so it’s quite, quite creepy. She knew I was, cuz she hangs out on one of these groups. And she was talking to me and she’s saying, Well, I would have normally driven to Jesmond in mind, she’s got a little, you know, little car, which is now because she lives in a like a, like, yours is, you know, one, one district removed. She’s, you know, one step removed from Jesmond. And she says, but now that they’ve got the, the LTN, I’m now cycling that and she is in that demographic, she’s very much in that Boomer demographic. So it’s freed up for her. And that, you know, counteracts the people who say, but it’s made it more difficult for me, and it’s given me there’s not freedom. So there’s probably a huge number of people. Yes, who are saying it’s damaging for me, but then we’re not hearing from the people who’s like, actually, no, I’m not cycling there. So do you think there’s, there’s a knock has to make giving it a silent majority? Or is it just 50/50? What do you think?

Emily Kerr 17:19
So, you know, I’d say I actually do hear from a lot of those kinds of people. Because as a local councillor, a lot of people come up to me and talk to me. So I remember this sort of a sad day, someone came up to me and a lady again, a boomer lady came up to me and was like, Emily, I had to cycle to my a lot. But today, I suppose that makes you happy. And I was like, actually, I think we both lost. And like, I’ve seen her since. And yeah, she switched exactly the same, you know, it’s because they’re a lot much used to drive. And, you know, I really see it at the school gates, because I’ve got young kids. And so now, you know, the shift in my school is astonishing. And we now have 13% of people who drive their children, the national average is 65%. It’s remarkable. And that is driven by the LTNs. What was it before, unfortunately, we do not have the pre and post data. So there’s another school, very nearby larkrise. And we do have the pre and post data there, and it was 35% driven. And now it’s 15% chance, there’s been like a massive shift due to LTNs. Due to other measures. In terms of that people now cycle their kits, they feel safer. But also, it’s easier than humans take the easiest option, right. And so if the easiest option is cycling, people cycle, you know, and we need to make public transport, and cycling and all of these other ways of getting around easy and private cars, because there’s not enough space for private cars. And you know, again, the emissions like in the UK, we have 80% household car ownership worldwide, it’s 15%. Do we really want to add in an extra 5 billion cars to the planet? And whatever the number is? That’s it? Yeah. And, and the associated emissions manufacturing mining is such that we really don’t, you know, we need people to use cars when they need cars, and otherwise have other other ways of getting about.

Carlton Reid 18:59
And what are you doing here at this mobility conference?

Emily Kerr 19:02
I’m here to look at some of the kinds of new and innovative stuff that’s happening. So I was very interested in talking to the Dutch delegation. So as you’ve seen, they’ve got like a whole group of Micromobility and other company, other companies and organisations there, I’m interested in seeing some of the kind of car sharing stuff that’s happening, you know, and the switch to electric. So all of those there and also, I’m here to listen to some of those really great speakers. I’m interested in innovation, how we can learn from other countries because they think UK is lagging to a degree and how we can really shift about improving public health, improving road safety and you know, helping people to get around by bike because I love cycling. It’s great. So you know, that’s probably what I’m here for.

Carlton Reid 19:45
Now. Tell people where they can get more information on on your job, your work in Oxford, and then your Twitter feed so you can use those two websites.

Emily Kerr 19:59
Perfect. And so yeah, so I think in Oxford, we’ve got the Oxfordshire county council, who are the highways authority, and I actually work for the City Council and not the county council. So but you know, I think we work together fairly kind of collaboratively. So I think probably the Oxford county council website, it’s got a lot of press releases and a lot of information about some of the brilliant stuff they’re doing. Obviously, they’ve got a Twitter feed, I’ve got a Facebook etc, etc. I have a Twitter account. So I’m @EmilyKerr36 on Twitter. And I try and share not just what we’re doing but also what sort of everyone’s doing I’m interested in Lambeth we were just talking about Lambeth you know, Lambeth started brilliant curbside strategy. There’s loads of cool stuff. Obviously, Jesmond, you now I’m seeing what you’re you guys doing up there. Wales is doing Brilliant stuff. I think there’s a lot of local authorities, national authorities that are really looking at this in the right kind of way, and we need to be trying to learn from each other.

Carlton Reid 20:50
Thank you. And finally, has there been a decision?

Emily Kerr 20:54
What a great question. Let’s check live.

whether there has been a decision on this the Oxford to be still you haven’t you? haven’t? You haven’t? Yeah, it’s

there’s a lot of people speaking on this that often is

Carlton Reid 21:07
No decision when we were recording, but a few minutes later, Oxford Clarion local democracy Twitter account revealed that councillors voted through the decision to allow some motor vehicles to access the LTN via number plate recognition cameras. Taxi drivers, would now be allowed through for instance, making the LTN roads into well, taxi superhighways. That’ll be an interesting development to keep an eye on. But meanwhile, let’s get over to David for a quick commercial break.

David Bernstein 21:39
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast. And of course, the Spokesmen. And I’m here once again to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles, the good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for Tern, is to make sure that your ride is safe, and worryfree. And that’s why Tern works with industry leading third party testing labs like E FB, E, and builds it bikes around Bosch ebike systems, which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded, and perhaps with a loved one behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame, and the rigours of the road. For more information, visit www.ternbicycles.com. To learn more. And now, back to the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 22:49
Thanks, David. And we’re still with Emily Kerr, because she wanted to tell us about cycling to her recent wedding.

Emily Kerr 22:57
I didn’t want to talk about my writing not just for the sake of talking about wedding, but because I’ve been thinking about relation. Thanks so much. I’ve been thinking a lot about location based events and how we need to try and drive that shift. And you know, I got married in Oxford. And so most people came by train, some people came by bus, my husband and the kids got to the church by bus, and so did most of the wedding party, I arrived on a cargo bike which was taken by our local cargo delivery firm.

Carlton Reid 23:25
You weren’t pedalling you were being

Emily Kerr 23:27
unusually I do pedal, but I wasn’t. And my photographer arrived on a bike, you know, we had and, and some people arrive by car. So you know, we had some people with limited mobility. I had a couple of friends arriving with young kids. You know, I don’t think we should ban cars at all, you know, some people need cars. And that’s really not a problem. And even if, you know, there were some people that didn’t feel like it on the day. But I suppose the point is that we it’s a situation where most people shift to public transport, cycling most people came by by, you know, is is a good system for everybody because it means that people that need to come by car have space on the roads to do so.

Carlton Reid 24:02
Thanks to Emily Kerr there. And thanks to you for listening to Episode 332 of the Spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern Bicycles. Show notes, and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. The next episode will be out in early July and will be a whole bunch more interviews recorded at the Move conference. But meanwhile, get out there and ride

13th June 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 330: Andy Boenau

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Andy Boenau — White Collar Epidemic

TOPICS: Andy discusses his urban planning background and his proposed new documentary, White Collar Epidemic.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT: 

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to episode 330 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Tuesday 13th of June 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider, whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:04
I’m Carlton Reid. And on today’s show, I’m talking urban planning and more with Andy Boenau speaking to me from his home in Virginia, USA. Andy is an award winning filmmaker, and we talk about his background in transportation, and his proposed new documentary, White Collar Epidemic. And if you were last on the show in 2019, do I have to update the profile picture that we use the last time? And I’m gonna say not because I saw you on video a second ago, you look the same. So well.

Andy Boenau 1:40
Well, I was gonna show when you make when you make deals with the devil, when you’re doing urban planning work? Yeah, you get to keep your look.

Carlton Reid 1:48
Yeah, this is why my good looks are still the same. Yeah, no, I completely agree that were the bad ones. We do deals with devils. And we continue to look wonderful. And if we’re going to be talking about a project of yours in a moment, but first of all, I’d like to come on to because people I’m sure will remember vividly that 2019 show we did with In fact, it was about bike share. So that can kind of like give people a clue because you had a bike share book out at that time, didn’t you? That’s what we’re talking about the last time bike. Yes. So how did that pan out? Are you still interested in Bike Share? What where’s your where’s your interests bubbling up right now?

Andy Boenau 2:34
My, the short answer is yes. I’m looking at an oversized poster on an old canvasses an old advertisement from some French magazine propaganda with a cartoonish woman on a bicycle. I still adore not only bicycles, but bicycling propaganda. My

Carlton Reid 2:57
Propaganda? Marketing?

Andy Boenau 3:01
I’m taking back the word I’m taking it back propaganda. Yes, because it’s messaging, like I want to find, I want to find people’s emotions, I want to hook people. Because we’re silly creatures, we like to think that we’re logical. And we’re in so many ways, we’re just not. And so whatever the thing is, whether it’s buying diapers for your newborn baby, or trying to figure out which bicycle is right for you, if you need to be able to connect with people, and so at its core, that’s what, that’s what I do. It’s that kind of messaging. And so my entire career 25 years has been in mobility or urban planning of some kind. And so I developed organically a strong bias for transportation systems where you can walk or ride a bicycle as ways to get around not only because it’s good for the air, good for the environment, those are happy accidents. And for me, anyway, I, I just I want to be able to get around and I want other people to be able to get around without having to be stuck with only one option being a personal vehicle. And so yeah, years ago, when you and I talked, I was working specifically with the bike share company, I was helping them grow out of just doing Bike Share operations at universities and become more of a shared mobility offering where fleets of electric vehicles will be connected, so scooters, bicycles, trikes, low speed, electric vehicles, that sort of thing. But my kind of Northstar and this is both for professional work that I get paid for but just also some fun things like street photography has to do with happy, healthy communities. I am a people watcher. I like to see happy people. I want people to be able to live in an environment wherever they are, whether it’s a city or a suburb, That doesn’t matter, but to be able to be healthy. And what really infuriates me is infrastructure that blocks most of us from choosing healthy habits like walking around here and there riding a bicycle here and there. But we

Carlton Reid 5:18
wouldn’t be right in thinking that you started your career in designing that exact kind of infrastructure. Now, have you kind of rebelled?

Andy Boenau 5:27
That’s a great question I because some would, if they if you just read my career arc on a piece of paper, you would say, Oh, he’s he’s a reformed traffic engineer, because I began my career as just doing traffic analysis. And in a sense, yes, I was, I was the bad guy. But, but I didn’t I don’t think I don’t think it’s that simplistic that traffic engineering, but the people in it are our ministers trying to destroy things around them. What I the reason why my career has taken the path that it that it has is, and what I think why it was different in certain groups that I worked alongside. I didn’t know when I started my career, what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I still don’t really know, I just know that I know, things that I enjoy doing. I know a handful of things that I’m decent at. And when I stack those up, it ends up being unique in this infrastructure, sort of business planning and design. And so as I was going through analysing traffic, for consulting firms, you know, doing these projects for city governments and counties and state DoD departments of transport, I just asked a lot of dumb questions like, Why do we do this? Why do we analyse that? Which options do I use as the default settings? And not not coming from some place of no it on this? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. And so all my questions, were always coming from a place of I want to be able to do my work, and pay the bills and not have like, not have to keep going back to my boss. And along the way, these questions kept being answered with forms of, well, this is the way we do it, just because that’s how it’s always been done. And that doesn’t stick well with me. And so I’ve I do like transportation and urban planning. And I’d like, like I said, I’m a people watcher. And so it’s interests me how people move through space. And so the questions that I asked, were never about, I’m going to append an industry or, you know, I’m just going to stick it to the man, I just thought, wow, these these basic assumptions about how we calculate and then put judgement values on how much time it takes people to get around. It’s not really, with the human being at the centre, it really is with the machine at the centre. And it is even hearing myself say it, it sounds silly, it sounds absurd. But that is the heart and soul of modern traffic analysis. And it’s, it’s kind of silly tonight. And so when you disk when you put it, you know, back to why I use the word propaganda or messaging on purpose, when you put these things in just plain language for people to understand how it is that we analyse how people get around, it sounds so bonkers, that you can’t think it’s possibly true. So a human being sitting in a vehicle waiting for say 60 seconds for a red light to turn green, that’s considered unacceptable delay. But if a human being that same human being is standing at the corner of the intersection, and they have to wait 60 seconds to cross the street, that’s considered totally fine. In fact, if they if that person standing wants to complain while they should walk to the next block and wait maybe there’s a shorter wait over there, like go five minutes out of your way or 10 minutes out of your way. So it’s that sort of thing when you

Carlton Reid 8:59
it kind of just kind of started kind of talking to that because before you then segue off into a different subject I don’t think I want to zero in because I’m gonna use your background here in what you were doing and exactly what you said that about the what we would call in the UK a traffic light a stoplight for pedestrians so it’s a conscious decision by the municipality by the traffic engineers at the end of the day to a certain and a certain amount of time for as you said the machine and a certain amount of time for the human so they are presumably doing that a consciously be using figures using data so or is it just a bias in that no, the car should have more time the motorists should have more time more time than the pedestrians. How is that bigger now that that timing?

Andy Boenau 9:57
It’s so there’s a lot in there So, before I tell you about, like how it’s figured out, I think one of the reasons why because this is probably also something in some people’s mind. Well, why would this be? Why would people consciously go along with it? Because yes, there are, there still are in the year 2023 human beings operating the software programmes to analyse traffic. And I think so much of this goes back to the education system where we are trained to conform, not trained to be intellectually curious. And if you challenge how things are done, just the act of challenging it is seen as a you’re now part of an out group, even if your goal is I want to understand how it is we do this so that I, the engineer, or the planner can do my job better. You’re, you’re expected to conform not only at the individual kind of and team level, but then also at corporate levels and local agency level, the municipality level people in these businesses are expected just to just go with the flow. how it’s calculated, is it’s an, it’s another one of those silly things where you if you were to tell a child, a 10 year old, they would say no, that can’t possibly be if there’s these tables that you refer to, to determine whether or not the delay at the stoplight or a stop sign is air quotes, acceptable or not. And they have this genius way of getting us to agree with acceptable and unacceptable, and that is using letter grades just like you got in school. And so A, B, C, D, F, everybody wants an A, and then everybody’s like, Well, maybe if you get a B, okay, maybe not everyone can be an A student, but at least I gotta be. But if you’re getting C’s and F’s, on your stuff, come on, you’re like, No, your parents are gonna start asking questions, right. And so if I’m regularly turning in work, that’s getting D’s and F’s, somebody’s gonna go wait. And he’s got problems here, he needs to get with the programme. That’s how they label intersection analysis. And so if a car only has to wait, you know, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, that’s good level of service, a so good grade, good job. If if the person sitting at the light in a car has to wait a whole whopping minute, that is unacceptable, F. And now if you’ve got an F, what are we going to do about it? Well, what can we do to get this grade up to a, we probably need more space for cars, not just to drive along a corridor, but to stack up at the front of the intersection so that when the light goes green, boom, they can all head off. And so that means of course, more lanes to get people to get cars closer to the front line. So it’s kind of like if you picture the NASCAR. I’m not a NASCAR fan, but like a car race where you have. So I got speaking in an area that I don’t know a lot about, I can picture the starting line, or even the finish line. If you imagine all of these cards next to each other. That’s the kind of thinking behind standard traffic analysis that if if you get a bad grade on your report card, then you need to make more space up at the front, so that you don’t have a queue of people waiting. And what happens when you do that is anybody else on any so any anybody sitting on the car on the side street, they’re having the same issue as the main street, or the High Street, they’ve got to have as little delay as possible. So pretty soon, you’ve got two left, turn lanes, multiple lanes going through, you’ve got a separate slip lane. To the right, I’m gonna have to reverse all these for people in countries where they turn on the wrong side of the road. And then, of course, as you expand the streets, in the intersections, if you’re walking, or riding a bicycle to get around. Now, not only do you have to wait a while for it to be your turn to cross the street. But once you start crossing, like forget the safety implications for a second, just the time it takes you to walk across all of that pavement is wild. So these two things he’s kind of human being on foot or or on a saddle and human being inside of a machine are treated very, very differently.

Carlton Reid 14:33
But isn’t that you described moto normativity? You’ve described carb reign, as some people like to call it but isn’t that 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s maybe thinking and the modern traffic engineer who came after you and the ones today you’re not thinking differently and then no longer using such such crazy? A car brain tables to work things out?

Andy Boenau 15:00
Ah, I wish that it was. So I, I wish that there was reform. I mean, the thing is, they’re each I think, each generation and then subgroups within generations, there’s, there’s some hope put in them that, oh, this group of people, they’ve learned this thing, they’re now enlightened, they will do better. But then what happens is they get to the workplace. And they have a mentor who reminds them either explicitly or implicitly. We’re about conformity, like, go with the flow, this is how we do things. It’s just the way it is, I wish things were different. But this is just the way it is. So all of these decades later, it’s no different. I remember, near the start of my career, there were some I would hear things occasionally, there would be somebody interviewed on something like NPR in the US, you know, public radio, kind of a niche interview with somebody who would have these ideas about a mixture of traffic, calming and livable places, and how great this could be, if we were to reform the transportation industry. And as I got into my career, I started hearing things like, well, younger people these days, you know, the on a Gen X or so the millennials coming up behind me, Millennials don’t care so much about car ownership, they’re more interested in the environment. And so there were these news stories that would pop up, that would suggest, hey, things are going to change, because the next generation, this next group of people coming in, when they get to the office, they’re going to be different. And it’s, it’s just not happening, whether or not they want to, so maybe they care differently about social issues or environmental issues than the people before them. But that doesn’t matter if they’re not putting their ideas into action. What still happens at the office is the same as it ever was, it’s land use rules. And in the United States, we have most of these things are local, local municipal rules that dictate where you can build different types of buildings, different types of land uses. So if you live in a house, you go over here, oh, you want a small house, okay, that’s a different zone, you need to go live in this zone. If you want to have a shop or a market, those belong in this zone over here. And so then the planners have all these rules that lead to car oriented roads, to connect all of those zones. And then you’ve got the traffic analysis that comes behind it and says, Okay, we’ve analysed all the traffic going between these zones, there, back to the letter, the letter grades, we’re not getting good enough grades, we need to add more infrastructure for the cars. And it’s just this never ending thing. Because I think a major part of it is this, this issue of conformity, it’s just, you just are supposed to go with the flow and not stop and say, Wait a second, if we are here to serve the public interest to to deliver infrastructure that is helping people, this thing that we’re doing this process is not helping. So is there a different process that would get to the outcome which we want, which is vibrant places, Healthy Places, safer places.

Carlton Reid 18:14
I want to give you an anecdote, actually. And that this is very personal to me. And when you’re making your point, I was kind of thinking of it and that was there’s a bike lane put in in my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne and it’s a very wide bike lane it’s in many ways it’s it’s a very good bike lane. But what it’s done is made my journey through into into Newcastle City Centre longer if I follow that protected bike lane, and that’s because the stoplight which they put in the middle where before I was in with the traffic and effect when I’m not being vehicle a cyclist about this, but before, there wasn’t a huge amount of traffic on this road anyway, because it’ll be filtered elsewhere. And but I would go with the traffic lights, and I would go reasonably fast now to put this protected bike lane in but at a at a at a junction, there’s like an hour for way perhaps even more stoplight where every thread to go through. So now as a cyclist, you’ve got to wait there for enormous amount of time to cross and then when that goes green, you know you’ve got like just a few seconds, whereas the motorists get loads of time, you know, they get like five, six cars, you know, they get maybe four times the amount of time as the poor cyclists get. So I now no longer use that world class superlative very expensive bike path. I will often use the the road just because the engineers the traffic engineers through their timings of this, these lights have made my transit through that area much much right now. They could if they want the reverse car Rain, they could make it longer for the motorists, and it could be, you know, super fast for the cyclists spending all that money on this great bike lane. And they just my point of view they’ve blown it.

Andy Boenau 20:11
Yeah, I’ve seen that sort of thing in the US also. And one of one of the common bits is, you’ll see, you’ll see things described as bike infrastructure. That is nothing at all. It’s the word infrastructure is just silly to apply there. It’s a stripe of paint on a road, that’s essentially a highway where motorists are going 55 miles an hour, and just right next to the elbow of somebody riding a bike. So you’re never going to a normal person, even a well abled adult is not going to ride there, let alone your wobbly children or wobbly senior citizens. It’s frustrating, because yes, we then if you want to ride a bicycle as transport, you end up finding a different route, even if it is circuitous. And it adds 10 or 15 minutes because you’d rather Arrive alive. And it gets I think it gets to the heart of this issue of why are you what’s the outcome of your traffic analysis and your road design? Is it safety is our number one priority, which many departments of transport or public works? That’s their slogan? Is that really your your mission? Or is your mission to make driving as convenient as possible? And I argue in practice, it’s like, it doesn’t matter what your policy says, if in practice, you are making driving the most convenient thing and not only driving but driving often fast or recklessly that’s that’s the real kicker.

Carlton Reid 21:49
Now on your website if you don’t mind me saying so it almost doesn’t read as though it’s you know, your transportation expert website yet, of course, you you have that on there and you have all your, your credentials, etc. But it’s talking about storytelling. It is almost as though this is like, you know, an actor or writers website. So you right at the top, it says create, distribute and amplify stories. And then you know, the the text below is storytelling, storytelling, storytelling. So why do you think you have to tell stories? And what are the stories that you’re, you’re trying to tell?

Andy Boenau 22:31
That’s a fantastic question. I love that. I learned through so this is this is a shift, since you and I last spoke were my, throughout my career working in planning or, or engineering for transport systems or for for downtown areas, you know, mixing, bicycling, and walking and transit and all those sorts of things. My work was project to project. So it was a specific thing like this corridor, we were, we are doing something on this particular corridor. And the last few years I’ve been freelancing, or as I say, Now storyteller for hire, and all but related to the built environment. But why it’s so important. The very, I’ll tell you briefly why it’s important. And then I’ll tell you how I discovered this. It’s important because that’s how human brains are wired. We I mean, I’m not the first person to say this. Many people have said, humans are Wired for Story, like go back to the cave days. Any point in human history, if it’s just a campfire, if it’s peers getting together, if it’s old friends, if it’s new friends, whatever. Whenever people congregate to or more. We tell each other stories, even if it’s just an itty bitty story. Or if you’re me and you tell a long winded one. That’s how we communicate we we talk to each other. We convey information through anecdotes, we don’t just simply list facts. And that’s it, we’re done. We, and it’s especially true. If we’re trying to persuade someone, then then we absolutely have to integrate stories because that’s what makes somebody turn their head and go, Wait a second what I need to hear more about that, either because they’re delighted by something or they’re outraged by something, or they’re hopeful about something or whatever the emotion is, that kind of stuff comes out of storytelling. So I discovered this because I happened to enjoy advertising. I was fascinated by propaganda campaigns of World War Two from all of the countries that were involved because it’s interesting in the sense that simple things like posters with slogans and and illustrations, were moving people to action of some kind. And this is not only true for war time, but those just happened to get so much attention that it’s easy for people to pictures Don’t think in their mind like, oh yeah, I’ve seen those before. But the same is true or was true for, like, cigarette advertising. Things like four out of five doctors recommend Camel cigarettes. You know, things like that, like, whatever the product is, people who make stuff and need to sell stuff, they understand how to tell stories to get people’s buy, in that case buying behaviour to alter, or how you think about a particular issue or a social issue. So I was trying, as I was learning about that stuff, I was applying it to my technical work. So if I was helping to write a proposal for a traffic study, or in a downtown master plan, you know, long range plan about how you deal with the land use, I started incorporating that kind of storytelling that I was learning about, into the proposal into cover letters into how I did slide design, and it kept working. And I know it was working, because I would ask or go to meetings after we would when when these contracts, and ask questions, so that I could be better the next time. And I

Carlton Reid 26:11
ended up far better for me. Sorry for stopping a bit far be it for me to poopoo that idea. But does this not also say that anecdote beats data. So you can be a traffic engineer, for instance, let’s just say, who’s got this great set of data on for instance, a low traffic neighbourhood and how what we have in the UK, and how you restrict cars. With 21st century traffic engineering, thinking, you then reduce congestion and you improve air, you’ve got the data that says that, however, members that public with anecdote say no, it’s not like that my life has been made hell. So the storytelling, actually Trump’s actuality. So do you not see that storytelling is potentially have problems, you could be spinning lies here, Andy, by using your excellent storytelling techniques when you should be using hard data. So how do you square that circle?

Andy Boenau 27:20
It’s the you’re right, in the sense that any anything’s possible. I mean, the fact that humans are able to speak is wonderful and terrible at the same time. I mean, I’ve joked that I’m an extrovert. And we extroverts think that everything that comes out of our mouth is important. That’s not great. So on the one hand, yes, anything could come out. But I compare this, when I’m when I’m talking about stories, and, and data. I compare this to the voting booth. So if you were to if two different people who played politics, go into a voting booth, and they’re given a piece of paper that has the the same, the same piece of paper, a list of 10 indisputable facts, and they’re asked based on these 10 indisputable facts, which politician is going to serve us better. And these two people will pull different levers. And they’re both convinced that their person, their team is going to address these indisputable facts in the better way. So that’s one way that I connect that idea of data and stories. The other is it’s not I’m not suggesting that people just spin stories without any data. The trick is using data to tell stories. If you what’s really fun, though, I mean, I find I take sick pleasure in trolling people who don’t do this. But if somebody if you catch somebody, like a road designer, or a traffic engineer, or somebody from the planning department, who is making a claim, without data, they see you, you know, they don’t really know what they’re talking about, then it’s extra fun, because you can take what you know to be true. And make some excellent stories. And when I say story, I that is not equivalent to lies that is just simply a narrative. It’s some kind of there’s a beginning middle end, there’s a conflict, there’s a resolution you know, that’s what I mean, when I say story. You you are going to be the most effective when you take some facts and then do something with it. So for example, like one simple thing with with traffic safety in the US. I know and this is it’s it’s not exact every single year, but about 100 Americans are killed in traffic every single day. So that’s that is a stat statistic. I can use that in different ways and in different stories, or another one would be Our local governments, in their zoning rules that dictate where you can live where you can shop, where you do all the different things like they’re very when you look at those, those rules, they’re very rigid. And so if I look at that, I can take a fact. Like, you’re not you’re only allowed to have a certain type of home here. And I can say something true from that data, which is, this is interesting. You outlaw townhouses, or I don’t know, maybe you call it row homes, but narrow attached homes, like a lot, a lot of places in America, outlaw those, when you tell someone that it sounds so ridiculous, it can’t possibly be true. It is true. But if I don’t put it in a way that hooks them that catches them that makes them go, Wait a second, what? It’s illegal to have a townhouse? Well, yes, in a whole lot of areas, it is illegal to have a townhouse. So that’s, that’s the kind of way that I say, use data to tell stories.

Carlton Reid 31:04
Okay, yeah, so I wasn’t saying you can pay using stories. And I appreciate you kind of like, you know, you can use stories for for good, of course, you can, as you say, you know, humans have have use stories forever in a day to get across their point of view, and whether that’s a politician, or in fact, a storyteller. Now, after the break, we’re going to talk about white collar epidemic. But right now let’s go across to David for a brief intermission.

David Bernstein 31:34
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast. And of course, the spokesmen. And I’m here once again, to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles, the good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for Tern, is to make sure that your ride is safe, and worryfree. And that’s why Tern works with industry leading third party testing labs like E FB, E, and builds it bikes around Bosch ebike systems, which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded, perhaps with a loved one behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame, and the rigours of the road. For more information, visit www.ternbicycles.com to learn more. And now, back to the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 32:44
Thanks, David. And we’re back with Andy Boenau. And we are going to be talking about White Collar Epidemic which is Andy’s forthcoming project. But first of all, I want to go backwards, not not to what we were talking about before the break nd but the awards that you’ve won. So this this white colour epidemic is a proposed film. But first of all, tell me about your previous films, because I see on your on your website, your storytelling website, where it says you’ve 2013 2014 and 2015, you won awards for short films at the New Urbanism Film Festival. So what what were those three films,

Andy Boenau 33:24
those were walk, don’t walk, streets, floatation, and war on congestion. All three were short as I would call them, my documentaries, where I was making up true stories like we were just talking about. Having come out of the World of Traffic Analysis and transportation planning and traffic safety. I know how things are done. I like I know how projects go from start to finish. And so it frustrates me how they move. And so I took that and put it in short film version. So that first one walked don’t walk was essentially that’s what really got me excited about doing these kinds of projects because I realised there aren’t people, especially not that long ago, talking about these issues of how we move around in space, how we use public space in a way that normies would pick up on and understand we were so used to using jargon, like intersection level of service and functional classification. And even even with urban planning, well meaning people like walkability, this is a term I use, there are terms like that, that they get used so much that it becomes almost wallpaper that’s just in the room, and you you kind of forget about it. And so I wanted to take some of these ideas, where I know there’s a problem out there, and it’s gonna get worse unless we intervene. But wait, there is a way to intervene and things can get better in the end because I know I’m I am an intern No optimist, but I know I’m right things can get better in the end.

Carlton Reid 35:04
So we’ve established that you’re wondering how long they’re short films, by the way, how short? Well,

Andy Boenau 35:11
there are between, I think each of them is between 11 and 15 minutes. I think the longest one is 14. Okay.

Carlton Reid 35:18
So they’re not like, you know, Instagram short, they’re not like one minute, they are 1015 minute documentaries. Now, the one that you’ve got your crowdfunding for now, white collar epidemic tool, we’ll start talking about how long do you think that one’s going to be? Is it gonna be longer? Or is that going to be like another 15? minute one,

Andy Boenau 35:36
it’ll be a solid hour. And in fact, at first, I was thinking maybe 70 or 80 minutes, but then I’ve been, I’ve been getting some advice from other filmmakers more much more established filmmakers. And that’s where I settled on an hour is probably the sweet spot from those advisors. And it’s, in part because there’s just so much to pack in. I was, I was talking with a journalist yesterday about this, that there are so many smaller personal story arcs that I’m finding that this, I think long term really needs to be a series. It whether you know how that ends up coming to fruition, I’m not sure yet. But I know what I can control right now. And that is make a one hour long documentary. And so that’s where I find myself and it’s still, this one is different for me, because it’s bringing in an industry that I am not an expert, I don’t have expertise in I do on the infrastructure side, of course, but this is linking to things, infrastructure, and health. And the premise came out of just this. I mean, there were a few things happening a few years ago. And as I was jotting notes in my my personal idea book, I put something I wrote something down to the effect of a doctor prescribes walking, but the patient is unable to fill the prescription. And that note to myself was because I was I was reading articles and blogs that people were sending me about doctors in the United States who were doing just that they were writing prescriptions, but instead of pills, it was for Active Living, it was take a walk once a day, or ride a bicycle once a week. But if you’re in the States, most most of us whether it’s a city or a county, that doesn’t matter. Most people in America, if they get that prescription, and they walk outside of the doctor’s office, and they look at the street, or the the network around them, they go, how can I possibly fill this prescription? There’s no way. So a doctor is going to tell you riding a bike will help treat your anxiety and your depression. But good luck. Yeah, you can’t you can’t do what he’s saying. So doctors no and this, this is what the title might change. But tentatively, this is where it came from. That healthy activity is prohibited by design. So you’ve got on the one hand, this one group of white collar professionals, the medical community, where they’re saying, This is what’s good are these things are good for the human mind. And the human body, and, you know, has to do with movement and getting around interacting with other people being social, they know what’s good for us, then you have this other group of white collar professionals, highly educated. That’s the infrastructure community, they’re saying, nice, try not gonna get it. It gets back to what you’re describing before, even if they do something like put down a white stripe and say, That’s a bike lane. Now, nobody’s using it because it’s, it’s just awful. And so by design, infrastructure does not fit, healthy activity, healthy living or active living. So that’s, that’s kind of the rub. So I want this to be focused on that on highlighting that conflict to show people. There’s a lot that can be done to improve mental health and physical health. But there’s something blocking and it’s not just a something, it’s an entire profession of very smart, well educated people. And it’s, it’s I mean, it’s kind of it’s crushing. It’s so I know the physical types of physical impacts that I already knew about with infrastructure with things like doing traffic safety work for years, crash injuries, and so car on car crashes car on bike, car, and pedestrian, like I understand that very well in terms of physical health. What I’ve been learning a lot about and realising I just had no idea how bad things were. is things like the top 10 causes of death in America. Can all Trump adequately be reduced by active living. So it’s not like going to the gym necessarily and pumping iron and running on a treadmill and then going back home with that, that could be fine. But just it doesn’t even have to be that intense. And so in the US, we have things like, one in two Americans has a chronic disease, and the numbers keep going up. But I think it’s one in three are obese right now. And then something that doctors have been studying for, I think this is going on 25 years, where people who do not live in a neighbourhood that’s walkable as in they can easily walk to say, a market or, or a pharmacy, or

Carlton Reid 40:43
a minute cities. And

Andy Boenau 40:45
there we go, there we go. We’ll be extra controversial and say, people who don’t live in the 15 Minute cities, they’re trapped. The flip would be if they have to take a car everywhere. Those people have higher rates of obesity, higher rates of heart disease, and diabetes, and then and a bunch of other ailments. And so that kind of like the beginning of my career, when I was just asking dumb questions like, why is this? Why do we do this, learning these things about just physical health was jarring to me. Because, sure, it makes sense that if you move around, you won’t, you won’t gain as much weight. But the extent of your body’s damage by not having regular movement was was pretty eye opening to me. And then also, the other thing that I would say, that was really eye opening was just how strongly the connections are between humans being active and their mental wellness. So anxiety and depression are by far the big ones. But then also, other things that are are harder to pinpoint, like cognitive decline, or creativity. They they’ve been researching that. This is to show when people are moving around when they’re active, they’re way more likely for their brains to stay intact for far longer than if they’re just seated and alone and isolated. And it’s not the doctors have answered why behind all of that. But they do know this correlation that these things happen together, that when people are stuck in a car dependent area, they are more likely to experience these bad things. And so that’s why I say like, we hear headlines every year about infrastructure is crumbling. infrastructure is crumbling. And I’m saying that’s only the first part of the sentence the full sentences infrastructure is crumbling our minds and bodies

Carlton Reid 42:42
so in on the you say that infrastructure programmers bodies on the the YouTube video that’s on your your, your your seat and spark pitch there. But under the third one down the third line down it says watch the quest to legalise healthy neighbourhoods, what do you mean by legalise healthy neighbourhoods.

Andy Boenau 43:02
So that’s, that’s part of the storytelling based on data. So in the United States, we have local land use rules for this is this is generally true, where it’s not usually the state level, that tells you how exactly a neighbourhood has to be designed. But at the local level, we have these rules. For example, like I mentioned to you about townhouses where townhouses are often outlawed. Another example would be, you’re not allowed to have a front yard business. So let’s say you have a garage next year, you could be in a single family dwelling, this is not about living in a SkyRise in Manhattan or something like that just in a normal in a normal neighbourhood, you’re not allowed to just have a garage converted to a barber shop, or a nail salon or a tax accountant, you know, something like that. It’s whatever it is, you’re just you’re not allowed, it’s illegal to mix the business with the residential. It’s illegal in in most of these places to have a corner market. So you end up having to drive to the grocery store or to the market. You can’t just walk a block or a couple of blocks to the market, or restaurants or pubs. You can’t have those in neighbourhoods, it’s outlawed by local land use rules. And so what I’m pushing on you I’m using those, that language very intentionally, I want to deliberately remind people, this is not accident. This is not an accidental circumstance that we find ourselves like, Oh, if only our forefathers had thought ahead and developed mixed use neighbourhoods. Now this is active rules that are still on the books today that prevent you from living in a place where you could walk to these things. It’s that’s how I want to legal as in this is part of the What I hope is the outcome of this film is highlighting for people, this huge problem of how infrastructure and health are currently going at each other like they’re in conflict. And I want people to see, there are ways at the local level to make things better. So this is not about who’s president of the United States, or even who your state senators are, this is at the local level, if you make enough noise, you can make change. And so that’s what I want. I’m not this is not about preaching at people, that they should always ride their bike everywhere, even though I think the bike is a wonderful tool to get around. This is about highlighting a conflict that has not yet been talked about in the documentary format.

Carlton Reid 45:47
And when when this documentary comes out this over an hour or adventure series, where’s it going to be distributed? How are you going to be this is like film festivals, where do you see it being broadcast?

Andy Boenau 46:00
It’ll be a, that’s a yes. And as they say, it’s, I want it to be as widely distributed as possible. So I’m going to be if I can raise enough funding for the film festival entries, the more that I’m able to raise the more festivals that I will, I will put it in. But then also, just old fashioned networking, I’m gonna, once it’s done, I’m gonna reach out to as many people in my network about this regularly about this, find some influential people who can help amplify. And then of course, some of the folks that have already volunteered to contribute to it are fantastic people. I mean, they’re, they’re loaded with information on their own.

Carlton Reid 46:47
I’ve seen the list, it’s a good list. And so Chris Bruntlett who’s been on the show, of course, with his wife, who’s Dutch cycling embassy, in Vancouver? Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of stuff. So these are these in the can? Or the are you going to be going to these people, how many of these interviews have you done and how many are still to be done?

Andy Boenau 47:10
They’re, they’re fantastic people. And I’ve had I call, I call the pre interviews with all of them. So we re recorded with every so every person listed on the website, I’ve done a short recording with, because there’s, they have a couple of areas of not just bias, but perspective about some of these, some of the areas that enter that, that are involved in this conflict of health and infrastructure. And I’m not, I wasn’t asking any one of them to be the overall an overarching expert in this issue. But they all bring something very important. So the reason why I have so many people in here is I know that there are so many potential ways that this kind of main storyline of the documentary can go. I also know that 20 different people, that’s I can’t have 20 different storylines, that’s just going to be overwhelming. So I don’t know for sure what the final stories are going to be. So when part of the crowd funding for this, this film is to make it possible for me to as I narrow down the stories, which is one of the things I’m doing right now, to then be able to go in person and do what what you would say, is a traditional kind of in house interview format, with the lean team that I’ve got. So that’s that’s the plan. But all of these folks were and there are even more who have since said that they want to be able to contribute in some way. But we haven’t we haven’t gotten them on film. But it’s it’s fascinating to me that there are so many people who are both in health and an infrastructure. As soon as I give them the pitch of this just this idea that a doctor prescribes healthy activity that another group says Cool story, bro, you can’t get that. It hits them quickly. They’re like yes, that’s true. And yet the industry as a whole is just not budging and and I think a lot of it just goes back to how we’re siloed in different areas like traffic safety is one silo and land use planning is another silo and architecture and cognitive design that an assessment works on that’s another silo. And they don’t interact with each other. They don’t have they’re not incentivized to interact with each other. And, and so because of that, we the human being that just wants to get around, we suffer the consequences.

Carlton Reid 49:47
So this you’re using, and this is a platform I’m not familiar with, because I’ve used Kickstarter in the past seed and spark. So that’s like Kickstarter. Yeah, but do you do you Get your money. Even if you don’t reach the total because of Kickstarter, if you don’t hit your total, you don’t get any money. So how does this one how to seed and spark work?

Andy Boenau 50:10
Seed and spark is very similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo. It was made specifically for filmmakers. And so years ago, I had done something with Kickstarter. This is one where you need to raise 80% of your goal before it’s greenlit. I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to get there. But it is one of those things like you’ve got to get the vast majority 80% is what you need to get, which for this project is about $10,000. So the goal, the overall goal for this is $12,000, which includes all the production, travel, the interviews, all that kind of stuff, the in person stuff and then be rolled along with some of these stories that are coming out. So this is going through the month of June, we’ve got 21 days left As of recording, so about three weeks. And then and then we’ll we’ll see where we stand. And then once once we get to the end of this, crowdfunding assuming that it’s successful, I’ll be I’ll be well on my way to scheduling FaceTime with these great folks. And then also adding in some, some local stories in in a couple of cities were not people, they aren’t experts in their field. They’re just people who have been on the receiving end of unhealthy infrastructure. And those stories need to be told. So

Carlton Reid 51:35
this is seed and spark.com. The URL is way too long to actually say this on air. But basically you search for either your name or probably easier because your name is quite difficult to spell.

Andy Boenau 51:48
It’s my forefathers. So I made a slight colour epidemic. You can search for that you could also go to urbanismspeakeasy.com/film.

Carlton Reid 52:01
Thanks to Andy Boenau there and thanks to you for listening to Episode 330 of the spokesmen podcast brought to you as always in association with turn bicycles shownotes and more can be found at the hyphen spokesman.com. The next episode features the Midwest correspondent for The Economist, Daniel Knowles. We talk about his new book, Carmageddon. But meanwhile, get out there and ride

26th May 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 328: BBC Bike Bureau with Anna Holligan and Kate Vandy (and Jack)

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Anna Holligan and Kate Vandy

TOPICS: “Just two journalists building a mobile studio on two wheels”

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 328 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Friday 26th of May 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com. To learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:03
I’m Carlton Reid and welcome to this episode of the Spokesmen podcast in which I talk with BBC correspondents Anna Holligan and Kate Vandy and the formation of their mobile news gathering studio, the BBC bike bureau. A glitch scuppered our first chat so I’m not able to produce a companion video version of that conversation but I have been able to rescue a short segment that I will place on YouTube as a clip and the audio is at the end of this episode. The segment features Jack, an elderly British gentleman living in The Hague and who saw Anna as we were recording. He was thrilled at seeing a BBC reporter next to a cargo bike, and he politely butted in. Not that he knew Anna was part of a three-way chat, of course. But he soon did and Jack became the first person to be interviewed by Anna using the new kit on the BBC’s Bike Bureau …

Kate, where are you because I know you’re somewhere gorgeous? So So tell us where you are. And and make us jealous.

Kate Vandy 2:24
I am in Sydney at the moment, which is my hometown and I am lucky enough are very lucky. The BBC sent me here for six months to work. I’m going to be covering the Women’s World Cup and a few other things while I’m here. But it is autumn going into winter and each day is 20 degrees. 22 degrees and blue sky and bright sunshine. So it’s pretty good.

Carlton Reid 2:49
It’s actually quite nice and Newcastle. To tell the truth it’s we’ve we’ve come into spring it’s beautiful. And then same question to you Anna. So what’s the weather like in I’m assuming you’re in The Hague at the moment I am in

Anna Holligan 3:02
The Hague is beautiful. It’s a beautiful sunny day, I’ve just done the school run, hopped off my bike and dashed inside to speak to you.

Carlton Reid 3:09
Yeah, cuz when you came on, because we record this, and this is just audio. But I did get a wee bit of Anna’s. And it’s like, it’s almost like I don’t recognise we are close on type thing. I don’t recognise you away from a bike. You know you’re in, you’re in a real room. It’s like over that we have that Santa. Cuz normally I just see you with a bike. Anna. How weird is that? That you are basically in my mind. And I’m sure lots of people you’re associated with your cargo bike.

Anna Holligan 3:34
It’s funny, because before I came to the Netherlands, I was just a hobby cyclist. But here, it’s just something that you do so naturally, and that you start to incorporate parts of your life on the bike. And that’s kind of been the evolution of the bike bureau in part.

Carlton Reid 3:49
Hmm. And we will get onto that because you talked about the bike Bureau at So where were you when you’re in Leipzig, weren’t you so that was like a week ago, fellow city so so tell us about what you were doing in Velo city.

Anna Holligan 4:01
So I was talking about the evolution of the bank bureaus. So how it came into being. So starting off with Kate and I growing on a cycle tour of Europe, looking at Europe cycling revolution. And during that trip, we filmed with some parents who were using electric cargo bikes. And then Kate and I started to think well, wouldn’t that Empress actually be so perfect for what we do too. So it became something all about enabling multi skilled digital first mobile journalists like us to do our jobs in the most cost time and climate efficient way. And so that’s what I was really talking about, but but also the the journey that has brought us to this point of having such a revolutionary pioneering model to show people and the way in which I’ve been using it and kind of trialling it and finding out the stories that really lend themselves to being covered by the bike Bureau because it takes us right to the heart After breaking news and places where traditional radio and satellite vans and trucks I wouldn’t be able to get to with all of the kids on board. So that was kind of what I was talking about. And it’s really interesting as well with that kind of audience because they are are already so enlightened when it comes to cycling, but then to be able to bring something brand new to them inspiring, innovative. Yeah, it felt really, it felt like it was a validation of something that case that I have been working on for so many years now.

Carlton Reid 5:34
But you were talking to a very friendly audience there, obviously, who a would know who you were B would be absolutely, you know, dialled in on the benefits of cargo bikes in cities. What about an audience that isn’t as friendly as that? Can you imagine going to, you know, another conference and discussing how mainstream Do you think this this project you’ve got going is and that’s both that can be both to both of you, in fact that that particular question?

Anna Holligan 6:03
I think Kate has already had some interesting conversations with with colleagues about this.

Kate Vandy 6:08
Yeah, I mean, we’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by how many people are super enthusiastic when they’ve seen the project. So we kind of think this has the potential to be really mainstream, and hopefully one day really ordinary, and just something that everyone has the possibility to do. Of course, it wouldn’t work in every single city. But if you if you look around you, you know, I’ve been living in Brussels for years now. But if you look to Paris, Barcelona, Vienna, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and further away, the cities like Vancouver, Melbourne, in Australia, Bogota, Tokyo, Taipei, I mean, so many cities in the world already offer the infrastructure in which something like this could exist. So I just think, what we’re doing, we’re hoping we can lead the way and show people that there’s really simple solutions to kind of change what they’re doing in their everyday life. So our hope is that it becomes super mainstream, as quickly as possible,

Carlton Reid 7:04
you kind of you kind of need it to be a bike friendly place. So you think

Anna Holligan 7:09
if you look at this, just from the perspective of the BBC News, content priorities, first of all, as journalists, they’re all about delivering for our audiences, the best journalism being the best at live news, breaking important stories, but then missing audience challenges too. So tackling news avoidance, reaching younger and underserved audiences, and building trust through transparency. And the bank Bureau has been seen and kind of understood by people as the perfect vehicle to be able to do this because we can show people how we are gathering news, how we’re going live from a bike, and one of the other priorities is about creating a fun and friendly and collaborative culture. And for me, this is the embodiment of the the bike Bureau, and there are so many places which are already suitable for riding an electric cargo bike. And over the years, Carlson, you’ll be familiar with these arguments, you know, it’s too hilly, the weather’s not good enough. Well, the fact is, an electric bike flattens or hills and I have written around Edinburgh on a non electric bike, and I know how desirable that is. But also weather wise, because I have been using this for more than two years. Now, I’m not doing it for fun, I’m doing it because it is the most obvious and practical choice. And what I want is for women, especially in journalism to be empowered in the same kind of way. So for getting to the kinds of stories where it wouldn’t have been possible with another mode of transport. And most of the time, I don’t have another pair of hands. So when there’s an explosion of a block of flats, I don’t want to park miles away in a dodgy neighbourhood, and then walk four miles with all of the kit, I have a bike that can now do all of that for me. And when I’m trying to cover two stories, two different sides of time when a farmer’s protests later on climate protests with water cannon, the only way to get to the scene of those breaking news stories when all of the roads around the climate protests were closed down by police was by bike and then I had everything I needed there. So I think, of course, in cities, there are challenges and we as Kate has said, we’re not trying to say hey, look, here’s the answer the kind of swiss army knife for all of the challenges that we face, no trying to be a more sustainable broadcaster. But actually in showcasing the potential of the bike Bureau it opens up so many more ideas and possibilities and it can inspire people in lots of other ways to think about they’re guessing how they’re doing their jobs. And I’m not just talking about in in journalism there and what we Kate and I are trying to do is is have one of these ideally in in suitable bureaus around the world once we have showed the possibilities by actually using it. So giving this tangible example sorry, okay, go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just

Kate Vandy 9:57
gonna say I think you know, we also have a responsibility Ready to look at how we work and live each day as people and as broadcasters, and I think the biochar is a really good way of showcasing that, you know, what changes can we make, we don’t want to just lecture people or be seen to, you know, flying is part of our job as well. But I think this is us showing that when we have control, we can make changes. And what I really hope and I know anecdotes as well as that, there’s just inspires people that see it and to just to step back and think, What small changes can I make each day that might make any have an impact on the environment positively, and also, all these other things. And I mentioned a really important as well, like empowerment, flexibility cost, or, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of different things going on with it.

Carlton Reid 10:46
And I mentioned speed there, because the police have got bikes, you know, they they get to incidents quicker. And then the squad cars, emergency services, you know, the paramedics use bike for that reason. So you could probably get to a story quicker than many other of your colleagues and maybe competitors, you can actually speed somewhere and get to the story quicker.

Anna Holligan 11:13
Our colleagues will be our competitors and colleagues will be inspired to hop on a bike of their own in the future, actually, to all be racing, they’re on two wheels.

Carlton Reid 11:23
Because Jon Snow, I mean, I remember interviewing him and that was one of his things he said, this is when there was like, you know, a producer of camera, sound, you know, electricians etc. And it’d be like a big squad of people would have to arrive places, but he would say he would get to incidents on his bike far quicker than his crew could ever get there, then he would start his interviews and or you know, you’re sending the prep. So that’s that’s the potential that you could get to places pretty darn quickly.

Anna Holligan 11:54
Jon is not alone in that respect.

Carlton Reid 11:56
Let’s talk about the bike itself than so we can geek out and I have I have been shown around the bike. You showed me around the last time we talked, but let’s kind of go round virtually and discuss it again. So it is a cargo bike. It’s the same cargo bike that we are familiar with. Is that right?

Anna Holligan 12:16
Yes, it’s the same cargo bikes. So this is my personal bike that we’re using for this project.

Kate Vandy 12:22
And it’s an electric cargo bike just to point out for people, especially on Twitter who seem to think it’s not, it would be awfully heavy for Anna to pedal around. Otherwise, it isn’t.

Carlton Reid 12:33
It’s got a bucket on the front in effect. And normally you’ve got your daughter in there. Yes. Yes. But you’re telling me the last time that you can actually fit all these kids in and your daughter? Yes. So

Anna Holligan 12:47
the idea was, I started doing things with news and my daughter on the side, pretty much as soon as I invested in the cargo bag, after we had filmed this documentary and realised the game changing potential in work and life. And so just within a couple of months, I was picking her up from school popping her in the bike to cycle her home, and then doing a live from just outside the school gates. And there is video evidence of this on the BBC. And then it was kind of like a playpen. And there was enough space for both of those vital parts of my life. But then, as we and especially Kate has seen more potential to do more with this vehicle we’ve built over the years. But we still want to keep it really manageable and small. And we’re mobile journalists, we’re mostly using our phones for broadcasting. But we wanted to build something that could allow us to go further and stay on air for longer. But that all still kind of fits into a backpack and can be transported from my bike to other bikes, because we have to be really clear about this. I use an electric cargo bike that I chose, but in theory, we’ve designed a bike bureau that can be transported to any bike and not even just an electric bike, you know, if you’re if you’re much fitter than I am, and you’ve got some strong side muscles, then in theory, this could be a regular a regular bike,

Carlton Reid 14:17
huh, so you can get on your gravel bike, and you can go off road and you can go and do some weird and wonderful stuff just as long as you’ve got the kit in your backpack.

Anna Holligan 14:25
Yes, that’s something we’re working on. Exactly. Because the bike is kind of like the frame at the moment. And we have all of these arms and lights coming off it. But yeah, the idea is and it is kind of morphing all the time as we are learning lessons from the work that we do with the bike bureau. But the idea is that in the future, you can use any bike it wouldn’t have to be a cargo bike electric or otherwise. And Kate wise, this is yeah has been so much trial and error. So I think Kate is well placed to talk through how it has gone from being me with a kind of selfie stick to something so much more sophisticated, which is the boat bureau?

Kate Vandy 15:04
Do we want to go through the kits? Sorry? I’m slightly interrupting our flow. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 15:08
No, no, totally. I mean, basically start with maybe the solar panels and the folding solar panels.

Anna Holligan 15:15
Do you know what we could just bring up the actual bike pure peace. I have like a photographic memory now of all of the component parts. But if we want to be really like technical, then it’s good idea to have the list in front of us. But I can talk about how we dial up while Kate looks for the kit list. I could talk about what we use in terms of broadcasting. So from our phones, we have studio capabilities through Lucy live going through to the radio studios directly, and we can choose which studios or which programme, and then we’re connected to go live on air. And with TV, we use the Live View mobile app, which I think was developed in partnership with the BBC. So when the phone is attached to the bike, it just gives us studio capabilities from anywhere in the field literally now, going to places that would have been out of reach in the past. And

Carlton Reid 16:10
5g network. So basically the 5g network as I’ve extended where you can get to

Anna Holligan 16:15
well and and being on wheels and two wheels instead of 4k.

Carlton Reid 16:18
Have you got the list then? I do? I do. Apologies. So that’s okay, so so we’re gonna we’re gonna start with the solar panels so that you need extra power. Yes, yeah. So

Kate Vandy 16:31
one of the big things that’s really helpful, I’ve seen Anna work, you know, not for 24 hours, but you know, really, really long days in the field on her own. And I know one of the biggest things that was going to be a help would be a solar panel with an energy bank, because otherwise you’re sort of scrambling around for battery packs, or trying to find sockets, when actually you need to be outside broadcasting live. So that was the main thing that we wanted to find a sort of lightweight solar panel attached to an energy bank where Anna could charge her laptop, could charge her phones, which have at least two phones on her when she’s broadcasting if not three. And we could also charge lights, microphones, very important coffee pot. So

Carlton Reid 17:17
very critical as equipment, coffee.

Kate Vandy 17:22
For journalists, getting coffee, coffee is probably number one. So that bank, obviously if it’s not a sunny day, obviously, that’s fine, because we can already have had it pre pre energise and fall for when she goes out to work. So that should last at least a day, if not longer, depending on what she needs to charge. And so then, we have this desk now, which is amazing. And it took us quite a long time to find didn’t find a lot of looking. And we’ve looked at building our own, we’ve been designing different ones. And then and I came across this amazing desk, which is like a suitcase, and you unclip it and pull it up. And it can then be set to whatever height you want. And it’s really sturdy and really strong. So we’ve got that as well in the middle of the bike. And to that we’ve been attaching small rigs with magic arms. And on the end of those are the shoulder pods. And on the shoulder pod, the phone is placed. There’s a possibility to place light at a microphone. But we’ve been using wireless rode mics for now. And I think that’s it, isn’t it? And some likes as well. Ring likes, we’ve got attached at the moment. Yeah, and

Anna Holligan 18:39
we’ve got the radio mics as well in case we want to be able to move further away. And I’ll tell you what, this, there will be people who are perhaps not so familiar with the potential of bikes and broadcasting. But actually, it’s if it was a gimmick, and we’ve read the good and bad comments if it was a gimmick, this is not something that I would have been using for two, three years. And a few months ago, there was sadly a train crash 12 kilometres from here in Bruges Houghton. And I had to get to the scene of breaking news as quickly as possible and they wanted me an hour and a half an hour. And I thought okay, there’s no way I can cycle there. I’m just gonna have to hire a car because having a bike to do my news and from my life allowed me to get rid of my car. So now I rely on rely on green wheels and various other car

Carlton Reid 19:36
sharing short term rental

Anna Holligan 19:38
car shares, they’re really big here in the Netherlands. So I took one of those instead. And as soon as I got there, I was just wishing that I had my bike. I thought you know what, I should have just waited I should have waited another half an hour and I’ll be there with my bike because on that day I was having to borrow charge from colleagues. I was having to drive back and forth. to a cafe to get a decent charge up, it was an absolute nightmare. I didn’t have anywhere to edit, it was sunny there was I hadn’t managed to carry drinks and all that kind of thing. And for me in that moment, I thought, you know, I want everyone to have one of these, I want to this isn’t about gimmicks, it isn’t about, hey, look what we can do. And sustainability for sustainability sake is not worth anything to us on the ground. But the, the, the way in which this allows us to do our jobs, that takes away the danger, the hard side of it, and it’s already hard enough being on air constantly for radio and TV, providing digital content. So to have a vehicle literally, that helps to manage that load is just so empowering. And it allows us to do more on air, because we’re not having to worry about going back and forth for for charging and drinks. And you know what it does need and Kate and I we have to discuss this maybe off air is a toilet. That’s the only thing that’s missing

Carlton Reid 21:08
because it doesn’t have a toilet. So that’s the kind of same kind of revealing.

Anna Holligan 21:16
Yeah, so it’s if I hadn’t say, oh, sorry. No, no, no, go ahead.

Kate Vandy 21:21
I was gonna have to say there were a few people asking if it was actually an April Fool’s joke when we posted it on Twitter. And I have to let them down. It actually is not a joke. But again, with Anna, you know, it’s, we just want to make sure people understand this is really sincere. I mean, this is something that the majority of time we’ve spent researching this has been our own time. And as Anna mentioned, it’s her own personal bike that she’s allowed us to experiment with. And, you know, it’s been a real passion project for us. And we just wanted to make something as best we could with what we could find. And yeah, just that it’s sincere, and it’s not a joke. And hopefully, it can only get better from here, really. And hopefully we you know, we’d find even better solutions to the kinds of things we’ve been, we’ve been looking for

Carlton Reid 22:05
the things that you’ve said your research was including that table. So what do you use the table for? But you haven’t, you haven’t explained what that was for what what exact quantity and type table comes out of a suitcase? But what do you use it for?

Anna Holligan 22:17
laptop and then editing mostly. But yeah, so it’s a desk. So you can have your laptop on you’ve got the coffee, the curves. But for editing in the field. So if we wanted to edit on location, we don’t have to go and find a desk in a cafe we can do it from from where we’re standing. So that’s a really but also like, if there’s a complicated story, you need to have some notes in front of us, containers, and data have a laptop at eye level.

Carlton Reid 22:46
That’s brilliant, actually, yeah, I’m thinking I need a concertina type table that I can just get out my

Anna Holligan 22:52
part. And the thing is, we’re still working on this. And we want to also be really clear about that, because this is a pilot project, but it’s also just a prototype. And as we’ve been building every time we’re like, hey, you know what, we could get a solar panel that’s more, that’s neater, that can be folded up or rolled up. And so we want to incorporate a bit more 3d printing to try and get exactly the right dimensions to fit with what we need to do and have the kit built into a box that then supports the desk and the woman is very portable, it’s very modular, so it can be folded up. But I think in a year’s time, the bite Bureau will look very different from the one that we’re looking at are talking about today.

Carlton Reid 23:35
I’m gonna cut to an ad break right now.

David Bernstein 23:37
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast and of course the Spokesmen. And I’m here once again to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for turn is to make sure that your ride is safe and worryfree. And that’s why turn works with industry leading third party testing labs like EFBE, and builds its bikes around Bosch ebike systems which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded and perhaps with a loved one behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame and the rigours of the road. For more information visit www.ternbicycles.com to learn more. And now back to the Spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 24:47
So we’re back with talking about the bike bureau with Kate Vandy and Anna Halligan. And when we did this previously, we had a we had a few tech glitches, which means we can’t do the whole thing. But you you actually, what I’m not gonna say it costed you in a cost. You, you, you were you were welcomed by an elderly gentleman who was very lovely, who was wonderfully surprised that you were there on a bicycle and that you were the BBC. So tell us about Jack.

Anna Holligan 25:23
He thought he was dreamy, it must have just been the most surreal moment. He’s taking his dog for a walk, by the way, he was on a bike and he was 82. He is amazing. And he came out of the corner of a canal. And there I was with the bike Bureau, BBC Randy on the laptop. He was just a bit astounded, I think. But it was, it was such a fortuitous meeting, because Jack was just he saw us like that. And instantly, he could grasp the concepts. And we were talking about broadcasting to younger audiences and connecting to younger audiences being transparent and authentic in the way that we gather news. But here is this lovely old guy saying, hey, you know what, this makes so much sense.

Carlton Reid 26:06
Now, I will probably play audio, I’ll supply some audio in here of Jack and I’ll put the clip on YouTube because we can work and there was enough non glitch that we could capture that bit. But it was wonderful. And we were sitting there you know, I was in Newcastle. Obviously you were you were live with with Jack yourself. But then and Kate was in Sydney. And we were just sitting there thinking this is really cute. This is nice. This is beautiful, that you’re so accessible.

Anna Holligan 26:32
I think that has been something that has grown and is still it still feels unusual. And we welcome that if it helps audiences to feel a connection and to be able to understand and connect with what we’re trying to do and see that this is authentic, and that we are working from a grassroots level in creating this. And it’s something that I have been really conscious of over the last few years using the bike that audiences who have traditionally been showing us avoidance or been AMSI. The mainstream media just feel as though this is something different that they can embrace in a way that sometimes when you go into neighbourhoods, they don’t want TV crews there. But when you’re coming with a biker when they feel as though they already know you chatting to them as as a one to one as a normal person, then it makes our job so much easier because we don’t have those same barriers to break down because they see us as as humans on bikes rather than Cairo journalists who are going to tell them the news, which is something that BBC has moved far away from already, but audiences don’t with see that and so the bike is such a great way to access those people and those stories that might have been hard to reach in the past.

Carlton Reid 27:54
Now I know you’ve got to rush away, perhaps you’re you’re you’re busy BBC journalist, you might have to go to live in like three seconds. I don’t know, I know you gotta go away. So I just want to ask one final two, two final questions. And the second one will be please tell us how we find you on social media. But the first question, and this is straight to Kate, in fact, and that is so Anna’s talked about, you know, epiphany on the cargo bike. Your epiphany on a bicycle is a bit older than that. And you’re a bit more of a kind of spandex lycra kind of person or to tell us your kind of

Anna Holligan 28:31
proper cyclists. Okay, yeah,

Carlton Reid 28:34
I was, I was trying to be as polite as possible there. So tell us about your cycling, Kate, how you got into it and how you’re in it right now.

Kate Vandy 28:44
Well, I mean, I love cycling and bore people to death with my Instagram stories. And here I am cycling somewhere else every other day. But I’ve always been I’ve always been a cyclist. I used to do triathlons as a teenager and university student. But I’ve really returned to road cycling and gravel riding in Belgium where I’ve been living for five years. And I’m racing in, in a league there in the Belgian league. And I’m a member of a cycling club actually, which is aimed at getting women into cycling, which has been amazing. I think they founded this cycling club in Brussels two years ago. And it now has over 300 members and it’s all sorts of women all sorts of bikes. Meet on Sundays and have a fantastic time. So yeah, I do a bit of bit of racing but of serious stuff, but also really love cycling with whoever will cycle with me.

Carlton Reid 29:41
That’s wonderful. And thank you ever so much for your time today. So for ending today’s episode, how about we’ve even though we know where we can find the kind of videos but tell us your social media handles and anybody who maybe, I don’t know maybe it’s new to this and actually hasn’t seen And the bikepath videos that you do and so how do we how do we access both of you in, in the virtual world. So

Anna Holligan 30:09
Kate’s has been really instrumental in setting up our social media. And then making sure we’re actually posting from there because there’s so much going on, it’s hard to, to what we want to do is create a space or what we’re we are now doing is creating a space purely for bike Bureau content. So people who want bike Bureau and not don’t choose from the cycle first can confine this because it’s a very separate entity. So bike Bureau, we are at the bike Bureau at bike Bureau on Twitter, and same on Instagram, I think, Kate,

Kate Vandy 30:42
I think it’s at good news cycle on Instagram

Anna Holligan 30:46
cycle. Because and also, that’s something else that we have kind of in the pipeline, but we’re working on something along those lines, but can’t reveal much more just yet. So and then Dutchies from the psychopath is just on my psychopath. You know, no matter how much I try and pause and say it properly, it’s just psychopath. I really have to work on that. So it’s actually it’s from a cycle path a gesture from my regular Twitter. And it’s, you know, the funny thing about that is that it’s just three news stories done by bike, but because the psychopaths here are so incredible, so many people watch, and I don’t I’m no offence taken that I know, people are not coming from me. They’re not coming for the news. They’re coming mostly for the views. But if we can just sneak some news in there on the site, then that’s great. And I think it’s also helped to show people what more can be done because we are the first journalists to build a bike Bureau for news broadcasting and actually be using it for lives for news gathering. And in a country full of cyclists, the fact that no other broadcaster has done this here in the Netherlands, let alone anywhere else. It makes us feel really proud. Actually, it’s kind of like we’re blessing our child out into the world to see how it will find its first steps and we are at a very early stage.

Carlton Reid 32:11
Before I cut to the outro. Here’s the bit with Jack in The Hague. You’re actually recognised as the bike reporter. Even in the Netherlands, even having a bike and being reported is different to people, Dutch people.

Anna Holligan 32:29
And how crazy is that in a nation of cyclists where they carry surfboards on bikes? We’ve got a young gentleman taking his dog for a walk on the bike. I ended up Yeah.

Jack 32:45
The BBC

has a cute little doggy. We almost can’t Campos going through the middle of all of COVID. And they look like lost souls. But

Anna Holligan 33:11
I’ve taken a wrong turn must have taken.

Jack 33:16
I’ll say maybe you thought it was

Anna Holligan 33:21
nice to meet you. We’re just doing a podcast for Carlton talking about our setup, which is not actually something that’s been done anywhere else that’s quite excited to show this to you. Thanks so much. That’s really nice to

Kate Vandy 33:39
include that in the article as well. It’s a damn good idea.

Anna Holligan 33:45
It’s very useful for many All right

Jack 33:55
what’s your name?

Anna Holligan 33:56
Nice to meet you.

Jack 34:00
Congratulations to the BBC on innovation.

Anna Holligan 34:06
Thanks for the word. Thank you.

Jack 34:09
Did you come up with the argue

Anna Holligan 34:11
Kate case and I came up with this idea. This is Pete here so

Jack 34:19
I shall go back to my Dutch life and say the BBC is everywhere now.

Carlton Reid 34:26
Jack? Jack is obviously a Brit. What are you doing in the Netherlands? You’re gonna live there.

Jack 34:34
I was tricked into coming over here because my wife said oh, I can live in England. And of course she lied like a trooper. So I sort of gave up the ghost retired and said okay, I like coffee terraces and there are plenty of them. So I can live in a place with coffee terraces. This bicycles Jack, one thing to me.

Carlton Reid 35:05
And bicycles Jack plays with bicycles.

Anna Holligan 35:09
Jack is on a foldup Dunlop bike, a foldable. Right? And dog walking at the same time and walking the dog. He asked how you how old you are

Jack 35:20
82 This is

Anna Holligan 35:25
how recycling is still so

Jack 35:30
yes, we could do so

I also have a step which does 60 kilometres an hour, and but it’s not legal. So that’s why I’m on this.

Anna Holligan 35:52
It’s just incredible like your AC to this is one of the about cycling in the Netherlands that it just keeps you young, you could be 16.

Jack 36:01
If you’re going to produce things like this that can get to places that the BBC doesn’t normally go to, then that is a wonderful thing. Yes,

Anna Holligan 36:12
I want to hug you but I will. I’m so nice to have your input because this is exactly what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to be really transparent. We’re trying to get to places people aren’t able to get to and bring these types of stories. So you’ve actually just been the first interview that we’ve done, I think from the bike period. So congratulations, Jack, Down.

Jack 36:38
This is Thank you, Jack, an unexpected pleasure. You’ve made my day and a few more. Keep it up and you’re definitely on the right path.

Anna Holligan 36:51
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Say over here. And finally.

Carlton Reid 37:01
Thanks to Anna Halligan and Kate Vandy there and thanks to you for listening to Episode 328 of the spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern Bicycles, show notes, and more can be found at the dash spokesman.com. The next episode features the maker of a classic 1950s cycling jacket and the Swiss factory which makes the jackets fabric. That episode will be out in the first week of June. But meanwhile, get out there and ride …