Category: Blog

6th April 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 325: Benchmarking Bicycling: How Good Is Your City For Cycling?

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Rebecca Davies, Malcom Davies (not related)

TOPICS: Drilling down into the cycling ranking system City Ratings from People for Bikes

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 325 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Thursday, April 6, 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 on today’s show, I’m talking bicycling benchmarking with Rebecca Davies, programme director of the cycling ranking system city ratings, which has been assessing the bicycling friendliness of cities since 2017. And that’s an international initiative from a US Bicycle Advocacy Group people for bikes of Boulder, Colorado. And joining Rebecca, from here in the UK, is bike industry veteran Malcolm Davies, of Trek based out of Milton Keynes. You two I’ve got a complaint to make. I don’t know who wants to take this. Malcolm who’s in the UK or Rebecca, who is in Boulder, Colorado, but my complaint is your website or the website for city bikes, the city ratings says put your city in here and get the details on it. I put Newcastle in and I got not a sausage. So I’d like to register a complaint. What do I do? What does Newcastle have to do to get on the city ratings programme to make cycling and Newcastle better?

Rebecca Davies 2:11
Yeah, that’s a great question. So we have an option on our website, there’s a form that says add my city. And anyone can navigate to that form and then enter a little bit of information about the city they want added. And then we take that into account when we update results in the future for the city ratings, so typically annually. So that would be the best way to get your city added. We try to add as many as we can. So there are limitations sometimes but but that’s the that’s the best way to do it.

Carlton Reid 2:45
Well, it is phenomenally comprehensive. I’m not really complaining. Because it’s something about Newcastle’s going to have to get escaped on and actually do because the comprehensive in that London is very comprehensively covered. And we will get on to that. But first of all, Jen and Rebecca, tell us who you are because you’re the program’s director for city ratings. Yes. People for bikes programme.

Rebecca Davies 3:09
Yeah, yeah, that’s correct. And the city ratings programme director, so I spend a lot of time on on the data, and both generating the data and helping people understand the data and working with my colleagues to communicate how the data connects to changes that cities can make to improve bike networks in their city.

Carlton Reid 3:34
Oone of your colleagues is Jen. So I do apologise for saying Jen in that reply to you because Jen, I have talked to them before. From from from from people, for buyers. So just for those who don’t know, what people promote, is you are an American organisation. So just give us a thumbnail sketch of what people provided. And perhaps more importantly, or as pertinent anyway, is when you get your cash.

Rebecca Davies 3:58
Yeah, so it’s kind of a two part answer to that question. So peopleforbikes is National Bike advocacy organisation based in the US. And we were both nonprofit organisation that does bike advocacy, and but we’re also a trade group for the bike industry. So we have over 300 industry members who support our work. But we’re supported both both by the both by the industry members and then also by grants and charitable donations that allow us to expand the scope of our advocacy work, including our data driven infrastructure analysis work represented by the city rating.

Carlton Reid 4:41
And Malcolm I know where you fit in here. But let’s you tell the listeners where you fit in here. What Why, why isn’t Malcolm Davies on this show with Rebecca?

Malcolm Davies 4:52
Yeah, sure. So so I’m Malcolm Davies. I’m a longtime Trek bicycle employee. Worked for trek since the early 80s. Early 1990s recently retired fairly recently retired. And I now look after advocacy and trucks initiatives around getting more people to ride and making it better for people to ride their bikes.

Carlton Reid 5:15
John Burke, Trek’s John Burke, has been a massive, massive bicycle advocate and pushing the industry forward with organisations like people have a bike. Is that a fair characterization? That that John was massively into advocacy before maybe other industry leaders were?

Malcolm Davies 5:36
I think that’s a reasonable characterization. Absolutely. Yeah. I think John has been a real presence in the industry for many, many years. You know, certainly, in my tenure, it was always something that he’s been very passionate about continues to be passionate about, continues to speak publicly about and tries to motivate the industry to do more to you know, to enhance the experience of cyclists the world over.

Carlton Reid 6:05
And Malcolm, you might be retired, but you will keep your finger on the pulse, you will know intimately that the bike industry is not exactly doing very well at the moment. So we need more bums on seats, we need more people to get on bikes probably than ever before, because because we’re kind of in the doldrums here.

Malcolm Davies 6:23
I think it’s an it’s an interesting time. I mean, I think we all know that the industry had a real uplift as a part of something that people could do during the COVID crisis. And then there’s been a bit of a lull since I think you and I have been in the bicycle industry in the UK and internationally for a long time. And we’ve seen these peaks and troughs many times before. They’re not they’re not unusual to us or many colleagues. That really reality is I think that if you look at the user data, people actually riding that has not dipped, people people went out and they maybe bought some bikes, but they literally apologise My dog is kicking off. So I think that people are out there riding bikes, and I think there is good usership data that shows that. So you know, let’s not get too disheartened that the industry is having a bit of a bit of a downturn having had a big boom, it will come back more people all over the world are seeing the bicycle as a good solution for their, their transport needs, their leisure needs, whatever it is, and they are they are using bikes and riding all the time, which is great, we want

Carlton Reid 7:28
more we might ask it on more but in your role, your Trek person or a bike,

Malcolm Davies 7:34
I am attracted I am try and employed by Trek to look after their European advocacy initiatives and represent track in various places in the industry,

Carlton Reid 7:45
and apart from Trek supporting and being a massive supporter of people for bikes was any greater involvement on the city ratings programme from track?

Malcolm Davies 7:57
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that work, we work together I’ve worked for you know, over the last couple of years with Rebecca and the team in in the US to try and figure out a way that we can do what they’re doing in the US and make it useful and meaningful. So you know, we talked to right at the beginning about great deal of detail are in and around London, that was something that was very much driven by us and by me because I think you know, as you can imagine saying rating of London is kind of meaningless when you have such a big geographical space, both in terms of number of people who live there, but also the way that it’s structured. And you and I know that writing in one place in London is very different to writing in another and so I wanted to get into the detail a bit to make the analysis more meaningful to people and so we focused we focused our efforts on London we focused on the West Midlands we focused on for Manchester,

Carlton Reid 8:59
when all those cities have had put in have invested in bike infrastructure so Manchester with with the Beelines and Chris Boardman and all that kind of stuff. West Midlands with with a mayor is very proactive on on active travel and then of course London famously well starting with Ken Livingstone, then Boris Johnson and then the current Mayor Sadiq Khan is also pro so those those that’s the reason that you’ve gone for those cities. It’s not you know, low hanging fruit, this city could be great if they did this. It’s they’ve put an infrastructure, we’re going to focus on them.

Malcolm Davies 9:37
I don’t think that’s necessarily correct that we because they’ve put in the infrastructure because we know for a fact that some areas of London have put in the infrastructure and done an excellent job if we talk about Hackney or we talk about Waltham Forest, for example. But if we talk about you know, our friends, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea we can clearly see though that they’ve done nothing and they’ve done their best to avoid it. So you know, There was some there was some considerable value in understanding the detail and being able to present the detail in a way that people could say, Well, look, look what happens here and look what the experiences are. You know, this is by no means. And I think Rebecca would certainly confirm this, we’re not, we’re not saying this is definitively how cycling is in a, in a, in a situation in a location, we are saying, Here’s his way of measuring what we currently have. And you can definitely challenge that measurement, you can definitely challenge that output. But it’s a way of making a comparison and seeing how things sit. We can also say, if you look at some of our scores, compared to many US cities, we’re we’re in pretty good shape. But if you start looking at you know, as we know, that cities in the Netherlands or in Denmark or elsewhere, on the European mainland, we’re we’re also way off the pace in many areas. So it’s a it’s a way of promoting a conversation or provoking a conversation. I should say that we’re looking at here. Started,

Carlton Reid 11:03
Rebecca, People for Bikes has been doing this since 2017. So this, this is basically an annual thing. So the information that’s on the website is current as of end of last year. Yeah. 2022.

Rebecca Davies 11:19
Yeah, correct. We updated results for the locations in the UK. It’s actually the beginning of 2023. But But, yes, yeah, we generally released results annually. And we had a separate release for US cities and other international cities in this past year, but in the future, we’ll combine those and release results and update them all at the same time, once a year.

Carlton Reid 11:49
Now, let’s get on to some American cities in a moment, but just kind of like sticking to European cities. See, you’ve got the number one is actually the Hague. So I’m going to you can tell me what this means. But I’ll just I’ll just say the numbers for now. So the Hague is just under 89. In the city rating, that’s out of 100, I’m assuming you tracked 84, Amsterdam 82. And then, you know, coming almost out of nowhere, rather, famously, is Paris, which has got 82, which is two, to hundreds of appoint a joke as close to Amsterdam, which is an amazing transformation that Paris has made. So in your tracking since 2017, can I go back? And can I graph Paris’s trajectory and see how in effect, they’re there, they’re about to overtake Amsterdam.

Rebecca Davies 12:47
So we unfortunately don’t have the international data for that whole span of time. Because when we started, we started with us smaller set of US cities. And then we grew that that number over a few years. And then just a couple years ago, we started adding international cities to the data. So we don’t have as much of a time horizon, unfortunately, for international cities, but it’s definitely something we’ll be able to build up now, as we update the results for these places annually. So we’ll get to start to see that change over time. Although we had, we have run Paris a couple times before. And you could see the improvement, you know, as it really tracks with a lot of the what we’re hearing, as far as you know, anecdotes and stories and reporting out of Paris about everything that’s being done. And I was lucky enough to have the chance to, to see a lot of that and I visited in late 2019 to see a lot of the change underway. So yeah, so it was it’s really been a great example of, of a place that’s that’s changing quickly. And is that is reflected in our city ratings scores, but it was just just under over a relatively short period of time.

Carlton Reid 13:59
I was throwing out just a whole bunch of numbers that which which in effect are quite meaningless at 84 is what what does it mean? What does 82 mean? Berlin’s got 77? Tell me exactly, I mean, looks like see, London has an average of 49. As Michael was saying, some borrowers are going to be much higher than that happening, you know, pleasantly high that but just generally what what are those figures mean? How do you get there? And and who was doing it? Who was physically looking at these, these data points?

Rebecca Davies 14:36
Yeah, so those are all great questions. So So there are two main inputs to our city ratings this year. And that’s a community survey where we asked people how they feel about bicycling in their city. But the biggest input is a metric from what a tool we have called the bicycle network. analysis. And we actually didn’t steal the community survey in all international places. But we did field it throughout the places we measured in England. So England has that combination of this community survey where we asked people what they think about bicycling where they live, and combine that with our our network analysis measure. But most of the other international locations, we just did the network analysis measure. So there’s a slight difference there. The network analysis was worth 100% of the score, for instance, in a place like the Hague, but worth 80% of the score in the boroughs and cities of England. So that’s just some context there. But as far as that network analysis, the bicycle network analysis, so what it is, is a piece of software, essentially, custom software we, we built, some years back, back in 2017, it was completed. And it essentially evaluates the quality and connectivity of bike infrastructure in a given area. Usually, that area is a city or borough that we’re looking at. So it’s saying, you know, given the conditions on the road, whether there are you know, how many lanes are there for cars? Are there safe crossings? What’s the speed limit? Is there any bike infrastructure, what kind of bike infrastructure, it takes all of those things into account, and then either assigns the street as low or high stress given those other factors. And then it of course, includes things pads too, that might be disconnected from the street, but are but allow bikes. So so it evaluates every single, every single path and streets throughout the given area? And then it says, Okay, well, well can people bike from where they live to places they need to go using only what we consider to be low stress or comfortable bike routes. And when we say comfortable, we really mean for the average person, not necessarily the average person biking today, but the average person in general. And we know there are a lot of people who don’t ride bikes, because they’re, they feel unsafe, right, because of the conditions on the road. That data, there’s not enough bike infrastructure, or it’s not sufficiently separated from motor vehicle traffic. And so, you know, they don’t get on a bike. So we want to think about what gets those folks on a bike. And so that’s the standard we want to use for what counts as comfortable, high quality bike infrastructure. So so it runs that analysis saying, Okay, if you start from the area, if people start from the area they live, and they want to get to their school, or their job, or the grocery store, can they make that trip on a bike, safely and comfortably, and if they can, the software rewards points. And if they can’t, it doesn’t, it can repeat this calculation over and over throughout a given area to get to eventually aggregate into this total score. For the whole for the whole region. So that’s essential. So a 100 in our network analysis would mean that you could start from anywhere in the city and get anywhere else using completely safe connected comfortable. bikeways that’s what that would mean. And in practice, we don’t know city scores 100. But the best get into the low 90s. Yeah, upper upper 80s. As we see here, yeah, almost almost 90. But

Carlton Reid 18:25
if Sorry, sorry. If if this was a motoring advocacy organisation, but imagine history is completely flipped. And, you know, bicycles are in the ascendancy and is the bicycle lobbyist groups who are doing this. If this was a motoring lobby organisation, do you think there are any cities that are at 100? For motorists, you think all cities are at 100? For motorists? Where is siping? In the pecking order? Do you think?

Rebecca Davies 18:56
I love that question. I’ve never received it before. And, you know, in some ways, it’s kind of interesting, because you might think, well, it’s the opposite. But that’s not really the case. Because there are we know that And research shows that when you make cities safer for people riding bikes, those improvements make cities safer for people who walk and people who drive as well. A lot of the improvements that that make a road safe are important for for people who drive too. So if we’re saying that a city that’s good for driving is a city that’s safe for driving, where we don’t have a lot of negative outcomes, you know, fatalities or serious injuries, then that actually that wouldn’t be you know, often some of the same cities that are good good for bicycling these things are not inherently at odds. Now I see. It’s the goal was Well, we, we don’t care about safety outcomes. All we care about is how fast somebody can get somewhere. You know, that’s a different that’s a different measure. But um, But even then, you know, having cities that move cars quickly, sometimes are also cities that have at times have a lot of congestion. So, by what by which I mean, maybe you have built your roads to make it easy for cars to go as fast as possible. But the reality is, if that means a lot of people end up driving, then that actually slows everybody down, because now everybody’s driving, and the car is congested roads congested. So

Carlton Reid 20:29
it, could you have a city, that’s 100, the motoring and 100 for cycling as well. I know this is all theoretical. But just think of it as like an experiment or a thought experiment. You know, could you have a city? That’s fantastic for motoring, and fantastic recycling at the same time in some sort of weird utopia?

Rebecca Davies 20:52
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Because it’s really at the end of the day, you want people to be able to move between different modes, safely and comfortably. To know that no matter what way they’re getting around, that it’s going to be safe. And they have efficient options, enhance efficiency, you know, whatever, whatever combination of modes that is, you know, you want them to be able to have an efficient trip. And I think, an efficient and safe trip. And so all of those things need to work together, all the modes need to be complementary in order for that to happen. So, so yeah, I think I think the ideal is a place where all of those things work together. harmoniously. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 21:37
So yeah, I’m thinking of, say somewhere like Los Angeles, but with loads of bike paths, so I’m gonna flip it to Malcolm. And because Rebecca, were kind of we read European, so we kind of probably have a slightly different perspective on you know, how you you kind of have cars and bicycles interacting on perhaps even mediaeval streets? So Malcolm, the same question to you really? Do you think you can have a hyper connected car city, just as the same as you got a hyper connected bike city? And could you even have that in Europe, considering you know, we’ve our cities are already built, and you probably can’t have that hyper connected car city.

Malcolm Davies 22:20
I think, you know, the word record didn’t use perhaps what was she was alluding to as balance isn’t it, you’ve got to find a balance between the different modes of transport. And that’s all modes of transport and all the all the ways people get around, from walking, to cycling, to cars, to public transport, if you really wanted to have a utopia city, let’s say all of those things would have to be in balance. And what you have right now, is an imbalance, right? Because you have, you know, access cars, you have x, you have congestion, you have inefficient public transport, you have inefficient and, you know, high risk, in many cases, in infrastructure not suitable for people to ride on. So I think you can, I think you can make a difference, you can massively improve the, the transport network for people walking and cycling, and even for public transport. But in order to do that, you are going to face the reality that you’re probably going to take some space away from cars from automotive. That doesn’t mean though, that you’re going to make it worse for for cars, because actually, what you’ll do by getting more people onto bicycles and walking and into public transport is you will take cars off the road, so there’ll be fewer cars, yes, there’ll be less space, but there’ll be significantly fewer of them. So you know, I, I actually think you can make a difference in that way. And I think there are a number of, you know, a number of examples all around Europe, they’re even examples in in in England, and the UK where that’s happening, and you’re seeing the benefits. And, and what you’re also seeing is that the people who live there, the residents really like it, they’re really they love it. They’re really happy with it. And when you don’t, you know, one of the things we always say is, do you ever see the people of Amsterdam or Copenhagen or Utrecht, asking to take away that bike paths? And I don’t think I’ve ever heard that happen. No one’s really doing that. And so there is there is value in that conversation. But it is a hard conversation, because you are starting from a premise that if you want to make more bicycle infrastructure or walking infrastructure, you’re probably going to have to take some space away from automotive.

Carlton Reid 24:34
Rebecca, that’s kind of not what you were saying. But do you want I do want to come back to that one, because because what Malcolm is saying you need to take space away from motorists. And you were saying no, you can have you can have both you can have great motoring infrastructure and biking at the same time. To

Rebecca Davies 24:47
be fair, that might be there might be a difference between Europe and the US.

Carlton Reid 24:52
I would like to tease that out. Exactly. I’d like to find out. Is that a European perspective and me and Malcolm come at this at a different way, Rebecca. And do you come at this from a US perspective? So, so talk me through that.

Rebecca Davies 25:07
Yeah, I, you know, I completely agree with everything Malcolm saying, and I think it is true. We have roads in the US that are far too wide. Even some of our neighbourhood streets are just absurdly wide. It’s, it’s kind of crazy how wide some of our streets are. And we know that wider streets lead people to drive faster, which results in poor safety outcomes for all road users. And so we do need to rethink, rethink how we reallocate space. And you know, I’d even argue a city that we definitely think of as a very car centric City, Los Angeles. And it’s true that it can be hard to get around without a car there. It’s not necessarily a great city for driving, I’ve lived there. And I’ve spent, you spent a lot of time sitting in traffic on highways, and there are a lot of roads that are pretty frightening to drive on. And it’s not always very efficient to drive. And, in fact, often it isn’t, but it’s just your only choice. So I don’t think it’s a city that’s working well for cars, either. And it would it would be just such a fabulous city for bikes, you know, if it had the bike infrastructure it needs it’s it’s flat, it’s sunny, it’s beautiful. It’s actually quite densely populated. Despite despite being spread out, in many ways, it’s, there’s a lot of high density in certain parts. But yeah, I mean, I definitely think that conditions are different, you know, because a lot of US cities were built, when, you know, the car was already around and access growing, you know, growing and accessibility. As far as affordability to a lot of people, a lot of cities were built around cars and really subsidised driving and continue to subsidise driving through how the city is designed. So I think there’s a difference that way and kind of what we’re starting with, and, and I’m envious of cities that were of the cities that you know, developed. to a greater extent before, you know, cars were was widespread because some of their conditions are better suited for more multimodal transportation. But But I definitely agree that there has to be a reallocation of space. In order to achieve that that correct balance, it’s very imbalanced in a lot of cities that have given 90 Over 90% of the travel space to driving alone. And that hasn’t resulted in great outcomes, it’s resulted in congestion. It’s resulted in lack of choice for people when they you know, really their only option is to drive. Yeah, and I wouldn’t say it’s, it’s not it’s not making for an efficient system. So, yeah, so I think I think we’re very much aligned on on that. And, and then and the needs in that regard are similar between cities around the world. But there are certainly different starting points, given that a lot of cities have very different kind of designs.

Carlton Reid 28:04
For sure, now, I know that on your website, you talk about road diets. So you know, that’s that’s something that is, you know, what you’re talking about there about, you know, reducing road weights, can you have some very wide and we’re gonna be talking about stroads, and what and what that means to a European, which we’ll, we’ll probably don’t come across that term as much as an American does. But first of all, I’d like to go across to my colleague for an ad break.

David Bernstein 28:28
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 turn 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 the 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 29:39
Thanks, David. And we’re here with Malcolm Davies. And we’re here with Rebecca does not relate to you. So no, no. The same second name completely different geographic. Okay. Just just to get that settled. Now, before the ad break, I was asking, Rebecca, about stroads and rode diet. So first of all, for anybody who’s who’s unfamiliar with that term strode, Rebecca, can you can you tell us what that means?

Rebecca Davies 30:09
Sure, yeah. So a stroad is the idea that, you know, you have some roads are built, or in theory are built more for moving cars more quickly, like a highway, that has limited access, where there aren’t many ways to get on the highway, you know, there’s, there’s on ramps here and there, but you can’t, it’s not that, you know, not every street allows you to access that highway, might cross under it or over it, but doesn’t necessarily get you on. So there’s there’s limited access roadways, and then their streets, which tend to be in more densely populated areas, and our, you know, facilitating travel for shorter distances and slower speeds. So, you know, these are places that maybe maybe it’s a street grid, with lots of intersections, and so there’s a lot more activity on streets. And the idea with a stroke is that it’s a kind of unfortunate combination of both of those things, and not achieving either of their aims very well. It’s a road that’s built in many ways, like a highway, and that it’s supposed to try to move cars quickly through an area, but it’s not limited access, it has a number of intersections with other streets. And so so you end up with this, this sort of the worst, worst kind of combination, where it’s quite dangerous, because it’s built for moving cars quickly, but it actually might have a decent amount of activity it might have, you know, shops or residences along the street and intersections along the way, a lot of intersections, and those often might not have very safe controls on them. We see there quite a few roads in the US that don’t have don’t even have sidewalks. So, or if they if they do the distances between crossings are so far that people just crossing the middle of the street, you know, they could be crossing a 567 lane road. And that’s very, very dangerous. So yeah, so they just make for a really both inefficient and kind of unsafe type of roadway. And that that hasn’t decided whether it’s a street or a highway.

Carlton Reid 32:19
And does the road diet does that cure a city of stroads Is that something that is anti stroad?

Rebecca Davies 32:27
and it’s can help rethink you know, what that space is meant to be? I think it’s important for people to be intentional about what that road needs to become. Whether it’s that usually Yeah, get turning it more into a street and thinking about what its main purposes, you know, is its purpose to move cars quickly, or is its purpose to help people travel locally in the area and support the surrounding land uses. And it’s the land use piece, I think is really important there to you know, how you build cities along these roads. And so it’s both about reallocating that space in a thoughtful way, and implementing other safety improvements. So it might be that you reduce the width of the road, you convert lane, one lane that isn’t needed into a protected bike lane, for instance. But there are other improvements to like slowing, like changing the speed limits or adding more safe crossings, so people don’t have to so people don’t have to cross in the middle where there is no crossing. So there’s a variety of ways to improve it to improve that kind of roadway. But certainly some of these overbuilt, overly wide strobes. You know, they just have so much excess capacity that rethinking how some of that space is used is is often an important step.

Carlton Reid 33:52
I want to come back to Malcolm in a minute, and we can dig down into some of the city ratings for for the UK cities. I’m mostly familiar with Manchester and worth, obviously with London, not quite as familiar with Birmingham. But first of all, I’d like Rebecca to talk to you about it because you’re in Boulder, Colorado. I’m assuming I haven’t looked at the figures of your city ratings on on your website. But I’m assuming you’re in the top city in the US are certainly in the top three. And if I had to name the top three cities in the US in innovative hospital, if I wasn’t out to North America, then I’d also add Montreal but if I’m just going purely for the US then I would choose Boulder, Colorado, Davis, California, and Portland, Oregon. As as the top three cities and I know Portland, Oregon, has kind of faltered in the last few years. I know Davis, California has you know, obviously was was incredibly, very bicycle friendly in the 1960s 1970s and for various reasons. Hadn’t been quite so busy. And that Boulder, Colorado is the one that’s taking off is that, again, is that characterization that I’ve just said there does that does that reflect any form of reality at all?

Rebecca Davies 35:11
Those are definitely all leaders, I would say, a lot of boulders, but builders, it is a good city for bike by US standards. And a lot of its network of paths was actually built a few decades back. So it got a bit of a head start. It will say, you know, Boulder has a lot of these kinds of roads that that need to be addressed in the same way other US cities do, you know, these kinds of arterial roads that like we were talking about with strokes that are, too Why don’t have enough safe crossings aren’t really safe for biking. So it has plenty of those. The city actually recently introduced a plan to focus specifically, their their transportation work on those arterial roads, because we know those are the ones with the worst outcomes, and that people don’t feel safe biking on, however Boulder has the benefit of having invested in a network of off street paths a few decades back, and continue to build upon that path network. So so if you’re travelling places that are along that path network, you know, you can have some really wonderful, you know, bicycling opportunities, and experiences, the challenges those, those paths don’t go everywhere in the city. So So, so definitely, it’s a leader, but also still has plenty of work to do. Similarly, Davis invested, you know, was an early leader and investing in their bike, a bike lane network and has continued to do so. And so that’s reflected in our city ratings. And, and I do, we do generally, generally try to compare across cities of similar sizes, because they have both because of how the analysis works methodologically it’s, it’s it, for instance, small cities tend to score a little higher in the ranking. So that’s just something to keep in mind when you compare between cities that are a very different size. But yeah, among larger cities, Portland, definitely one of the leaders in the top 10, but it has it it is it is behind some other large cities in the US. Its neighbour to the North Seattle has in the last few years just kind of crept ahead by a few points in our rankings. And so you know, it’s kind of fun, fun, when you can kind of pull that sort of friendly competition out of the data and see how cities, you know, move together or how one moves ahead, and Seattle’s kind of pulled ahead in in recent years, San Francisco is also a bit ahead of ahead of Portland at this point, but

Carlton Reid 37:44
any other cities that are totally maybe people that obviously heard of the cities, but wouldn’t put them down as a, you know, an up and coming bicycling city? Any surprises in the data?

Rebecca Davies 37:57
You know, it’s a good question. There’s, there are some cities that are doing all the right things and are making great progress, but aren’t very high in our rankings. And that can be because, because, you know, they’re they’re very much in there, their work is underway. But also some of them are starting from a harder starting point. So for instance, Austin, Texas, is a city doing a lot of great work to build out their bike network. But you know, the city also started from a tough place in terms of you know, it’s a very, it’s a very large city that’s experienced a tonne of growth, and has a lot of starting from a very car centric infrastructure landscape. So has the cities built some phenomenal, some phenomenal bike paths, and we’ve seen them climb up in our ratings, but but because they’re starting from that, such as tough spot, and and, you know, a lot of their momentum has been more recent versus cities that might have done some of their investments some decades back, you know, it’s just not as apparent because they’re not, they’re not in the top 10. And it’s going to take a long time for a city like Austin to get to the top. But there’s a lot of great progress being made.

Carlton Reid 39:13
Okay, let’s come over to this side of the pond. And let’s talk to Malcolm about Malcolm, how much are you familiar with let’s let’s rather than talk about London and Manchester, which I’m familiar with. How familiar are you with West Midlands? And what’s been happening there?

Malcolm Davies 39:32
reasonably but not not massively, I would say. Yeah, I mean, obviously, there’s there’s quite a good amount of effort going on. There. Isn’t there there is

Carlton Reid 39:43
politically that I mean, I’m sure that comes up at high on any rankings is when you’ve got the political leadership taking an interest. Well, that’s that’s the absolute critical step you need. So West Midlands has that?

Malcolm Davies 39:56
It does. It does. And that’s undoubtedly making something roads, but it also shows up that they probably are only really just getting started. So you’re not necessarily going to see that in the data. I mean, a Coventry is a good example that I used recently in another conversation where they scored pretty low in Coventry in the birthplace of the bicycle as we know it. I know for a fact that there is there are some really good things going on in that in that city and in that part of the West Midlands,

Carlton Reid 40:26
but it’s what we have, as the, as the Adam Tranter, who’s kind of doing great things. But you’re right, it’s it’s from a low start

Malcolm Davies 40:36
it Yeah, exactly. But, you know, this is not a definitive statement of what your community or city is necessarily doing. It’s, it’s a way of measuring where things sit. It’s almost like a snapshot, snapshot in time. If and I think you’re right, right, right. Right back to the beginning, when you talk talking about Paris, if we looked at you and I and perhaps went to Paris 10 years ago, and, you know, tried to get on a bicycle in it, and pre the bike share system that they had, even when they had it for quite a while you took your life in your hands. And it’s only in the recent past when you’ve seen massive infrastructure investments, but initiatives on the part of Anne Hidalgo, the Parisian mayor, that huge transformation. So I think we have to be very conscious of those kinds of conversations when we’re saying to a community or a city hall that you only scored 30. Too often. For me. This is a snapshot in time. It’s a challenge in a way it’s so it’s a way to start a conversation, which is, which is all you need here.

Carlton Reid 41:49
Malcolm Well, we both came in into the industry when I mentioned before about John Burke being being a champion of bicycle advocacy because that’s now a mainstream in the industry is that what you do in the UK Bicycle Association is hugely into into Bicycle Advocacy. But these organisations when we came into the industry, we’re not anywhere near as in touch with with bicycle advocates as they are now. So my question is, from an industry perspective, do you see do you think you can you can track where there’s lots of good built infrastructure, you sell more bikes? Can you get as granular as that? Or is that just too hard to track?

Malcolm Davies 42:33
I think we can get that granular on what the industry lacks is where bicycle jobs and bicycle sales, because that’s what we’re talking about, where they where they have enough data and enough data in detail to match that into geographical space. I think we’re actually quite fortunate in the UK in as much as the Bicycle Association, Great Britain has a very good set of data that they’ve been working on that that does describe very well where, where the bicycle economy is. And I think that’s quite valuable. So overlaying that kind of data with, you know, the data that that Rebecca is presenting here, or being for bikes presenting here will be will be interesting. And we need that’s the next kind of phase of the kind of work we need to do. Because I think we know politically, of course, economy matters. You know, that’s what politicians want to have a successful community, they’re going to have to have a strong economy. And if we can,

Carlton Reid 43:34
you can line the two maps up. You could say, Look, if you put the infrastructure in the industry support infrastructure or support, advocacy, in general, this leads to a recognisable uptick in sales.

Malcolm Davies 43:47
Yes. I mean, and what in some ways that can be a negative for the industry, right? So I can sit in a room with a with a bunch of local politicians and say, we should have more bicycle infrastructure. And the first thing they’re going to say to me is, well, of course, you’d say that because you want to sell more bikes. It’s been interesting for me, one of the things we did here was we rated Milton Keynes, because that’s our hometown, but there’s track in the UK, that’s our hometown. And I’ve had a couple of conversations with local politicians in the room. And you know, the community of who has a vested interest in cycling, and it and it sparks a conversation it it talks, it gets people talking about okay, well, how do we improve the infrastructure from an active travel standpoint, which is really what we care about. And what does it mean to to the economy? What does it mean for our for our community for us, its people who live here.

Carlton Reid 44:40
Rebecca, I know that Trek does have its fingers very heavily in the bike share pie in many US cities and perhaps even worldwide, but just talking about bike share in general because because Paris if you if you kind of like try and work out where did Paris is Bike revolution come from? Well, many people, myself included would would certainly put Velib. You know, when the when the bike share was put in that seemed to have some sort of transformation. Just getting more bikes more visible, because many more people because it was made Democrats, Democrats, bikes, you can get more people on bikes with a bike share scheme, is that something that ranked highly in city ratings, if a city has a bike sharing, it’s guaranteed to get X number of points, and it will lead to some sort of exponential rise in cycling overall.

Rebecca Davies 45:38
Yeah, so we currently the ratings does not include measures related to bike share or other access to bikes themselves, we actually used to include more measures in our city ratings, we had a variety of data sources we use to measure multiple different facets of bicycling, which is really interesting to see this sort of different views. But we found a couple challenges. And one of the main ones was that when you you’re measuring bicycling, and a lot of different ways, when you want to talk about well, how do you improve your score, it ends up being quite a long list of things you could do to improve your scores. And there are you know, I always say there’s 1000 Ways to Improve bicycling, you know, but you kind of have to focus on a few at a time to really, it’s really kind of centre, your, you know, sending your work and, and be effective in a given area. And so we decided to make our city ratings very narrowed and focused on the infrastructure in a city or the infrastructure on the ground, not not including Bikeshare stations. So but we do actually, as an organisation, we have a programme called the better bike share partnership that is focused on bike sharing, specifically equitable access to bike share, so ensuring that the way Bike Share functions, it is accessible to all kinds of people throughout the city. So we definitely recognise that as important part of the whole kind of ecosystem and bicycling. And similarly, another another piece we don’t measure, but that we know is so important is bike parking, just the availability of bike parking. And, you know, I would, I would love to see a similar ranking system that’s for bike parking in cities, sort of what am I dream extensions of this? One day? But yeah, but we did the readings is very, is very focused on infrastructure on the ground, because we wanted to communicate that that is a major priority, and that we’re not going to see the kinds of shifts in vice clean that we want to see until you know that infrastructure gets built. But that said, we recognise all of these things are very complementary and important to just supporting people in enabling them to, to, to ride so yeah, so definitely very supportive of cities that aren’t investing in their bike share systems, as a way to help get get more people riding

Carlton Reid 48:05
that before, you’re also saying that you’ve only got a certain amount of international data here. So you obviously started to 70, with with American cities, and you’ve been growing with the European statistics. So this is maybe a tough question for you to answer. But the city of Seville in Spain, rather famously, almost overnight, not quite overnight, almost overnight, you know, lay down a bicycle network and in your ranking systems, you wouldn’t weren’t doing it that when they were doing it, but if they hadn’t been doing it, when you were doing your rankings, they would have gone, you know, from this very low score, presumably to a very high score in the space of you tracking over a year. So do you see any indications that there are potentially more Seville’s out there, cities that are willing to just flip and just completely change overnight? Or do you think this is going to be a very long term over 30 years? Kind of timescale?

Rebecca Davies 49:24
Yeah, you know, I want to say there are tonnes but there, you know, there are a few there aren’t that many. There are a few that are kind of positioned like Seville to to make a quick change. And I think annual Paris does, again come to mind is just one that’s that’s really made that kind of rapid pace of change. But then there’s a lot that are looking at these longer, these longer time horizons. And actually, a lot of our work some of my colleagues work that’s complementary to mine is to work with cities that show That promise towards being able to make rapid change, and, and help provide them tools and resources to get on that different trajectory to get on that, that faster trajectory. Because we know that there are a few things that that help cities kind of move from that long term horizon to that shorter term horizon. And that’s, you know, building political will, that’s supporting advocates, so that they can hold leaders accountable. And also supporting changing public sentiment so that people understand why these investments are being made, and how it will benefit them over time, so that they’re supportive of the project. And then of course, finding the dollars if they aren’t there. I mean, the dollars to invest in the infrastructure, so you have to have all the right ingredients come together for that kind of rapid pace of change. And we’re definitely seeing that in a few cities known the US that, that movement towards that. And, and some cities that have made a lot of progress in a relatively short period of time, but, but if they don’t have the political will, the political leadership there to do that, you know, it’s it’s, it’s very, very hard, if not impossible to move at that that rate of change. So it’s really important that that groundwork is laid, and I’d say, a lot of places that have the potential to move quickly are in that political will building capacity building stage, but they’re getting closer, definitely getting closer. And, and, and there, there are a few cities, I can think of that we are seeing a relatively good pace of change. So Cambridge, Massachusetts has done a lot of work around implementing policies to build out there to support building out their bike network and investing the financial resources, they need to do that. And we’re and we’re seeing that change happening, you know, their score is going up. And so you see those kind of signs of places that are starting to move more quickly. And I’m hopeful that in 510 years, you know, we’ll we’ll have a few more of those examples like Seville that that have have have proven they can make a lot of change in a relatively short period of time, but still more places in that sort of groundwork phase, and we’re working with a few cities to try to try to get them on that faster growth trajectory.

Malcolm Davies 52:24
Call? No, I would, I would add, I would add to that, that there are cities in England for sure that you see quite significant mood for change. You know, I’m thinking about Oxford, for example. It’s not part of the ratings. But, you know, you’re seeing you’re seeing political will there, you know, make change quickly. Even some of the London boroughs in Hackney, Hackney didn’t used to be a great place to be a cyclist and it seems to come out of the out of that in the very recent past. So, I think there is, there is traction there. And there are examples all over the place of things can can be better and when they are made better, people want that they like it.

Carlton Reid 53:04
Okay, that’s a very positive note. I’m going to end there. Thank you very much to Malcolm Davies and to Rebecca Davies. Not related. We kind of like established that used to collect a genetic test you just never know some some common ancestor so thank you ever so much for spending the time talking to me today about the City Rating scheme Rebecca where can where can people find out what’s give me the website basically of where people can find out about where their city or where they can complain as I started where how they can complain to get their city on the city rating system?

Rebecca Davies 53:44
Yeah, thanks. City ratings at peoplefor bikes.org is the website where they can see all the results. And yeah, submit that and my city form to us and we’ll try to get to get their city ranked next time we update the results.

Carlton Reid 54:02
Thanks to Rebecca Davies and Malcolm Davies there and thanks to you for listening to episode 325 of the Spokesmen podcast. Show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. In the next episode, already in the can, I talk philosophy and cycling with authors James Hibbard and Max Leonard but meanwhile get out there and ride.

24th March 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 323: Bike Advocacy Woes In Motor-mad Malta

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: James Craig Wightman

TOPICS: Flush with EU cash Malta is deepening its car dependency by building wider roads, dystopian flyovers and paying just lip service to sustainable modes of transport. Urbanist bike commuter James Craig Wightman shows Carlton Reid what it’s like to live on a tiny island that’s being eaten alive by car use.

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 323 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show is engineered on Friday 24th of March 2023.

David Bernstein 0:28
The spokesman 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. Turn has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit wwwternbicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com. To learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:03
I’m Carlton Reid. And that buzz you may be able to hear is the buzz of a sleeper train. I was a few minutes ago in Syracuse or Sicily. I was waiting to start the journey to Rome. It’s now started, and I bushed after a 75 mile folding bike ride from the ferry port at Pozzallo. I got there from Malta, and today’s show is all about the amazing car centrism of this 16 mile long by nine mile wide, Mediterranean island. My guest is British aviation executive James Craig Weidman, a 30 year resident of Malta. He took me for a bike ride and infrastructure Safari bike ride around the island trying to work out which bits of very wide bike paths were actually usable. I gawked at the multi lane highways and superfluous flyovers on this tiny island. Please be aware that there are some loud noises on this podcast including roaring engines on a racetrack road and daytime firework bombs at a saints feast day. Here we go. So let’s just let’s just fixate on the ground here. So we’re in st Julian’s, which seems to be like the hotel

James Craig Wightman 2:37
right December what I try and do they’ll take you far from nice touristy bits and bits please don’t get to see

Carlton Reid 2:48
so we’ve seen two cyclists already. Mountain bikers obviously out doing a trail somewhere. Okay. But that’s that they were part of that point. 7% And they were the first people we saw So we’ve seen a healthy proportion of the multi cycling population that

James Craig Wightman 3:11
we had years ago we had

Carlton Reid 3:15
Oh, you’re increasing. That’s that’s positive.

James Craig Wightman 3:17
I mean, at least it’s keeping up the top of the

Carlton Reid 3:21
water I mean, horrible thing to say here. But is there a decreasing of those numbers by killing?

James Craig Wightman 3:29
Not really actually very rarely fatalities? I think so. Perhaps because we’re candy back to repeat ourselves.

Carlton Reid 3:44
And you know where the danger spots are? You’re not going to go on the I mean, I’ve been motorways those so you could go on those major highways and we will because there are no other way sometimes getting through right oh, just knit behind you that because the car coming. The motorists do you think you’re freaks? Do they think what the hell is that up ahead? Or they just

James Craig Wightman 4:13
Yeah, it’s very much like the UK anywhere to where Britain when he wrote the Empire I think inherited the same

Carlton Reid 4:25
approach. But James, you’re now in the EU so you should be more Dutch. Oh, yeah. Well, and and maybe even Italian and German you should be more European in your in the country’s appreciation of cycling. Okay.

James Craig Wightman 4:45
Yeah, we should

Carlton Reid 4:49
see you when you are new getting me out here and you’re telling me to you know which roads to avoid and go this way and you were saying Google Maps doesn’t route you so bad You see the bees this path that way on the end isn’t is it marked so a lot of these things are just actually lucky yeah that’s it that’s a UK cycling sign oh now on a metal cycle track okay

Unknown Speaker 5:16
yeah

Carlton Reid 5:21
on the what sorry say that again and and tell me what that is

James Craig Wightman 5:30
it’s basically the natural kind of here which

Carlton Reid 5:37
is it volcanic what is it that doesn’t look like limestone that’s that’s weird you’ve

got an incredibly noisy generator Why is that

James Craig Wightman 5:58
so bad percentage of edible fish

Carlton Reid 6:05
so it’s still a mark cycle I’m gonna come on to a what an effective road? Sunday work so writing Sunday it will that make a difference? Well well, Jane, I’ve been impressed so far. You were you were you were you were telling me Porky’s about how bad it is here. This is this is okay. This is something

could I mean this is is this going somewhere to somewhere? No. So it’s nice, but it’s leisure but this is not something you could use going to work or anything? I mean, how many people are living here? 500,000 people?

James Craig Wightman 6:51
It’s roughly that Yeah, yeah, we’re just we’re just on the edge of Hoffman.

Carlton Reid 6:55
Is that is that one of the reasons why it’s so hairy and dicey on the roads and that there’s the the density of people here is just immense.

James Craig Wightman 7:05
There is there is an increase in density but we’ve got a big problem because we’ve made it easier for people to drive we’ve made wider roads rather than narrow one where everybody’s is narrowing roads make people come down and slow down. We’ve actually increased the widths of them sometimes at the cost of cycling lanes

Carlton Reid 7:22
to cycle lanes that were there had been ripped out

James Craig Wightman 7:26
thinned down to almost nothing and you’ll see a couple more of those today.

Carlton Reid 7:29
And when we’re saying when you’re saying cycle ends you mean paint or you mean concrete thinking okay? So even the what would be considered to be one of our word crap Yes. cycling infrastructure has been made crapper

James Craig Wightman 7:41
Yes. Very much. So yeah. Okay.

Carlton Reid 7:45
There are policies to say we want to increase cycling it’s just that their lip service very much. Right. But when we’re coming down here, and I was saying, Yeah, this is like really quite high quality and then you were telling me Porky’s because we need to go Dutch here. Yeah. The very fact that you are now or you have been for many years EU? Yeah, that should be really really ramping up. It is a no pressure from say the EU to say come on Malta, you’ve got to you’ve got to do more Dutch. Unfortunate and more perhaps,

James Craig Wightman 8:20
this changing now they’re starting there’s been a big push the last couple of months, wrote up the orgonite. The cycling organisation here for does that stand for? Groceries? motifs for bicycle. Ah, okay. So very simple, very, very iconic, you know, you know exactly what you’re getting. But they’re also pushing now for active funding for the pushing for walking as well. They have protests yesterday. We’ve got foot scooters. They were brought in by the government trying to layer on anything that they can put in the system where they don’t have incentivized cars. Government policy not

Carlton Reid 8:59
not to incentivize, but then they will realise the roads which incentivize the cars

James Craig Wightman 9:04
when they bought in footswitches. Rocha was one of the groups that said you need to do these docked, not adopted it, looked around, see them scattered all over the place. And the reason doctors wouldn’t work for the government was they’d have to take away parking space from cars. So you know how that goes. And here it’s the trolley, you can try and move one parking space. It’s

Carlton Reid 9:29
such a nice, we’ve hardly because there is only a finite amount of space in the city and it’s quite a lot of tight.

James Craig Wightman 9:38
It’s actually made snacking a lot more difficult. Because as we’ve increased parking, we’ve increased the number one way street.

Carlton Reid 9:45
It’s chronic one way streets here are chronic,

James Craig Wightman 9:47
and there’s no conscious load. Or I’m going to show you one contract robots the only one I know on

Carlton Reid 9:52
the controller as anaemia where cyclists can go up the other way. Technically, that’s

James Craig Wightman 9:57
not allowed. No contract loads move by direction on sheets. So you can’t wiggle your way through towns or cities. You can’t look up on Google Maps. So you’re either going to look at a car group, which is going to take up the main road, which is illegal for scooters anyway. Or you’re going to take the pedestrian route which is going to take you up and down one way streets normally anyway. Your skirt you know, it’s really it’s a bit of a mess. Should we?

Carlton Reid 10:22
Yeah, are we going across town bumping up we’re going up to town we’re getting out of town. Because you brought me to the best straightaway come in. This is when our next habitation here so people could use this, but I’m presuming it doesn’t go very far.

James Craig Wightman 10:40
But it’s quite nice. If not unless you’re soaking trainer at the Marine Park, but not over the top. It’s probably not picking up my TV. Anything.

Carlton Reid 10:54
Right? No, don’t tell. Tell me a bit about yourself. Why are you here? How long have you been here? Two years. Wow. That’s a long time.

James Craig Wightman 11:06
It is different issues like that.

Carlton Reid 11:08
So where were you originally? Where are you from?

James Craig Wightman 11:10
Born in Scotland. Right? bonnybridge I networking for British Aerospace. Right. as well. moved around quite a bit in London. And then eventually found myself here.

Carlton Reid 11:24
Okay, you’re definitely showing me the best of the best here. Yeah. That’s nice. We’ll come straight out of the hotel there and haven’t really. I mean, there’s been a couple of motorists popping along, but nothing nothing serious. Yeah. And we’ll get to the serious bit soon, I guess. Yeah. So 30 years ago, you were still working for British Aerospace or car back now. We’re going turning right. So we’re gonna hear okay. Aviation though still? Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. You’re still working in the aviation industry then. Okay. Yeah. luchar airport, or?

James Craig Wightman 12:06
I was starting to pick up on the other side. Uh huh. The most invading army supply in Libya? For the oil industry. Yes, yes. But we started buying for the good guys and stuff. Correct. Okay. fun places like South Sudan are ordered nicely. But we recently started my season four on transport. So we were flying in areas to the mainland in Spain, and then flying at the moment with Amelia, which is a marketing slave.

Carlton Reid 12:58
And then your colleagues think you’re a bit of a weirdo turning up on a bike because they’re going to be absolutely besotted with their cars

James Craig Wightman 13:05
probably parched. There’s two of us

Carlton Reid 13:15
but then we can hear motorbikes revving and that genuinely sounds like a genuine race track of the top there. And you call that the coast road.

James Craig Wightman 13:23
Gotcha. We’re gonna go and see.

Carlton Reid 13:25
So describe the roads policy here because because I’ve been being ferried around the bus because I’m here with the British gonna travel rides on their AGM. And we’re just, you know, five, six miles away from but that’s the way we’ve got to be a lot of the time. And so we do pass these major major highway six lane highways in the centre of town and we’re still getting stuck in traffic. That hasn’t alleviated anything, but the motorways that are not motorways, but in northern name. Oh, hey, guys. So Tarik gutting upgrading your road network infrastructure, Malta. So infrastructure Malta is the department agency that that could make your life easier. Okay, so we’re not concentrating because we are now on a pretty busy road. Not that many cars coming and stopping for us. And we’re now off again. But basically we’re we’re parallel to the coast road here on a residential road

so these motorcycles here, they look recreational to me. Yeah, they don’t know not going to work then going up and down. Round around. I mean, if you did do a round if you went the coast road the whole way. Yeah, that’s like 50 miles.

James Craig Wightman 14:53
No, no, no.

Carlton Reid 14:58
Oh, so they’re going nowhere. Yeah, they’re genuinely going nowhere. Okay?

James Craig Wightman 15:03
You’ll see as we go along, but there are photographers strategically placed, taking snapshots, people riding their bikes, I thought we

were gonna hit it too.

Carlton Reid 15:22
Are we genuinely gonna get take our lives in our hands. At least at this point, I’m going to do something quite weird. But bear with me and we’re going to cut for an ad break. We’re going to go across to my mate David in America.

David Bernstein 15:36
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 turn 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 wwwternbicycles.com to learn more. And now back to the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 16:46
Thanks David and unless straight back into into Lolita we are just on the edge of Pembroke here with James and now we’re going to take our lives into our hands James and we are going to go on the coast road but it’s a Sunday so we’re not taking the lives into our hands as much as we would on a weekday Are you really offended

James Craig Wightman 17:09
pointing in the right direction and we didn’t want knowing that we didn’t want him that he wants to do it

Carlton Reid 17:31
James I want to start not hearing you here probably

looking around here because we okay yeah

James Craig Wightman 17:50
we’re gonna go to the hole

Carlton Reid 17:52
oh that’s a Ferrari just going past using it as a racetrack

we on this is now a psychopath. Okay, so we are now on. There’s a solid white line to my right. And fatness 123456 Roadies. And they’re using the painted bike path on the other side of the road. Recreational routes are here Yeah. Hey. Nice to go that fast because there’s so many cars here. So we’ve got a solid white line on the right hand side there. And we’ve got title bikes and both of those views are nice down to the the Knights of Malta towers. In fact, I’ve got a whole bunch of more roadies here now it’s a more roadies thing though that that point 7% is we’ve met every cyclist on the island yeah

Unknown Speaker 19:07
yeah

Carlton Reid 19:11
yes

mean that’s basically the rumble strip to tell motorists Don’t go in there painted bike lanes

I feel protected James you know that’s that’s round the roundabout at least. You know, normally that that would actually be it would stop at the roundabout that expect you to go across without paint. Ah, so at least we were protected with paint there around the roundabout. So that’s that’s tick. Right. So going downhill here the road has now gone to dead Two lanes before it was one lane and cars are going in and out of each other not overtaking sense of me going fast along the road here recreationally rather than going anywhere I don’t think using a bit of a promenade because saying the right okay oh okay that’s confusing okay but let’s do on a bike path so it’s all

it’s difficult to talk to James because it’s not nice I’m used to this it’s okay I’m not worried but it’s not pleasant let’s let’s put it that way it really isn’t that you wouldn’t put tourists on here for instance you know tourists would know like to do this but there’s almost a third lane for the for the bike path. Oh, I’m now on the rumble strip. Oh, that wasn’t nice. And you having to look to the right to see what’s coming nothing

you kind of just gone straight ahead there cyclists Yeah.

We have another group of roadies, I guess Sunday I guess.

Doctor just had a Ferrari going past and its exhaust was literally spewing flames things and this road doesn’t go and motorcyclists are just go very, very fast on it for the hell of it.

Mary’s race try. And James are telling me before that was going to be photographers. And there they are. A big corner here and another group of Roadies. 12345 1010 roadies, including somebody on a iron carbide gain. I thought times all right. Bunch of roadies, why would they be on here and why would they want to go on here and that’s where the photographers are hanging on the corner and watching and they’ve got a big lenses on taking photographs of the motorcyclists going around. Stay. There’s a whole bunch of motorcyclists that all guys mainly that’s the same roadies that were going that way. Yeah, those roads are going on this road that the motorcyclists are going on and going round around why

I, I am genuinely

each other and the cyclists are with a going round in the same row, the same racetrack. So this is going nowhere to nowhere. Yeah. Is it just going up and down? It goes up to support. But will the cyclists go up on this route and then come back? Yeah. Okay.

You’ll be getting a bit of a flavour here.

Unknown Speaker 24:16
Listening to this. And

Carlton Reid 24:17
believe me, unless you turn this up full volume and put in spatial stereo headphones. You won’t be getting what I’m getting, which is just a cacophony of noise. It’s the same Roadies. There we go. Same but

same muscle cars now coming past but let me just describe this on a normal day. So on a on a standard day, middle of the day, you wouldn’t find the motorcyclists coming around as

James Craig Wightman 24:56
well because they will probably be stuck.

Unknown Speaker 24:59
They’ll be lots of work. He places Okay, time to get stuck so it wouldn’t move as fast.

James Craig Wightman 25:04
Okay, we’ll go this way the country get away from this noise. Yeah and then we’re back on horrifying

Carlton Reid 25:14
Do you know I on Twitter you describe how murderous yeah Malta is and how awful it is. And I just think oh yeah, of course he’s just just exaggerating. And this I’ve never seen this before in my life. Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like that before. Nice. Yes, no, no, no, I now totally trust you. So we’ve lost the paint protection, and we’re now having passed by 1-234-567-8910 roadies, the same guy on the TT bike. So that is the same I mean, I recognise the bikes now. Same guys. And they’re in the middle of the road, they’re doing the doing primary position. They’re indicating where they’re going versus lying down. But again, I’m assuming they’re gonna go to this roundabout up ahead and they’re going to turn back again and do the same route which I’ve seen them on now. At least twice

so the roadie regardless Yes. Now they’re coming back on the same road doing through and off the time trial is now coming through he was the head before now he’s in the middle and they’re doing through an ops speedy speedy on the tarmac coast road beautiful surface road I’m not complaining here coming off the road James has taken us off and we’re looking where we’re going and we’re now parallel to that road ah, James so much more pleasant and we’re just metres away from that road but now I’m looking at potentially meet motorists on here but I’m breathing easier already. Yes, that’s nice. That’s nice.

James Craig Wightman 27:14
It makes it easy to drive the number of people selling a car something like something like 96%

Carlton Reid 27:30
Yeah, I’ve obviously noticed that yes, yes.

James Craig Wightman 27:35
Of course we’re not the kind of country where you’ve got space where you can have my feeling offended

Carlton Reid 27:42
me as you’re saying it makes sense to be like Sicily and to have a scooter to do those journeys it just makes no sense to have a little run around car to do those journeys so just just let’s let’s describe Malta to people who don’t know Malta so north or south, east or west. How many roads are there what how far can you go?

James Craig Wightman 28:02
This tree is apparently this 3000 kilometres

Carlton Reid 28:06
right wiggly wiggly wiggly country lanes which are metal yeah yeah.

James Craig Wightman 28:19
When we got people using Waze here it got worse they started using the back roads

Carlton Reid 28:25
Yeah, now sometimes it’s easier so north or south how what’s the distance I’m sorry

Okay, so we’re now we’re going to country lanes and we’re going quite fast so that race car culture

Unknown Speaker 28:50
it used to be a beautiful

James Craig Wightman 28:55
day was told that you come down previous tree now it’s it’s the country Yeah.

Carlton Reid 29:06
Yeah, I can hear and see them it’s not cheap. Now to put these roads in so where’s the money coming from? Yeah, I was guessing that but you know without there’s no me provisos when you when you get cash like that to say okay, we’ll give you the millions but you’ve got to put in you know, decent bike infrastructure

Well, yes, there’s there was a murdered journalist down in Valetta. knocked off the car bomb. Really where? Gosh, so glossier was was basically blown up I won’t say who won’t, but there was some semi jailed for it. won’t say

Unknown Speaker 30:03
so yep.

Carlton Reid 30:08
And we’ll start up there that’s Rabatt yeah

James Craig Wightman 30:18
the big time and in fact, I’m here is

Carlton Reid 30:24
I’m gonna rebound is a beautiful mediaeval town

James there was no rhyme or reason to that a certain time that was just totally random as far as I could tell. So basically we started ahead one or two bangs nobody batted an eyelid. I was like, start what was that? And then a few seconds later, and amazing Barrows break off from the faster and more coming down to round two okay. I mean, if you’ve got PST PTSD from like, a war zone, this is gonna be pretty triggering.

James Craig Wightman 31:14
Have a hangover

Carlton Reid 31:17
so this is basically normal profess. This is just lots of noise to tell people that the fest is on Yeah. So the fester let’s put that on tape on the festival professors. It’s a religious festival. Yeah, there are 360 churches throughout Malta, each one will probably have its own patron saint. Everyone’s hoping. Yeah, those are the saints a certain day they’ll probably have a procession. And so today and Rabatt it’s its turn. And this is an annual thing. Yes. So this is the only time we’re about we’ll have this this is this is today

my ears have been bombarded today James basically, a from the the cars and the motorbikes coming pass extremely fast. And I thought, you know, we’d get some bit of a respite from that. By coming into a mediaeval town, and whatnot, we’re getting even louder. So these are loud plays Moltres whereabouts are we right now? Sorry, is behind us? Yes.

James Craig Wightman 32:27
So we’re heading we’re heading in. We’re on the outskirts of the Taj, which is part of the three villages. There’s a Tod, called San media. But we’re heading into a car.

Carlton Reid 32:40
And this room was this road built.

James Craig Wightman 32:42
This is built that last two years. Okay, and

Carlton Reid 32:45
where did the money come from?

James Craig Wightman 32:47
Okay, so it’s 85% in us, DOD. And the rest of the 15%. Government. So

Carlton Reid 32:55
European Regional Development. And let’s describe what this is. So we’ve got two and a half metre direction or bike path parallel to the road with green and green green tarmac, so in many, many respects, it’s it’s up to EU standards. Yeah, this is good. And you’re complaining about this at

James Craig Wightman 33:19
all? No, no, no, that’s fine. Although there are the bits of it, which need tweaking?

Carlton Reid 33:24
So basically, they put some good stuff in. Yes. But they need to complete it.

James Craig Wightman 33:30
Yeah, they didn’t connect it up. And they haven’t really signed it. So you’re very lucky to find your way around it. If you can find it.

Carlton Reid 33:39
Do tweak it. Yeah. Initially will be to assign it to people. We’re not telling you where to go. Like you wouldn’t do that. But road.

Unknown Speaker 33:48
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 33:52
Because this is this is much wider than what we’ve heard before. Yes, yes,

James Craig Wightman 33:55
yes. Although what we had before was a two lane road with a pretty wide carriageway. And you could, you could freeway it all the way from Indiana virtually all the way down to here. And this will actually take you almost really almost up to Moscow. On the back end, Alia as well, if there have been kerastraight is a major place you’d want to get to

Carlton Reid 34:19
as a family as a tourist or whatever. Yeah. And then the central road.

James Craig Wightman 34:26
It also links up to places like Dingli. So you’ve got an alternative route to the back of theory as well. So it’s quite an important route. Really. But then you get to the end of this bridge across

Carlton Reid 34:43
your carriageway Park. That route has taken us away. And then we’re done. We’re done with

Unknown Speaker 34:48
what we’ve just done. Yeah. Yeah, you know what to

Carlton Reid 34:51
do. That’s it, your local unit materials and I haven’t got Google Maps because they don’t work. And I’m like, Where do I go?

James Craig Wightman 35:01
I think it’s a good place for me to start selling maps in my retirement.

Carlton Reid 35:06
I’m going to be staying with you because Yeah.

James Craig Wightman 35:10
Okay, so avoiding all the cars. We’re going to take a short ride down here in a right turn. do minor potholes. So little double double turn back there on initial residential road which I’m sure you would never know is here. Hiding behind the heck we have. We have a footbridge. You It’s a lovely 90, a lovely 1970s footbridge. But you’d never get a cargo bike around. There’s probably a limited use.

Carlton Reid 35:48
So on the plans for this that just was on the plan. Nowhere and presumably people said Where would people go? Yeah, why don’t you do

James Craig Wightman 35:59
apparently apparently there’s going to be a crossing that or there was going to be a crossing there but it’s never materialised. And we had rather than rotor who’ve done some really sterling work in trying to raise awareness of things like this, have had regular meetings with with, you know, the authorities, particularly infrastructure in Malta, and pointed out these failings and nothing got done.

Carlton Reid 36:25
That’s money from the EU. Does the EU not come along and say I’m doing this way? Why aren’t you going to do this bit?

James Craig Wightman 36:33
Nope. We’ve tried that. But it didn’t seem to wake anybody up. Wiggling through we’re gonna wiggle through this quaint little footbridge. Big missing? Yes. Yeah. Good. Good. Well, honey, really, it’s such a small investment to begin with a couple of signs. Oh, yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes, yes, it’s this bit here. We’re gonna go to the end of it, it goes through through the end of the talk. And, in theory, it’s supposed to carry on to the next bit of Roku and I’ve done but we’ve not seen any an indication of that happening.

Carlton Reid 37:41
That night again, my mouth is open here in in Malta, so I’m sure people can hear the thundering traffic. We are at masa junction and it’s like a very modern version of Spaghetti Junction. We have got roads going over roads going over roads, flyover overfly, but we’re actually on a bike path underneath which incredibly wide so so credit there to infrastructure, Malta, underneath the flyovers we’ve had some nice planting. But then just why on earth? Have we got roads like this? And what might the problem be? With roads like this?

James Craig Wightman 38:22
We’ve actually got seven flyovers here. Master junction was always a problem, because there was a lot of traffic getting stuck here by one set of traffic lights. So which allow traffic to dissipate downstream by the way. But it was basically a vote winning ploy to free up traffic to Moscow. And yes, now you can drive much, much faster to Moscow, but it means you get to where you’re going much quicker at the same time as everybody else. And the problem with that is that little villages who want one way streets and tiny, so no restriction can’t cope with all the traffic now arriving at them. So while people say their trip is quicker on master junction, it then takes them more time when they get stuck at the villages.

Carlton Reid 39:08
So you said vote winning there. So just explain the kind of political system you have here that Matt makes the position of the 2021 junction when it was when it was open. So what what is the political system here that is allowing and I’m going to call this lunacy.

James Craig Wightman 39:25
Okay? It’s a partisan system. There’s two main parties, and thereafter every vote that they can get. So elections tend to be a giving election rather than a strict austerity one. And basically, everybody is scared to touch cars. The government has stated publicly that he’s not going to descend devise or do anything to hurt cars, or to stop people buying or owning

Carlton Reid 39:54
one second because just the city site, seeing bus that you would see everywhere else we go someone scenic, and they’re going around the city on the mass. I wonder if the guides are saying, you know, this is our wonderful miles or junction here cost this much. Isn’t it wonderful? And people on the blog, we want to fly it. I mean, why are you telling me this? Anyway? Sorry, Sorry, I interrupted that just are seeing that coming across same tourist saying there’s normally you would take tourists away from this kind of stuff. Yeah, you wouldn’t show them this stuff. Sorry, sorry,

James Craig Wightman 40:25
national pride, in fact that the end of this cycling is transmitted for offices. And there are no actual signs telling people how to get on to the cycling. So quite often, you find some poor lost cyclists on what is eventually the dual carriageway, which everybody hates, obviously, but you know, you can’t really blame them, because there’s nothing telling them how to get here. So it’s really just finishing off. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of things that could be done. There. Little tiny things, little tweaks, that could make it really good. But then again, as you say, he’s skiing against the backdrop of seven flowers, you know, perhaps we really need, which is actually encouraged more and more people to drive drive,

Carlton Reid 41:08
because even if you put the best bike infrastructure in the world here, and this right now is phenomenal bike infrastructure, the signage, okay, I’ll grant you that. But from the width we have, well, let me talking how far away we are going, I’m going to count this out, that’s about a metre to three, that’s five metres. So we have a five metre by directional bypass green, fantastic world class brilliant, but you have seven flyovers, you have seven roads crossing over it. So you’re gonna get a you know,

James Craig Wightman 41:41
you know, where the the emphasis was on building this junction where they’re emphasising car use. But at the moment, in Malta, we’ve got something like 96% of all car trips, a single person, one person on their own, just driving. So it’s a huge, huge number of cars, particularly during the week when people are going to and from work, just monetizing the car.

Carlton Reid 42:05
So again, is this EU money? This was this is majority funded by the EU. Yeah. And they’ve taken that 85% out of their 15% and created this. And I said before, when we’ll get when we’re cycling through it, it’s like, it’s quite dystopian, yeah, this is this is Taiwan, on steroids. You know, this is this is this is it. We’re a small country here, Malta is tiny. And we’ve got infrastructure that you’d expect in Los Angeles, that is, lunacy. But nobody sees that as lunacy here.

James Craig Wightman 42:41
There are a few people but few and far between unfortunately, and they’re not listening to this. There’s some really good experts on on sustainability like Dr. Murray retired from the University of Malta, Geography Department of Sustainability. So I’m really trying for years to try and get people to understand that we need to cut down on cars, we need to free up space in our towns and cities. There isn’t one parking metre on the island. You can park anywhere or you can park anywhere. So you know, there’s nothing there at all does this identifies people from driving? So obviously they do.

Carlton Reid 43:20
Yes, yes. Well, well, welcome to Malta if you’re an absolute moto freak, because you’ve got everything you could wish for. You’ve got every flyover that will speed you to the next traffic jam. Thanks to James Craig Whiteman. There and thanks to you for listening to Episode 323 of their spokesman podcast, show notes, and more can be found at the Piper spokesman.com And also like to thank visit Malta for hosting the AGM of the British guild of travel writers. Away from its dystopian road system. Malta has some real treasures. Most people fly to the island, but I got to Malta by train and ferry using the Omio travel booking app, hopping between stations and riding up Mount Edma. Even on a folding bike, of course, the next episode of The spokesman podcast brought to you in association with 10 bicycles should be a chat with BBC journalists, Anna Harlequin and Kate Vandy. I say should because they’re still awaiting delivery of a rather special outside broadcast unit. A tricked out cargo bike. This will be the bike Bureau, a mobile news gathering studio like no other. I’m hoping that chat can happen later this month.

In the show you’ve just listened to I shortened the audio I captured of the Daytime fireworks at Rabat’s festa and if you’re up for some bonus bangs listen on?

Unknown Speaker 47:10
Additional

Carlton Reid 47:25
so NFM normal for Malta

Unknown Speaker 47:27
that was just

Carlton Reid 47:35
with the like the bangs are you don’t like

5th February 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 321: Sustainability in action: In conversation with Vaude CEO Antje von Dewitz.

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Antje von Dewitz, Managing Director, Vaude, Germany

TOPICS: Vaude was on the road to being green long before Antje von Dewitz took over the running of the company but she significantly ramped up its corporate sustainability.

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:12
Welcome to Episode 321 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Sunday, fifth to February 2023.

David Bernstein 0:27
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 1:13
I’m Carlton Reid and welcome to the 300 and 21st episode of The spokesmen podcast in which I chat with Antje von Dewitz, Managing Director of German hiking and biking company Vaude or as you will soon find out how it should be pronounced, “Faudi.”Anyway, in this 40 minute conversation, we talk about Vaude’s stellar green credentials and how sustainability is now baked into the Vaude way of doing things. Can you please tell me that the correct German pronunciation of your company name because I’m pretty sure that we get it wrong here. But just tell us how you pronounce it.

Antje von Dewitz 1:51
Okay, the correct pronouncing is “Faudi” and Vaude is the pronunciation of the two first letters of my last name von Dewitz V and D and in German, you would say Vaude? Yeah, and I’m not necessarily we don’t know how to pronounce it, because that’s a very current problem. People say also Vode and Vouder and Fouder, but the correct pronunciation is “Faudi”.

Carlton Reid 2:18
yes, thank you for that. Now now. We definitely pronounced I’m saying we hear the North American market, certainly the UK market will be pronouncing that with a with a hard v. So it’s not that so we can now pronounce your company name correctly.

Antje von Dewitz 2:37
I’m glad to hear that.

Carlton Reid 2:38
You make a tonne of stuff. So you make outdoor kit, basically. But bikes. So tell me about your bike kit and how long you’ve been making bike kit, whether it’s been you know, from from when the company was founded?

Antje von Dewitz 2:54
No, it was not when the company was founded. The company was founded in 1974. And we started out with backpacks. That was the first product backpack and climbing gear. And about 10 years later, we started with bike first product was bike pioneers, because coming from the main competence in back making backpacks, the switch to bike pioneers what’s not so far we require the same sort of competence. And we started with, with waterproof, backpacks, waterproof, on machines, so we have live production here also, in Germany, where our headquarter is for making bike pioneers, how big

Carlton Reid 3:40
is bike in the company, how bigger share is bike in amongst all of your, your outdoor range.

Antje von Dewitz 3:49
So we have a turnover at totally 150 million euro from this year from last year on and bike is is about 45% of that. So it grew really heavily in the last years. Especially so because we started out as being an outdoor company so 10 years later, we started with bike products and and especially during the last three years, the bike segment was was growing very strongly because of a new mobility, the urge of people going out outdoors also with a bike during Corona so so we are almost up to 50/50 outdoor and bike

Carlton Reid 4:30
and is that is that where it’s going? It’s that’s the growth part of your business.

Antje von Dewitz 4:35
When I said the last three years, I was not really correct because the last year especially was not so good of a bike here because I was probably in the UK also like this. There were a lot of bikes in the market and and at the same time the bikes couldn’t be sent out so there’s a lot of liquidity problem in the with the bike dealers. So and as as having bike apparel and bike pioneers and bike backpacks, this is the last, the last product and a big change. So if the bikes are not being sold, the other products are also not being sold. But I think last year was a very special year. In general, I think outdoor and bike will now grow at the same pace. Because we are in times of, of, of almost crisis every year. And in times of crisis, people go outdoors, and people tend to look for their little escapes. This is why I think bike and other people look for that at the same time plus bike is also what people are looking for in terms of a new new mobility, a new greener and more sustainable mobility. So I think both both segments will know this at the same pace.

Carlton Reid 5:57
Hmm. I have looked at your your company’s CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility report where you do say you’ve got a mobility plan. So I’ll get onto that shortly. But first of all, I’d like I mean, I have been very close to wear your bass because Jo Beckendorf, the journalist when I used to get left with him on going to and from bike, the bike shows in Friedrichshafen, he would often point out where your bass so I know you’re very rural. So you’re you’re basically you’re not far from Friedrichschafen, you’re you’re you’re near Lake Constance or Bodensee. But you’re in a very, very small village. So just describe where you are.

Antje von Dewitz 6:43
We’re close to the Lake Constance, which is this Swiss Austrian German border. So we’re in the very deep south of Germany. And when I look out of my window, which I do right now, I see the little church of our little village, where we are, we’re in in the middle of the, on the countryside, close to the Lake Constance, which is a good side, which is a bad side for a company who needs insert infrastructure. But which is a good site for a company with employees that are outdoor and bike freaks, because that’s a really beautiful part of Germany, where you have great outdoor experiences by bike where you can greatly go biking in the mountains or at the lake.

Carlton Reid 7:23
So it was founded by your father it basically in a hops barn on a farm. And then you grew from that.

Antje von Dewitz 7:32
That’s, that’s true. So we are now at Oba Eisenbahn. And 50 years ago, he founded the company, one smaller village, little close to here, Otter eyes and bath. And indeed, in a farmhouse, in summertime, when the hop came in, we had to take all the all the work yet the warehouse had to be cleared for the hub possible to be to be stored there. And two months later, all the products could return to the warehouse within this farm farmhouse, so that was a very special founding story that God has there.

Carlton Reid 8:12
So you’ve grown up with this company? Quite, quite literally, you’ve grown up with this company.

Antje von Dewitz 8:17
That’s true as I was two years old when the company started.

Carlton Reid 8:21
Yes, now, so let’s talk about you. So you’ve managed the company, since 2009. But describe your career before that, because you have a doctorate. And then you have a member of all of these incredible German sustainable business associations are all that the sustainability stuff that we’re going to be talking about, is very much embedded in your corporate DNA for you personally. So tell us a little bit about you and where you’ve come from, from that two year old girl who saw the company founded and how you’ve, you’ve grown into the company.

Antje von Dewitz 8:58
Yeah, I think part of the story and part of understanding my my way of life is growing up here at the village site. We were kind of an outsider, or I felt like it’s growing up, because it’s very rural countryside. And the farmers here don’t at that time, they looked quite critical at entrepreneurs. So growing up to be not a farmer’s daughter but a daughter of an entrepreneur. Was was strange, the people to me and in the class were saying, oh, probably he exploits people, he exploited probably children to grow his business. And I grew up to know that confidence. That trust is something you have to earn trust you can earn by transparency, and to lead a company you have to earn trust in order to feel good. And in order to earn trust, everything has to be alright. Word wild. And this is something that that never left my mind. And when I grew up and I didn’t want to overtake the company I firstly, I wanted to work in NGOs like Greenpeace or WWF. To take, take responsibility in keeping this planet a livable planet. And so it was a surprise for me when my last traineeship that I did, after a lot of traineeships within NGOs and media and in all sorts of organisations, and my last traineeship, during my studies was at Foudy and it hit me like a surprise that if I wanted to overtake responsibility for a livable planet, then I I’m here at the right spot, with a broad set of responsibilities not only in making the products but also in caring for the working conditions about worldwide and caring for the working conditions here at the headquarter in overtaking responsibility in the whole supply chain and in also politically as an enterprise. So, so that’s, that’s why that’s why I ended up in the country in the company of my father, which also benefited me very, very well because I’m a very enthusiastic outdoor lover.

Carlton Reid 11:26
What kind of stuff What what are you what are you doing outdoors?

Antje von Dewitz 11:30
I, I bike, and I hike, I love long distance. So for example, last last year, when I turned 50, my birthday present to myself was a three year three month a three month hike through the Alps, with with my backpack and going from heart to heart every day, 1000 metres height and 15 kilometres distance for so total, I was I walked 4100 kilometre and 60,000 metres in height. So that’s, that’s something I love.

Carlton Reid 12:13
And use it obviously all of your own products.

Antje von Dewitz 12:17
Yes, I use not all of them, but I really love to use them. I love to have them in. In practice, yes.

Carlton Reid 12:25
Okay, now, so 2009 When you came in and started managing the company, and then did you start straight away at making the company climate neutral. So it took until 2012. When when you got there, and then you’ve been a Climate Neutral worldwide since 2022. Last year. But describe how what you had to do when you joined the company to make that switch.

Antje von Dewitz 12:54
When I joined the company that was directly after my studies in 1998, I first worked in marketing and I firstly i i was the product manager for for new bags for modern bags and packs. So that’s the part where I started it. And when I overtook the company, that was in 2009, as you just mentioned, so that was much later. And I already knew a lot about Saudi and the way of our day. And so I was not the one that introduced sustainability to God, we had a long history already. And we had the history that we had and great, great singular proud projects. For example, we had a whole collection made out of mono material, and a whole network of industry partners that could first of all, take the returned one goods of this mono material collection, and then turn it into new products. So we had a closed loop recycling. But when when we looked at it when I overtook the company, and my my biggest goal was to turn this company totally into a green direction. We said okay, this way was not successful. The singular products had a lot of effort for us produce a lot of effort for us producers, a lot of work a lot of cost, but we didn’t get back so many use products. So the closed loop never really closed. And for me, I was very convinced that if we want to go a greenway if we want to overtake responsibility holistically, it would not be the answer to do this in one project and another project but we would have to do this totally entirely. So we started out with analysing Where is where we have responsibility and where should we where should we act? And we found out that we have two different ways. Two different points where we should overtake responsibility One is here at the headquarter at Foday, here at the South in Germany, and the other one is in the entire product cycle. So when we started out here at the headquarter so where we were our business unity is where meanwhile 650 employees work. And that was at a time in 2009 when the consciousness for sustainability was not very high, very high neither at our with our dealers or clients, or customers nor here at the headquarter with our employees, they were very sceptical because they saw the more work bureaucracy that would that was growing with sustainable work and, and they were not sure if this was more than a marketing idea. So there was a lot of scepticism. So we started out by a few things in the beginning, turning the coffee to fair trade coffee, or finally get a grip on on the real, the garbled, how to collect the garbage here, and stuff like that. And at the same time, we started out with emails, emails as the European management team, how to how to collect and measure all the emissions that you have all the emissions and consumptions that you use at the headquarter, so all electricity, oil, stuff like that, and, and we measure this day by day by day for the entire year. And then we were able to find out, okay, where do we have the greatest emissions at the headquarter and then we began programmes to cut them down. So we changed our energy to, to renewable energy we had, we have the whole roof of full with photos with solar panels. We cut down on our catalogue with the paper catalogue at that time was the most important marketing tool that we had. And but we saw that this is also the second biggest source of emissions. So we cut we cut that turned only to digital versions. And every use of paper was from then on in 100% recycled paper. And we found out that mobility is the third biggest cause here of emissions. So we created a whole mobility programme, where the best parking lots are not for the people of the management. But for the people that share their car, for example, we got ourselves a pattern, a whole bunch of E bikes to lend out to our employees so that they could use the bike to come to work and created showers so that they get a shower and they come with a bike and stuff like that, to get people to make people consider a choice not to come with a single car but to come by bike to come by bus to share cars. And so we cut down dramatically on these emissions from from ability to and in 2012. When we cut down I think by 70% of all emissions at the whole headquarter. We decided okay, from that point on, we will still work on emissions but at the same time, we will also compensate so that that means that since 2012, we are Climate Neutral at our headquarter.

Carlton Reid 18:19
You pay for offsetting?

Antje von Dewitz 18:22
Yeah, that’s right. We pay for offsetting we, we have a partner my climate and that means that all the emissions that at the headquarter we cannot, we cannot prevent. They are. They are turned into into monies. And we spent money on projects or climate friendly projects. But this is only the headquarter and then the biggest part was in the product cycle.

Carlton Reid 18:49
That’s good. Because the product cycle isn’t, you know, you make some stuff in southern Germany, but the bulk of your stuff is made in mostly in Vietnam. So, right, how tough is it to green, the supply side of your business? So?

Antje von Dewitz 19:07
Yeah, it’s, it’s a huge task. It was it was an even huger task in 2009. That was why it was so important also, to have the whole team behind this idea. It was very important for us to show it at our headquarter that we really mean it seriously and that it’s good that it feels like live quality to support sustainability. So stuff like the green mobility concept at our headquarter was strategically important to get our team on track and to fight for this idea of sustainability worldwide. Because this was a real big transformation process that we had to start on. We even though at that time in 2009, we were a rather small company with 50 million euro turnover. We still had a huge complexity. We had about 65 production sites we work with, we had about 150 materials suppliers we work with, and our task force, our self chosen task was to transform all of them, we created an own label, green shape. And that is until today, like metal label, that means only in terms of materials, only certified materials and the highest standards can approve to be green shape. And in order to get to the certifications, like blue sign, for example, we had to ask our all of our suppliers to please audit in terms of blue sign, which is quite expensive when audit costs 20,000 euros per year, and then you have to act on all the findings. And we were a rather small, small brand, that means they didn’t make the big business with us. So in the beginning, it seemed like to be a really, really big task. And many of the production side sets etc. once said to us, that they wouldn’t do this for us this was too much work, or they said okay, we do this for you, you pay the money. So we and so it was a difficult task on that one cent and one hand to turn them to to convince them and the outside and it was a difficult task on the inside. Because for our product manager, the task of Product Management totally changed. Before that time, they could just choose any material and they can just choose any design. Now, in order to follow green shape, they have to start the design by showing that the design they have chosen is recyclable is is able to be repaired, then they have to choose the material. And in the beginning, they said okay, but we only have three materials that are anthracite fabric, do you want to make us You want us to make products from just three different fabrics? That’s not impossible, it’s impossible. And they said, it’s the sales team says very clearly to us, it cannot cost more because the consumer is not willing to pay more for sustainable, but it costs so much more. How can we ever solve this. So it was very, very difficult to get a grip on how to deal with these existential conflicting targets. But we made it step by step.

Carlton Reid 22:22
No change in that consumers, it’s now a selling point. So this this green shape, your label is now something you can use to actually earn more money because you can sell more products because you are a greener company. Is that something that you now see consumers coming to you

Antje von Dewitz 22:40
for? Yes, I see two points I’ll come to the consumer in a second. First is that that the start was very difficult and it’s still difficult, but in the beginning it felt like okay, we will never be innovative because we have such a huge mountain of work to go step by step and this has changed completely our our very strong focus on sustainability has become an innovation pusher. We now make pipe pioneers from from a plastic garbage we make functional apparel, from recycled tires and so on and so on. We really this this has has been an enormous pusher on innovation innovation for us. And for the consumer. In the beginning, we always heard the consumer doesn’t ask for that. And it was slowly slowly changing step by step it was changing. And now especially in the especially when the Friday’s for future where we coming something of a thing, the conscious the global, the European consciousness was rising very highly in the end the the will to overtake responsibility as a consumer was was you can you could feel it that there was no more interest. And and now in terms of Corona again. So and and the more the global crisis, different global crisis are being evident for consumers out there, the more the the willingness to, to first of all overtake responsibility for themselves in their consumption. And secondly, also to pay a little bit more for that is rising, you can really feel it. So it helps us a lot to be recognised as a very sustainable brand and to picture have a have a credibility as a sustainability, T brand. That helps us a lot to to to always grow stronger than the rest of the market.

Carlton Reid 24:43
I’m gonna interrupt Antje there and go across to my colleague David for a quick commercial break.

David Bernstein 24:48
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 EFBE, 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 the loved ones 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 25:58
Thanks, David. And let’s get back to Antje of Vaude. So green shape is your own certification label that you use. But then yes. If then you go green button, which is a that’s a national scheme. Yes, fabrics, the National diamond scheme for fabrics then you’ve got when you’ve mentioned my climate before, which is a Swiss certification scheme. And then you’re also a member or you get certification from fair wear. So that’s like, you know, fair trade almost making sure that the your your supply chain is the practices are, are good practices. So just describe how those certification schemes fit into your business.

Antje von Dewitz 26:51
Okay, as you just mentioned, green shape is our own, it’s like a metal label, which is, which is, I think the highest standard that is any certification out there any standard out there, because it’s very broad and very, very deep. What in order to become a green shape product, and almost 90% of our whole product is in green shape, in has green shape label. And when three years ago, the German government said they want to also make a metal label the green button, we got green shape recognised as, as, as being. So every product that we have that has the green shape label automatically gets the green button label of the German government because our it’s stricter than, than the green button. So that does that. And you mentioned fair aware, fair wear is also included in green shave. So all of our products are farewell products, that means all of our productions 100% Our audit are being audited by by in terms of green affair where so that’s that’s that’s the very strictest labour or standard for working conditions worldwide in the textile industry. So if you look for fair products, you have to look for fair wear

Carlton Reid 28:28
textile production, no, no sweatshops, that kind of thing.

Antje von Dewitz 28:31
No sweatshops? No, no, don’t children, no work of children. They are in fair where you have to fight for existential wages, that means wages that that, that you can not only minimum wages, but living wages, wages that help people to really survive with the family and not to send the children to work but send the children to school, that that make it possible to have a lot of real life with a family. So that’s much higher than just minimum wages. And that’s something that every every brand that is part of fair wear has to work for to really reach this. So it’s a very strict and and good standard, because it’s a continuous work in progress that you have to prove year by year through the out audits and other also through the audit for your own company. So we are audited every year. You have to prove that you really give the best and you really put a lot of effort and in supporting all the companies the production sites to make to create good working conditions to you can

Carlton Reid 29:47
be more profitable if you didn’t aspire to the standards if you didn’t have the fair wear. If you didn’t have to meet those, those those criteria. You could in more money.

Antje von Dewitz 30:02
Yes, that’s that’s rather strange, isn’t it, it’s much more difficult and much more expensive to overtake responsibility than not to do it. That’s a strange road we’re in. But it’s true. But from an economical point of view, it’s still it’s still worth to, to follow this sustainable path. Because it helps your brand image, it helps to really focus on a good way. It convinces your own team that they’re working for purpose. So it helps you to get to get good team members of your own team, it helps you to sell your products more and more. So it helped, it helped us to grow stronger to be a really strong brand and a strong company. And but at the same time, we needed this growth in order to finance the transformation, which costs so much. So.

Carlton Reid 31:06
So going back to your your, your very, very beautiful rural location, on your online on your website, on four, you’ve got a specialist website, just on your CSR, your corporate social responsibility. It says I’m quoting here, due to our rural location, most employees have to commute longer distances to work. Now, we can’t force anyone to give up their car. But we can provide incentives. So what are those incentives?

Antje von Dewitz 31:40
The incentives is I mentioned that before a little bit. The incentives are not fun of a financial thought. But they are the best parking spots for people who share their cars, for example. So we, in eight years ago, we just sort of made 60 parking spots disappear. And made in the inner circle of our of our campus here, where we have our company, there is now a green area with a climbing wall and No, no 60 parking spots. So we have not so many parking spots here. So park a parking spot something really valuable, you have to walk a long distance from from another place to here, if you come late in the in the day, so a close close to the company parking spot is something very valuable, the best parking spots are for the people that share their car. So that is an incentive. And an incentive not to take your own car is when you come by you can you can without cost you can lend the bike here from us with with E motor so you can get over the hills, it’s very hilly region and get here then you can shower here, you can you have a parking spot, close to the company under the roof to park your own bike. And we have also you can also acquire a bike very, very cheaply. Because we have connections and you can use the connections together to to own a bike by yourself. So we help people to get good bikes, and to ride the bike. And it’s become some sort of a social incentive to because here are a lot of bikers. And it’s sort of the status of your bike here. And not so much the office status if you have a big car. And we also have some sort of mobility lotto, so every week with the help of a coincidence generator, somebody is chosen. And he is he or she is asked Oh, so how did you come to work today. And then if if it’s in a sustainable way by bike or by bus or whatsoever, he gets a nice price and a nice award. And is and it’s shown in our intranet with a nice picture in a winning pose. So it helps to keep the the topic of green mobility in everybody’s mind. And it helps to get get out little incentives to to make people think about or change their way of coming to work.

Carlton Reid 34:26
Because that’s slightly easier. If you were in an urban location you you’d have lots of bike paths, you’d have lots of buses and trams and all sorts of you know what Europeans come to expect, but you’re not in an urban location. You’re out in the farmland. So that must be tougher for you than it would be for if you were in in a large city.

Antje von Dewitz 34:47
You know, that is true because in the beginning, we didn’t even have a bus stop here. So no buses were were coming to our countryside. So we also had to lobby and to cooperate with The local bus provider and the city and the country to to make it possible that we have a bus that is coming here to the company. So I guess you have other tasks or tasks in first of infrastructural nature, if you’re a company that is sustainable in the countryside, because there is not often not a lot of infrastructure here, we have to provide

Carlton Reid 35:22
infrastructure, you had to have bike paths close to your place.

Antje von Dewitz 35:25
And now since I think five years, we have bypassed Yes.

Carlton Reid 35:31
And was that because where you’re situated, so the municipality or the locality put these bike paths in? Because you were lobbying for this? Or they’re just putting these in? In general? No,

Antje von Dewitz 35:44
that was part of a bigger plan. So we were just very happy that we finally got them.

Carlton Reid 35:51
Right. Okay. Now, so that’s, that’s, that’s the travel that you can, you can sort of almost control but business travel is much more difficult to control because obviously, if you’ve got to, you know, plants, you’re having to fly to Vietnam, etc. But talk about your, your policy, because on the CSA report, it talks about how, you know, car travel, you know, cannot be made by car, if it’s over 400 kilometres, and then if it’s, you know, 600 kilometres, and, you know, you’re not going to fly, you’re gonna go by train, especially within Germany, Switzerland, or Austria. So how do you police that

Antje von Dewitz 36:36
it’s, it’s a, it has become a rule that we won’t take a plane within Germany, or the German speaking countries, we all take the train, and how, how did we manage everybody to go on this check, by taking this route very seriously, for the whole management team, so I don’t take the plane, I take the I take the train to Berlin, and that’s, that’s the travel of about eight hours from here. And we just got very used to use this time very efficiently, we work in the in the train, we have very normal business meetings in the train, and it has become, it has become sort of a normal situation for for all of us, you have to understand that for us. Since since last year, we are climate neutral in the, for the whole for everything worldwide that we do, that doesn’t mean that we have with that we managed to get all emissions down to zero, but we are working on this very, very heavily according to the science based targets, and the rest that we cannot prevent, we compensate. But that means that every emission counts for us and and we take this so seriously, because we understand we understand the serious situation of the climate change. And we we the whole team is very often talking about it, we talk about the crisis that is out there, of the of the very serious situation, we are really dedicated to keep this planet alive for our children and in the coming generations. So every time we can overtake responsibility, it is clear that we do this, it’s it’s just become normal. And it’s sort of observed that we would take a plane if we can take a train. So so with the same with the same with the same responsible approach, it is very clear that that we have a canteen here that serves vegetarian food, okay, we have one day left where we where we eat meat, but the rest of the days are a vegetarian, because this is something where we can act where we can to overtake responsibility to not to cut down on emissions. And I think it’s still it’s still I make it probably sound too easy because this has been a transformation process for us to in mobility and in eating. But it’s for our day and for the whole team of our day. Everybody understands it that it’s clear a clear step of our day because it makes so much sense because we’re dedicated to sustainability but dedicated to keeping this workplace this world a wonderful place. So everybody is like okay, we understand it’s still not easy. We still sometimes hate it, but we understand. So that makes transformation process within the company easier.

Carlton Reid 39:39
Because you’re you have very strict policies that appears on on a business travel trip. You should only get a taxi for instance, if there’s a few of you and there’s only a certain distance you can go in and a taxi and then you’re meant to be using Bike Share, Scooter share whatever in cities, so that’s embedded in your mobility policy, the fact that when you go somewhere on business travel, you’ve still got to travel in a sustainable fashion.

Antje von Dewitz 40:12
Yes, that’s true. Yeah. And I never take a taxi, I always take the subway or walk. When I when I get into town, that is the end that also has become normal. Because it’s a normal for you.

Carlton Reid 40:30
But what about people coming into the company that where they get, you know, expense accounts where they will track fly everywhere, they’ll get taxes everywhere? Is that strange for other people? Are you changing people? How do people who are coming into your company, look at your policies,

Antje von Dewitz 40:50
and it was more difficult for the people who who already have been at the company because for them, it has been a trend transformation process they had to do. There was a lot of discussion why they should now not take plane anymore, or why they shouldn’t take a taxi or whatever. For people that come into Fody that come newly into voting for them. It’s they have chosen Foudy as their favourite employer because we follow values that they support. So it’s much easier with new employees that have chosen us very consciously than it was in the beginning to change policy for the people that already worked here.

Carlton Reid 41:28
Thanks to Anjou von Dewitz of Vaude there and thanks to you for listening to episode 321 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 a chat with another inspirational business woman but meanwhile get out there and ride.

8th January 2023

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 319: German word for beer diluted with lemonade is “cyclist” — oh, and Jim was probed by robots

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Jim Moss and Donna Tocci

TOPICS: Kidneys and beer. For an hour. Really.

LINKS:

Does cycling have a drinking problem? Bicycling.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 319 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday eighth of January 2023.

David Bernstein 0:27
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 1:02
happy new Yeah, it is when Yeah. And it’s really it’s a real big struggle to say there’s 20 It’s 23 Isn’t it done. And it’s it’s happy new year, and it’s 2023. We’ve been doing this since 2006 or later, the podcast has been going since 2006. And you guys were on from relatively early. So we’ve been doing this an awfully long time. So just happy new year for this incredibly strange year that we now have in the future. In effect, we are 2023. So we have with us, Jim, and Donna. So Jim and Donna, welcome to the show, Donna,

we have been discussing what we’re gonna be talking about on the show today. And we have realised that me and Donna don’t really have any major bodily traumatic episode to recount. Whereas, whereas

a certain attorney might have something including, you know, being probed by robots.

You’ve been probed by robots. Jim, tell us about your robot probing.

Jim Moss 2:14
And just to clarify things quite quickly, it was not a sexual activity.

Carlton Reid 2:21
Never said it was Jim, you went there.

Jim Moss 2:22
I know. But I know that several other probing does not mean. Yeah. And we’re and we’re off and running for the new year. That’s right.

They found that I had two large growths in one of my kidneys, and large meaning baseball size and golf ball size. I tried to send new records, you know, me always wanted to be number one. And, but I didn’t quite make it I found out.

And so I went to I think it’s called a nephrologist, who looked at the scans looked at me and said, We’re removing your kidney. And 15 days later, I was in the hospital for 26 hours where they took out my right kidney by a robot DaVinci Robot, phenomenal surgeon. I mean, just a really nice guy I got enjoyed him. Even when I came off the drugs. sort of interesting, I have six holes in me three for the robot, one for an assistant, one for a camera, one where they actually remove the kidney. It’s almost like a tic tac toe board

Carlton Reid 3:50
video to get a video of it after it’s been, you know, die scanned with it. You know, with cameras, there must be an episode you can put on YouTube.

Jim Moss 3:57
I actually asked him. And he said, we don’t save them unless you request them. And I said, I mean, I really I would have watched it now. I wouldn’t have watched the first couple weeks. But now you know that you pretty much healed up pretty much. I think I would have watched it. It’s quite interesting just to hear him talk about and I’ve He keeps looking. He says you have all sorts of questions about how we did it. You don’t really have that many questions about what’s going to happen to you. I know what’s going to happen to me. I’m going to heal up and fall down again. And his response was, you should fall less.

Carlton Reid 4:34
Have that. Did he have that same advice for another one of our beloved members?

Jim Moss 4:38
Yeah, yeah. I think Tim needs to learn how to fall maybe that’s it. I fall. I’ve had a doctor tell me that I bounced better than anybody else he’s ever seen. I put it on my resume. Yeah, we were mountain biking, knock myself cold. And he’s a neurologist. He said you bounce better than me. No. So

Donna Tocci 5:02
we digress. How are you feeling now? I’m okay.

Jim Moss 5:06
I’m great. I really am great. I it’s, you know, there’s a lot of muscle there layers there, even though in my case they weren’t that prominent. And so those lower layers are still healing, but the scars are great. In another couple of days, I get back to full activity, although I’m full is gonna be a different definition for a while.

Carlton Reid 5:28
But I’m happy can when can you get back on a bike?

Jim Moss 5:31
Well, I was told I could get back on a trainer Thursday. And so yesterday, Friday, I went down to the basement where I had my trainer, and I set everything up. And then 20 minutes later, I still hadn’t been able to get my leg over the back. Or to get on.

Carlton Reid 5:53
Like a road bike hooked up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could just I mean, I’m not saying go and get one. But you if you had a like, a one that’s not quite so strictly road shaped. You could perhaps get on one of them. I mean, a lot of recuperation. You know, even when cyclists they recuperate on exercise bikes.

Jim Moss 6:12
Yeah, I even put a stepladder next to it. I’m still figuring out how to pull it off. Because once you get out of balance, there’s just anyway, so that should have been videotaped. But so I’m going to try again. Maybe this afternoon, I have another idea. involves two milk crates, one on either side, and a pulley system. So

Donna Tocci 6:37
I think you need maybe big cushions on either side. Oh, yeah.

Carlton Reid 6:43
And then you get the advice from from from the table. Yeah. So Donna, you were you were mentioning you’ve brought Tim’s crashes up? Because if we go back in the archives of this show, we could probably have quite a few hours of discussions with with Tim about his crashes. So so tell us what what do you know about his latest escapade?

Donna Tocci 7:08
Oh, only unfortunately, I haven’t talked with Tim but only what I know from his

from his Instagram feed, which anyone can can check out it’s Timothy V. Jackson. But he had another crash where he needed a new hip. And he had a fracture near his knee. So he had to have some pretty big surgeries was in the hospital for quite a while. And but his home and is okay, let’s let’s go with that. He’s home and, okay, now.

Carlton Reid 7:50
Well, our best wishes to Tim because his his his Instagram, um, be quite gruesome at time, when he does show us his injuries. So sometimes he shows his shots of him with his hand in the air riding his bike and they look great. They’re not going to offend anybody who might be squeamish, but then he will show his his injuries and he has had a lot of injuries that are best wishes, temporary recovery. And also he gets on his bike. Really, really soon. Now. What have we been doing over the last time was we talked over the Christmas and the New Year so So Donna, first what I’ve actually been doing, you’ve been out on your bike March what we’ve been up to.

Donna Tocci 8:35
Now we’ve discussed this, I’m a fair weather person, and it is cold here. So no, but my better half has been on his trainer and out on the new year’s ride and all of that. So I support that. And but, but no, I am very much a fair weather outside person. So we will will reiterate that but but good holidays. I actually not for this podcast, but I have been diving into my ancestry on ancestry.com. So that’s that’s a good insight activity for me for the winter. But But yeah, oh good. And hope everyone out there is having a good new year so far and a healthy one. And looking forward to doing more of these podcasts in the new year.

Carlton Reid 9:25
While I’m while I’ve got you both on and we started talking about medical stuff there, and this will interest people I guess, everywhere. But certainly where we are in the UK we have a socialised medical system where you don’t have to worry about crashing your bike or having nephrologists poking around you with a with a machine because it’s you know, it’s paid for by the state but well by people we pay for it via you know, very, very standard National Insurance. Now, what about in the US it is a worry that you mustn’t crash your bike because you’re going to have loads of injuries. So somebody like Tim, you know, he’s crashed lots and lots is that he’s just uninsurable? I mean, how do you guys cope with your medical system for, for what he’ll be quite routine? So Jim first, I guess?

Jim Moss 10:18
Well, the The fortunate thing in my case right now is, is that I’m over the age of 65. So the government, the medical programme, Medicare picked up 90% of it, and then I have a supplemental policy that picked up the rest. But for somebody like Tim, it would be purely private health care. And that would be something that he would pay a monthly premium for, that could be anywhere from, you know, $300, and he writes a big check to get out of the hospital, or, you know, $5,000 a month, and he writes a smaller check to the hospital. And, and, and for years, you know, because of my activities, I couldn’t afford to write the check to buy the, the insurance,

Carlton Reid 11:12
for skiing. So things are dangerous, you just can’t insure yourself. Yeah.

Jim Moss 11:17
In there, in the past, you filled out these forms, once they found that you took risks. And I was a pilot. And I’d been above 20,000 foot climbing, and I had skied out of bounds. And I was a rock climber. And, you know, I was quoted $15,000 a year with a $15,000 deductible one time.

Carlton Reid 11:42
So the crazy thing is, if you’re doing those kinds of activities, that means you’re going to be fitter than the average person less likely to keel over and die of a heart attack, I’m guessing than the average person because you’re getting out there, and you’re doing very active stuff. So if anything, the insurance companies should be like, supporting that, but they don’t operate out that they just operate on pure figures that they get, I guess,

Jim Moss 12:05
yes. And even more importantly, the law got passed, federal law got passed 2000 2002, something like that, that allows the health insurance company to exclude high risk activities. And so things like skiing, I mean, going up to your local ski hill, and skiing, those injuries can be excluded in your policy, if they notify you in advance, indoor rock climbing or going to a gym, all those can be excluded. So it’s something that you need to pay attention to, or you may have, you may think you’re covered, and you may have an injury and find out that you’re writing while you do the writing checks, or you’re dodging, you know, bill collectors. So if you say, and I’m not so sure cycling is covered in those things that is included, but mountain biking, I know can be so

Carlton Reid 13:06
yeah, I just know from like, when we’re getting travel insurance. Yeah, myself, for my son it yeah, these things are very often is great. And certainly racing of any sort, you’re always gonna be excluded from insurance, from those sort of things. But can I ask Donna, um, Jim’s gonna come in on this as well, but they’re just Do you think any of this that kind of, you know, thought in the back of your mind, well, I can’t afford to crash my bike, I’ll just drive to the shops, you know, I can’t afford to, you know, to go along the dirt road or on the road and have any sort of injury? I’m going to protect it in the car. So is that potentially just the the insurance the medical system you have in the US? Could that potentially be putting people off? Doing things that are not protected by steel exoskeleton?

Donna Tocci 13:56
Just speaking in a very general way, not for everybody? I don’t think so. Because I truly don’t think unless I’m so sorry, Tim, unless you’re someone like Tim, you don’t ever think you’re going to crash or you don’t ever think that you’re going to get hit by a car. You may say I’ve got my helmet on, maybe even, you know, jacket or something like that, or any other kind of protective items. But until it happens, most of us I it’s it’s human nature, right? That’s not going to happen to me. You know, and you’re not thinking about insurance. So Could someone think about it? Sure. But in general, I don’t think so. That’s just my opinion. I don’t know Jim, you could have another one.

Carlton Reid 14:45
So not knowing any names here. We’re not saying this is Tim. But if there was somebody liked him in another sport, maybe somebody maybe somebody who just scared for instance, or one of the adventurous board? Would they be thinking? I can’t do this? Because I’ve had 10, catastrophic excursions to the to the local hospital, and I can’t be insured anymore. And I can’t do this. So, so yes, for general people, they might it might not be but what if you’re like a super athletes? Would it stop them? In the gym? Or?

Donna Tocci 15:23
Sorry? If you’re a professional athlete that No, probably not, because you may have sponsors, you may have whatever, but you may be part of a team that has a team, you know, has, has a team policy, but I think if you were a general, you know, like me, who, goodness, you don’t ever want to see me out in the snow but and has had several, several accidents, you would probably have bills. And you know, just as Jim said, you know, you may be paying off monthly and think, you know, I’ve already had two spills and had to go to the hospital, and I’m still paying for them. So I think I’m gonna sit this season out.

Jim Moss 16:08
Yeah, once, once you’ve had one, you’re constantly thinking about the cost. On the second one. And let me even give you a better example, when I was working in the ski industry, we looked at pre employment, physical tests, not physician tests, but a physical trainer who athletic trainer type of person, who would see if the employees who are getting hired had ACLs or not. In the ski counties, there are hundreds, hundreds of people who have torn their ACLs can get around fine and can afford to get them fixed. Because it’s just too expensive. And they don’t have any health insurance. And so we were testing because what would happen is they come on board, they get a ski job. And three weeks into the season, they would have a fall and workers comp, you know, the health insurance, if you’re employed would pay for your ACL surgery. And so that was a I mean, it was you call it a scam. But it’s the simple fact that, you know, people if they don’t have the insurance, even if they do have the insurance, they don’t have enough money to pay the deductibles their share of insurance. So that

Carlton Reid 17:39
yes, you’re sort of saying that if you if you get enough of these, say crashes or injuries, then in effect, you you’ll be uninsured. For the insurance. All right. So you’re uninsured, you’re going out on the hill, you’re doing whatever thing you’re doing in the full knowledge that if you crash the next time you’re bankrupt,

Jim Moss 17:57
yep. The number one reason why people individuals file bankruptcy in the United States is medical records. Number one reason you know, they get injured somehow tax. Excuse me. You said

Donna Tocci 18:12
you’re full of fun facts. That’s the number one.

Jim Moss 18:18
When am I not full of fun facts?

Donna Tocci 18:21
That’s the sad one, though, you know, like, that’s just sad.

Carlton Reid 18:27
So we are having this to live there is no club asking that is because it is a live discussion in the UK at the moment because our health service for political reasons is being is falling down. And an awful lot of the podium call it conspiracy theories. I think just the very big worries that were one of the reasons is because an awful lot of politically well connected people want to actually have an American medical system. And it’s just it always has surprised me that that’s where you’d want to go because what Jim was saying there about the bankruptcies, you know, these things are often brought up as scare stories, but they’re not scare stories. They’re kind of they’re out there. They’re real. And you guys are crazy.

Jim Moss 19:12
You know, I

Donna Tocci 19:15
for a lot of reason.

Carlton Reid 19:17
Yeah, they are scare stories. And I think the people who are pushing to have our medical system are those that are not looking at the financial, personal financial costs, either because they have not understood them, or they have enough money, it doesn’t matter to them.

Donna Tocci 19:39
Or they have they are invested in an insurance type company, they’re going to start you know,

Carlton Reid 19:49
it’s also a libertarian type of thing like the, you know, the government, the government or whatever you want to say it as they shouldn’t have a say A in such a thing that I don’t understand that but that seems to be a thing?

Jim Moss 20:07
Well, it’s, I think that you could probably find somebody that would call themselves every type of political name, who is for and or against every health insurance opportunity the United States is currently looking at or has looked at. In the United States nowadays, I think that the political designation we attach to somebody’s not based on how they really think, but how they want to be perceived. So, you know, it’s okay. Yeah, it’s it. I mean, yes, Libertarian, the government should stay out of my life, until they look at the cost of triple bypass, you know, liberal, we should take care of everybody, until they realise how many people really, really are sick, conservative, and that no more of my money should go to take care of anybody else. But me. You know, whatever, whatever your opinion is, you’re welcome to it. I took an oath to defend it. But it’s scary. I mean, I have the most phenomenal policy supplemental policy. And it was based here again, on a fluke, I have taught part time in the State College, school education system for years, and I qualify because of that, for what’s called pierra, public employee retirement account health insurance. And it’s unbelievable. So 18 years teaching one course a year qualified me for that. And I have this supplemental policy. That’s just, I mean, it’s everyone who I know is just amazed at it. It’s it’s fantastic. You know, and here, again, a fluke, a fluke found this issue and a fluke paid for it.

Carlton Reid 22:09
So we were straying. I guess for some people, we’re straying way too far into politics, recycling. Yeah. But before we go any further, I would like to invest pass on I know, Jamie already responded to it. But we have had a message from Tim. And he said he couldn’t couldn’t make it on the recording today. Unfortunately, he’s had an utterly sleepless night due to, as you can imagine, from what we were discussing before injury issues, and he says he’s feeling really way, way, way sub PA. So hopefully, we’ll get him back on a future show. And he can talk about his latest injury so we can add it to him to the archive. Or, you know, by all means, Google on the hyphen spokesman.com. For Tim Jackson’s many, many escapades where he talked about his crashes, his his falls, and his track injuries, and all sorts of stuff like that.

Donna Tocci 23:05
And I do have to say, he’s a good healer, and we’re thankful for that. Yes.

Carlton Reid 23:10
He’s always back on his bikes. He’s like he has these major crashes. But there he goes. He’s back on his bike within a couple of weeks. And normally he does Jim doesn’t the use case images of him on the trainer first. So good thing to have.

Jim Moss 23:23
Yeah, he posts them from the hospital. That’s what blows me away. I couldn’t, I didn’t even know how to get my thumbs to work, let alone a phone and yet he’s posting pictures laying in bed all drugged up. So he is at a person.

Carlton Reid 23:41
And before we do go on to talk about some topics, I would like to bring David in here just to segue into a very brief commercial break.

David Bernstein 23:52
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 EFBE, 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 the loved ones 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 25:01
We are back with the first show of 2023. And we are with Donna. And we are with Jim. And we had a message even from our buddy who falls off his bike blogs can. Now now, in the show notes when we discussed what we’re going to talk about on the show, we put names on and and we say you should go read this. And one of the pieces that Jim flagged up, and it was also I’d seen on social media a lot. And it was a good time for this particular piece to go online. So it’s by Gloria Liu. And it’s in it’s in bicycling.com. I’m assuming it was in the magazine as well, it might not have been made to go online. But anyway, it’s in the health and nutrition section section and it just says, Does cycling have a drinking problem? And now I haven’t done a word count, but it’s a massive, massive article. It’s not just like a quick slug bear at all. It’s huge. And Tim was actually was on social media was saying he actually had we don’t think he’s in the piece, but he think we think he might have contributed. Cuz he’s teetotal isn’t me, Donna isn’t that he’s like eight years he’s been? That’s what he says on social media. Yeah,

Donna Tocci 26:22
yes, he has. He says here on his LinkedIn posts, if anyone wants to read it.

Carlton Reid 26:27
LinkedIn, I was wondering, okay,

Donna Tocci 26:29
is that he spoke with Gloria Liu for this piece. Since I’ve been sober for more than eight years now and have first hand experience with both sides of the good slash bad alcohol coin. Kudos to Bicycling magazine for allowing Gloria the column space for this article. Yeah.

Jim Moss 26:46
It’s it’s a massive article she just dwells, dives into every aspect of it. And right,

Carlton Reid 26:54
Jan? And Jan first. I mean, when when was actually published, I mean, I’m assuming that was kind of like timed for a time where you might have more alcohol, and then even more alcohol than you would have, normally. But whenever an article has a name for this phenomenon, but whenever a magazine or newspaper has any headline, with a question mark, you can invariably just say, No, you know, that’s the answer to that generally. And but in this particular case, do we think Cycling has a drinking problem, Donna?

Donna Tocci 27:32
For a lot of group rides, and things like that they do end with a couple of beers. Is that a problem? Maybe. I know, when I was going to Interbike in Vegas, I was I was tend to hang out with a lot of folks, including a lot of bike messengers, and there was a lot of drinking, but that was kind of the culture. And again, culture equal problem question. So, you know, it could be the same with runners as well, which is an industry that I am very well in ingrained in, you go out for a group run, you come back, you have a couple beers. You do pub crawl runs. So it is definitely there and

Carlton Reid 28:20
had done a how different is that? You said mentioned running? How different is that to? Just at the end of a workday? You do exactly the same with it. Your your your fellow workers. So I was wondering how different might that be from just basical social stuff. So this is just a this is an issue? It’s an issue for every single sector of society, not just a small subset of cyclist?

Donna Tocci 28:50
Yeah, and the article is talking about that there. You know, to quote this, it’s in the bike shops where customers steal tip mechanics and six packs. It’s an industry trade shows where people are drinking in their booths at cyclocross races, gravel races, where aid stations offer whiskey shots. Okay, that’s me, but but, so maybe, you know, she’s talking about much more part of not just what I was talking about that social piece after we’ll go have a beer after a run or a ride that is usually in her in currency and in marketing and all of that, and that would make it very different than, hey, let’s go grab a beer after work. That’s, you know, to equate it to, you know, a, you know, a job in an office or something like that, where, hey, you wrote a great byline, here’s a beer, we’re not going to pay you for it. That doesn’t make any sense. So yeah, I think it’s it’s ingrained Is it a problem? Again, question mark. Jim, you’re saying something probably sure

Jim Moss 30:05
you want a good ski tune, you bring a six pack with you. You want a good bike tune, you take a six pack with you? Well, in my case, since I’ve already worked on the bike, it usually takes a case. But it’s just part of the outdoor industry. I knew one ski tuner who I mean, and this guy was one of the best in the world, who didn’t shrink the beer that one gave him and would just stack it up. And then at the end of the ski season, he and his friends would go camping for a week. And they would have a pallet full of beer to drink. Oh, I mean, literally, that’s how much beer he was tipped. But he was smart enough that he, you know, shared it. So is it any more any less, I do drink more when I’m with friends, I don’t drink that much at home by myself. But I don’t drink that much anyway, two to four drinks a month. You know, and that can be who knows why shifted to that. But But I don’t think Cycling has any more of a problem other than one small aspect. And that sponsorship, everybody goes someplace after an activity. And bars are the number one place because we can talk, you know, we, we could go to a library, but then we’d have to sit, sit and look at each other. You know, we could go to a park. But nobody’s going to bring us food. So yeah, bars are the place we go because they offer everything we want to do at the end of activities. But we have sponsorships in cycling. If you look at the back of a jersey that says you know or order the front, nine times out of 10. And I count both of these. There’s a brewery and there’s a law firm. The brewery wants you to stop by after a ride and the law firm wants you to call him if you get hit by a car. Cracks me up. And I’m putting on cycling events now. And the first thing we get a list of is what brewery or what you know, liquor distributor, whoever can we get to give us money? Because they want cyclists they they want softball players though? They want runners, they want all those people because probably because of the activity, they can drink more with less issues? I don’t know, maybe? Or maybe they just do drink more. Is it a process?

Carlton Reid 32:45
I mean, most most of the article seems to I mean, it does mention other forms of alcohol. But it is basically about beer, which almost has its self limiting aspect to it, you get lots of shots, you know, you don’t you’re not going to pay for for much after that. But you have quite a few beers, and you’re going to be up putting that out. And that’s going to take your time away from that alcohol. So it’s just a beer is that less of a problem than say, spirits,

Jim Moss 33:15
beer, that several studies and at least one book have proved, is the reason why we exist. You know, since water was going to kill us in the Middle Ages, and before that beer allowed us to survive. So I mean, yeah, just beer does it, you know, contain the plague or whatever.

Carlton Reid 33:39
But I mean, second thing, cyclists tend to be certainly a certain level of cyclists, they tend to be pretty much fitness. certainly aware, and they will know the damage that alcohol can do. So we’ll self limit and you know, they’re not going to be the 10 I’m assuming here. And I’m asking the questions, not assuming I’m asking questions. Would that not just be you’re not gonna have such a natural problem because Cypress or fitness freaks and they’ll just limit

Jim Moss 34:05
but they also limit carbs. And they limit you know, protein and they limit sugars, they limit everything. You know, it’s you know, and if they if they have more beer than whatever, they’re going to limit something else. If they have a doughnut in the morning, they may have less beer in the evening. So so it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the name of the carrier is. What matters is what is inside, you know that you put in your mouth. Right sugar is 25 times more addicting than cocaine. Okay, I can have a doughnut or I can do a snort. What

Carlton Reid 34:48
does cycling have a cake problem? Right? You know when we can’t get enough of that cake? Right?

Donna Tocci 34:56
I have a cake problem.

I would say Yeah, right. But, you know, so I’m looking through this article and they’re talking about, you know, the bike scene and, and bike mechanics, being women and feeling pressure to be one of the guys and go out and drink and get drunk. And and I could see that. But to your point, would that be in any other industry as well, I don’t know. And but there is a, there is a person here talks about a cycling team out in Kansas City that they don’t go for drinks after ride, like because of the health reasons, just as you’re talking about people gain weight, cognitive, you know, all of that hurts their health. So the article really does go back and forth a little bit on you know, that, yes. And, you know, cardiovascular disease and heart failure and stroke, and you know, nobody, nobody needs that. So, so it’s interesting, but I also wonder, you know, is it is it the younger group, as well, you know, when you’re trying to make a name for yourself, so you’re going out and you’re doing all of these things? I don’t know. But I do think that if you are prone to have a problem that just as you said, Carlton, it, you could find it anywhere. You can find it in running, I know at the end of races, there’s beer gardens, there’s, you know, we just we don’t go to a pub, you go to a quote unquote, beer garden, because it’s right there at the finish line. You don’t even have to go anywhere for it. So I think if you’re, if you’re prone to have a problem, or be on the verge of having a problem, yes, there but you could find that anywhere.

Jim Moss 36:49
Yeah, post ride post run. spaghetti dinners are more dangerous for me. I mean, first of all, it’s bad piece.

Carlton Reid 36:59
The piece mentions, you know, checked historian so she didn’t come to me. And, and that’s my views on this as a cycling historian. I would have told her one thing, and that is in Germany. There’s a drink called shandy is no, like a mix between lemonade and beer. What would you call that?

Donna Tocci 37:21
Euugh!

Jim Moss 37:22
Yuk!

Carlton Reid 37:23
That’s really well, that’s a standard drink across in here in Europe. But it’s called Shandy. So if you’d ask for it in a public basically limits your your amount of alcohol, so you might have a full pint. But half it’s party more. It’s gonna be lemonade, and it’s quite sweet drink. Well in Germany, that’s called Radler. In there are any German speakers in the audience, they will know that Radler actually means cyclist. So the German word for diluted beer is cyclist and where that came from was there was a there’s many places where it’s attributed to but it’s basically 1870s 1880s When Radler as a drink as a kind of drink first appeared in Germany with that name. And it was meant to be I think it’s Bavaria, where bar which was attracting lots and lots of cyclists in the 1870s. You know, everybody’s on their bikes going out to places and drinking. And the Publican had ran out or was running very low, low on beer. And so we knew those 1000s and 1000s of cyclists were going to be appearing that day. So he told his staff, well dilute it with lemonade. And they did this. And the cyclists loved it because it wasn’t a full beer. It was just half a beer, which meant they could drink a bit more and be hydrated. And so the German word for this particular drink, which is a phenomenally popular drink, everywhere in Europe, you know, Snady stroke Radler is bicyclist cyclist. So there you go. There’s a historian that could have actually contributed to this this this particular article.

Jim Moss 39:08
Well, here in the United States, we would call it a softball. It’s when the United States you know, something was developed because groups of people came in we call it a softball.

Carlton Reid 39:22
I mean, I’m spell that incident ball as the ball.

Jim Moss 39:29
Softball is, you know what we all play. You wait until at least the beginning of the first inning to have a beer. You don’t wait till you get done at the end of the game to go to a pub, you start drinking when the game starts. On some cases, there are lots of serious softball players don’t want to get you know cards and letters. But there’s all sorts of sports that drink and this one just got named after cycling because the that’s just coming into town. If it were trapped leads coming through, they’d probably have that, you know, word for an awful concoction of lemonade and beer.

Carlton Reid 40:11
It’s nice, you should try it.

Donna Tocci 40:14
Well, in the article, she says that a 2017 report by sponsorship monitor Ieg estimated that US alcohol companies spent 74% of their sponsorship dollars on sports and not only mainstream spectator sports like football, but also participant participatory events, like five K’s triathlons and cycling races. So, so, Jim, you know, you’re right. The, the example of the the jersey? No, no, that is that that’s true. So yeah, I interesting. It’s a great article. And I think that people should, should read it and see, you know, what, what their thoughts are about this? And but it’s you pay your Do you pay your bike mechanic in in cases of beer, or 12 packs or six pack?

Carlton Reid 41:08
And maybe bike mechanics should be asked? Would you rather have the cash?

Jim Moss 41:10
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe you should ask, How much do you drink? You know, do you think you have a drinking problem? Should I be contributing to this drinking problem? You know, when when you get invited to have a beer at the end of the day, and you watch the other mechanics work on bikes with a beer next to him? Are they having one before they go home? Are they having six before they go home? When you see that

Carlton Reid 41:42
post that post activity, right? Yeah, in skiing gym, which is your skier, it’s a relatively strong culture to have alcohol in the middle of the day, perhaps when you’re still on the slope, you know, gluwein and all this kind of stuff. Now, I’ve also found that crazy, you know, skiing is hard enough, and I’m going to equate cycling, isn’t it? These are hard enough activities to do sober. Nevermind, a little bit drunk. So skiing while inebriated seems to me to be absolutely crazy. Yet, it does seem to be a cultural thing where you will have alcohol on the slope. Oh, it’s

Jim Moss 42:18
it is in skiing, it’s even worse. And I can give you a couple quick examples. One in Colorado, it’s against the law to ride a ski lift, intoxicated, and yet, we sell beer and wine and drinks at mid mountain and top of the mountain restaurants at every resort in Colorado. So you can’t get on the lift drunk, but you can use the lift to get up and get drunk. Right and it is a an absolute defence. If you are loaded to any ski injury lawsuit you may have, you don’t you won’t get a dime. And in the 70s and 80s, you knew that this guy was a great skier because he carried his own Bota bag, you know, the little fake Italian bags, leather outside that carried wine. And you would ski down the hill. And you know how good of a skier you were was based on how far away you could shoot the wine from your boater bag into your mouth and share with your friends. And, you know, somehow it got refilled at the bottom of the hill and you went back up again.

Carlton Reid 43:29
So this is where I’m kind of go with it is that I don’t think this is a cycling problem. The headline is de cycling have the problem. No, it’s society has the problem. And you can link you can go to lots of activities where people are probably being tipped with with six packs. And people are drinking during the the downtime during lunch before they carry on doing that activity skiing being I would say as a prime example because it is so embedded the alcohol in it really, really embedded in that particular activity. So I’m just saying yeah, cycling isn’t special here. Right? Society is doing and more importantly, cycling.

Jim Moss 44:10
Yeah, whatever the sport is not the sport. It’s the individual. Okay, if you is a cyclist or softball player or a skier or a professional tiddlywinks player, need to figure out what your relationship with alcohol is and whether or not that’s good or bad.

Carlton Reid 44:29
I’ll come in today in pairs. So why would you do a incredibly dangerous activity like skiing or cycling in any way impaired? Why would you do that? Because you

Jim Moss 44:41
don’t have enough guts to do it sober.

Donna Tocci 44:43
Well, you’re saying for you, you truly have the disease. You have a problem? Yeah. And so maybe what we can all do as part of the site. The sports industry, if you will, is give people the choice right if you want to tip your bike mechanic, give him you know, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever or her or them and let them decide how they want to spend it. If they want to go and buy, you know, a six year for the rest of the mechanics, then they can do that. And

Carlton Reid 45:16
yeah, talking about tipping again, this is out of my comfort zone.

Donna Tocci 45:18
Okay, so sorry. But, but also, you know, and same thing with events, you know, so if you’re gonna have a quote unquote beer garden at the end of an event, and you’re giving away Hey, you get, you know, a nice event pint glass with your beer, we’ll give the pint glass if somebody orders a seltzer water to write, you know, so make it more inclusive. And give people that choice. And if somebody really is struggling, because they have that that disease or they’re on the borderline, make it easier for them to say no.

Carlton Reid 45:57
But might not also be easy to say no, if there is no availability. So what Jim was saying there was if you’ve got mid station and at the top if you’ve got copious amounts of alcohol, isn’t that a bit crazy? Should we not be limiting it a bit more always that nanny state and you shouldn’t be limiting it. It should be up to individuals.

Jim Moss 46:18
Now we’re back to a political discussion. I’m not going to touch that one.

Carlton Reid 46:26
Nope. Okay.

Donna Tocci 46:28
And I think we need Tim I think we need him for a further discussion on this. And maybe we have this conversation again, or a similar conversation when we can have Tim for a little different perspective.

Carlton Reid 46:42
I’ve not done this event, but there is an event. I mean, it’s talked about, you know, hand hand ups, you know, in cycle races and stuff. And we have something similar. There’s an event or there used to be an event, I don’t think it’s run now, there used to be an event called the Real Ale Wobble. And that was a mountain bike event, from way back in the 80s. It’s a very old event. And I’ve never actually done it, but I’ve been to the place where it’s done it and it’s very small place in mid Wales. And it’s basically a pub in a pub a publican started this off. And it’s basically you, you start this race, and every checkpoint, there is a real ale, to to imbibe. And then clearly by the end of this, you’re probably not able to balance on your bike much anymore. So clearly, that was a that was an event that was specifically tying cycling, and the the physical action of drinking while you were cycling, that may be similar to the handout. In cyclocross,

Jim Moss 47:45
we have dozens of those around here. There’s one where and motorcyclists are big on this one, but I’ve seen it in cycling now, where you go to each bar, hand you a card from a deck, and you have a beer, and then you hop on your motorcycle, you hop on your bike, you go to the next

Carlton Reid 48:00
motorcycle, your motorcycle, you mean motorcycle, that’s a that’s a, that’s a vehicle that goes on public highways, right? Can you possibly have that, oh, it’s

Jim Moss 48:10
every day. And at the end of the run, you may have gone to 10 bars, and you take your 10 Playing cards and come up with the best poker hand that you can figure out after X number of beers on a bicycle or on a whatever, and I’ve done it on bikes, it’s a phenomenal game. Especially if you can win a couple 100 bucks with your poker hand

Carlton Reid 48:35
to discuss that this is potentially a social, you know, across many different sectors. But what’s what’s taken, you know, the driving under the influence has been made socially unacceptable, whereas in the 70s, you know, it was acceptable to drink and then get into it, okay, we’ve made it socially unacceptable. So is this something that has to happen in drinking, while taking part in sporting events should also become that’s just socially unacceptable, that’s just, we don’t have to be woke or anti woke about this. This is just society will eventually say that that’s not a sensible thing to be doing. And we won’t do that anymore. In the same way that you know, driving under the influence is also seen in that kind of, you know, you can crazy to do this category,

Jim Moss 49:22
but it won’t because it became socially unacceptable here in the United States, because of the damage to other people. In in, in cycling, you know, I mean, you could crash into another cyclists. But if you crash into a car or a tree, you’re the one that’s going to get injured so nobody cares. It won’t create any society woes or backlash.

Carlton Reid 49:51
Donna?

Donna Tocci 49:54
I don’t know that nobody cares.

Jim Moss 49:58
The people that Who check you into the hospital care?

Donna Tocci 50:02
Yeah, but think about it too. So if you’re, you know, in Carlton’s example of going from, you know, L to L, and, and the name is, you know, expects you to be wobbly at the end, right the room. In some cases, those people are going to pack their bike into a car and then drive. Right. And so, you know, if you go to this real ale wobble or any other, you know, let’s ride from bar to bar to bar and have drinks, or drink after a mountain bike ride on a Sunday, most of those people are going to get in cars. And not great

Jim Moss 50:46
that transition from a bicycle to a car is where it goes from fun activity. normal activity, socially acceptable activity to a non socially criminal activity. I guess you can get a you can lose your driver’s licence here in Colorado for riding a bicycle drunk. Yeah, is your driver’s licence? Yes. And we have bicycle

drunk. And you can lose your driver’s licence for riding a horse drunk. And we

Carlton Reid 51:25
had I think many jurisdictions around the world will will have pretty similar if you have a driving licence, you can have it taken away if you’re caught drunk, or another form of transport

Jim Moss 51:35
on a horse. I, that one’s the one that stretched me. So anyway, and we have a case, we have a case where a guy was convicted, and the appellate court upheld it. And both riding a horse drunk and riding a bicycle drunk. So

Carlton Reid 51:48
there is of course, these jokes. Like cartoons in there often that these are like 1890s and early cartoons, but they’re basically often brought out when driverless cars I talked about because we’ve had driverless cars in effect for a long time, because farmers when they’d get drunk on the with their horses, they would just get in the back of their cart, and the horse would know exactly where it had to go. So you had a driverless car back in the 1890s. Just because the your horse knew exactly where home was. And you could just get in drunk and off, it would go.

Donna Tocci 52:24
Okay, I just looked it up. Because Google knows everything. In my state, it is not illegal and does not have Oui conviction consequences to drunk or drug impaired biking. Really, it is a terribly reckless thing to do is what? Yeah, so

Jim Moss 52:45
if you want to ride your horse, yeah, go to Connecticut. Massachusetts, Massachusetts. scuze. me the best.

Carlton Reid 52:51
So definitely. Yeah, yeah, one of the old ways of finding it if somebody is drunk, so a police officer, before that you have breathalysers that we’ll be just asking them to ride on site. So walking in a straight line. Whereas on a bike, if you’re drunk, if you’re really drunk, surely you’re gonna fall off. If you are able to actually balance a bike and go in a reasonably straight line, you can’t be that drunk. Whereas this is all similar advocate stuff here. I’m not advocating any of this. But if you get into a car, it’s somehow different in that your cocoon, possibly very, very warm. You have music, you have all these distractions. So you shouldn’t be driving while drunk. But cycling while drunk is somehow kind of okay, because the very fact you are staying upright means you’re not actually that drunk. What do we think about that?

Jim Moss 53:44
I agree with you, but boy, are we gonna get cards and letters? And I’m sure I mean, we have all met in our life. Somebody who is constantly loaded. You know, who I was sitting in the courtroom one time talking to the sheriff who’s there, you know, as the guard who said, Yeah, we had to call flight for life because a guy blew a point five, three, on a breathalyser when he got brought in.

Carlton Reid 54:17
point that’s high, I’m assuming

Jim Moss 54:19
Oh, that’s five times higher than Well, point. Oh, eight is against the law to drive this guy blue. 8.53. That’s That’s mean. That means he is drunk his entire existence. You can blow that much unless you’re you’re walking around and a point two, which is, which most people be unconscious of point two.

Donna Tocci 54:44
Yeah, I was gonna say how was he even alive? Right.

Jim Moss 54:47
And that’s why they call flight for life. You know, they didn’t take UAV you know, he was going to live. And so but there’s those people out there. They just wake up, loaded and maintain that. So they could probably ride a bike for a while. But they’re the exception to the rule. And for a cyclists yeah for cyclists is seriously a cyclist he can’t ride a bike loaded. But he does provide entertainment and YouTube videos or he Tiktok videos.

Carlton Reid 55:18
Mm hmm. See, when you get that wobble or go back to the word wobble, you’ve, it’s kind of a death spiral, you’re gonna fall off your bike, where do you see drunk people, but they’re actually keeping a straight line when they are reasonably straight line when they’re riding because as soon as you start that wobble, that wobble doesn’t end anything else apart from nine times out of 10 a crash, although the drunk cyclist basically cures themselves because they crash whereas a drunk motorist, you know, can actually keep going.

Jim Moss 55:49
Although there is a new bike that I just saw press release about that won’t crash the three wheel? No, no, a three wheeler, two wheel electric bike that has, you know, a pewter that keeps it upright. So now you can be totally Blotto. And, yeah, so

Carlton Reid 56:05
it’ll get you back.

Donna Tocci 56:07
I mean, the flip side of that is that’s more enabling.

Jim Moss 56:12
Sure. So isn’t that

Donna Tocci 56:15
or maybe makes the case for the cycling have a drinking problem if somebody is creating a bike to stay upright? If you can’t, yourself? But But

Carlton Reid 56:24
wouldn’t that just be for people with balances us in general, rather than drunk people with balances?

Jim Moss 56:29
Sure, we always create. So So beer was created, and ended up being a lifesaver, because you could drink beer and not die of some disease. That’s how to

Carlton Reid 56:42
boil water. Why

Jim Moss 56:45
didn’t you know? But they didn’t know about, we’d

Carlton Reid 56:48
have to put hops in it. And you’d have to put barley in it, you could just boil the water, but they

Jim Moss 56:53
didn’t know that in the 1500s of 1300s. That, you know,

Carlton Reid 56:57
it’s accidental just that the beer being healthy is just Well, yeah. Boiling is doing it. Right.

Jim Moss 57:03
It just happened. They didn’t know that there were germs. They just knew that people who drank beer seem to live. And so everything in life can also be turned into an addiction a problem. You know, rock climbing evolved into bungee jumping, involved into static jumping. And I had a friend die because you know, static jumping, meaning your rope does not stretch. And you take this great big swinging jump, and you know it’s harnessed. Right?

Carlton Reid 57:41
Hey, yay.

Jim Moss 57:43
It’s sort of you find videos on it happens a lot in Utah, where you have great big cliffs and arches and you can take this giant swing underneath an arch.

Carlton Reid 57:55
Does that do amazing things to your whole body when you hit that?

Jim Moss 58:00
Well, you try and do it in such a way that you curve into that, you know, point of, you know, no more stretch. And I’ve not seen a video of anyone over the age of 35 doing it

Carlton Reid 58:17
for obvious reasons. Yeah.

Jim Moss 58:18
I mean, it’s such a big thing in the state of Utah that the attorney for the Utah State Lands attorney and I became friends because it became an issue then he finally got to the point to say look if they want to died, let them die. So anything can become a problem. You know, what was used to get out of to cross the canyon to get to better lands to grow food evolved into rock climbing.

Carlton Reid 58:53
Jim, have you still on the hell site that is Twitter? Are you are you migrating to Mastodon what you

Jim Moss 58:59
I’m on Mastodon and I’m on Twitter and I’m on stimuli. I’m not even sure what mass I mean, Mastodon I’m learning stimuli. I’m not even sure what I’m doing there. But I thought I would try them all because I wanted to grab recreation law. Yeah. To hold on mice. Yeah, yeah. And so I’m posting to it. The best way to find me is recreation-law,

Carlton Reid 59:24
and Donna. So I still see you on Twitter and I have got a mastodon but I really don’t think I’ve done one one posting. I’m pretty poor. That’s why I’m sticking with the health side. Are you sticking with the hellsite? What are you what are your thoughts on that?

Donna Tocci 59:39
For now? Yes. So you can find me on Twitter at DonnaTocci and also on Instagram.

Carlton Reid 59:47
So thank you ever so much for being on today’s show. And Jim, and as I said, this has been show 319 And the next episode because this was this is like Can I show that almost shouldn’t be here because I did say in the last episode that the next show will be with somebody who’s talking to Critical Mass person who uses the world of song to actually get across his message about getting more people on bikes so that will be the next episode rather than this. This this interim episode talking about kidneys and literally were the only subject to talk about was my kidneys and so it’s been excellent for the our first show of the year. So next episode will be critical mass, but meanwhile, get out there and ride

22nd December 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 317: Masterplanning Milan: Real Estate Developer Reshaping the City With Active Travel

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Stefano Corbella, Sustainability Officer, COIMA, Milan

TOPICS: Parking Minimums, Forests In the Sky and Dutch-style cyclist roundabouts in Milan

LINKS:

COIMA REAL ESTATE, MILAN: https://www.coima.com/en/homepage

BOSCO VERTICALE: https://www.coima.com/en/media/press-releases/bosco-verticale-named-one-of-the-worlds-50-most-iconic-skyscrapers-of-the

DUTCH-STYLE ROUNDABOUT: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/a-modern-amsterdam-roundabout/

CYCLOPS JUNCTION: https://cities-today.com/uks-first-cyclops-junction-opens-in-manchester-to-boost-bike-safety/

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 317 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. The show was engineered on Thursday 22nd of December 2022.

David Bernstein 0:27
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 1.01
In the previous episode, I had a coffee and a cycle-related chat in the new Eroica cafe in downtown Milam. I’m Carlton Reid, and apologies for my croaky voice—I was at a Newcastle United match last night and may have shouted a wee bit. Anyway, the visit to Milan was a research trip to visit Porto Nueva, a formerly neglected part of the city, but which has been transformed by urban developers such as COIMA. The most famous part of this regeneration project is COIMA-commissioned Bosco Verticalle, or vertical forest, two high rise apartment buildings covered in trees and plants. I was part of a study group given a quick and inspirational tour of the tallest of these towers, and from near the top, I could see some of Milan’s new protected cycleways. I also spotted a Dutch-style roundabout and a Cyclops-style staggered road junction on a busy arterial. Later, I interviewed COIMA-sustainability officer Stefano Corbella at this junction, and then we walked through an urban park built over another arterial and chatted about the changing face of Milan and how private developers work with cities on increasing the number of active travel journeys.

Carlton Reid 2:16
Stefano, where are we are we are we in Milan right now overlooking this road? What is this road?

Stefano Corbella 2:43
This is Via Melchiorre Gioia, one of the main streets that connects the outskirts of Northern Milan, to the to the city centre going towards the Brera neighbourhood, one of the most historic and nice

neighbourhoods in Milan.

Carlton Reid 3:04
So, we’re on a pedestrian bridge over the road, yeah, flanked by each side by bike paths, how new are those bike paths here?

Stefano Corbella 3:13
Yeah, those bike lanes we developed as part of the Porta Nuova development.

There was nothing at all before we started working on the project. And we added approximately four kilometres of cycling path integrated with later other development that the city of Milan is done.

Carlton Reid 3:38
So this road was wider here. So there was more lanes for cars. And you’ve taken one lane away.

Given to the cyclists and the pedestrians?

Stefano Corbella 3:48
Exactly, exactly. And this was part of the bigger master plan that connected the four neighbourhoods and around because the Porta Nuova project stands for about one kilometres in length. And for a total of 190,000 square metre of total masterplan, which include the park and so on. So the it was important for us to create

a connection for pedestrian cycling, separated by, by design with from the vehicle or vehicle or roads.

Carlton Reid 4:25
So we’re not just walking past where you work. For COIMA. You’re the sustainability officer. Founded in 1974,

which is the developer of a number of plots, projects in Milan, but we are now walking through

into the park. So what’s this park?

Stefano Corbella 4:46
This is BAM, Biblioteca degli Alberi di Milano, is a park that we developed on behalf of the city of Milan and then now we manage to an agreement with the city and we take care about

Security, maintenance, but also and most important cultural activity and culture activation in in our neighbourhood.

Carlton Reid 5:10
And we are higher than road level here.

Stefano Corbella 5:14
Exactly.

Carlton Reid 5:14
So this is on stilts this is your this has been built up above the arterial road or the rest of the road.

Stefano Corbella 5:21
Yeah, on top of the road. Yeah, exactly one of the key issues of this master plan. And the challenges that we face when we started the design was the fact that the Melchiorre Gioia, and Via Della Liberazione were cutting in four corner it was to street just cut the, the entire site in the middle. So in order to make the public spaces more appealing, more quality to give quality spaces, we lift everything up about six metre. And we work with the landscaper to gently make the landscaper not even perceiving these six metre differences between ease or a neighbourhood that is down there with the Bosco Verticale. And the Piazza Gae Aulenti, that is here where we are walking at the moment.

Carlton Reid 6:16
So describe because this is the famous one that many people will have seen photographs of I’m sure what we can see now the as you said at the Bosco Verticale, so what is what is this?

Stefano Corbella 6:25
it’s

Bosco Verticale is a residential development, there are two towers, which we design with the I think the smart idea and interesting idea to implement trees, but I mean real trees, we have trees, about four metre high, five metre high in the balcony of the, of the,

design because it was nothing new in some ways because there are plenty of green spaces on balcony but this scale that we put into this project and the size of the trees that was the you know the the things that was pretty new.

Carlton Reid 7:28
Was it 2015 when it was finished?

Stefano Corbella 7:30
Yes, pretty much.

Carlton Reid 7:32
And then no well now what so we won’t be hearing the the car noise any more because it’s it’s as you say six metres below us. Yeah. So come into a very modern Deluxe office complexes are parked over that way but this is still a very vibrant space Yes 6pm at night.

But tell me what this was before before that obviously the road is here. But now what is this whole area what was it?

Stefano Corbella 8:02
It was a former railway yard. It was used in the beginning of the 19th century, then the train line was pushed back a little better. And but the area was left there for decades now with the abandoned railway with the you know nothing. They’re only you know, ground polluted by you know, the things that happen in in a railway and in the municipality of Milan and other developers try to develop the area for decades until a back in 2004, 2005 COIMA with the joint venture of investor started the development of Porta Nuova and with the with the entire site in one go, no and that was pretty amazing because finally, the project succeeded. We have been lucky that different mayor of Milan that pass through the time that we build everything

promoted the site promoted the development so we have been able to complete the project in fairly good time and at the end that we completed.

Carlton Reid 9:21
So your colleague Kelly in one of her talks of the day was talking about how when Isola when that was like reconnected yeah so you could you could then walk across from Yeah, in fact the park to go across you no longer had to go across the railway line or the busy road. That was a very joyous.

Stefano Corbella 9:39
Absolutely. Isola in the Italian word and in English is highlands and highlands because was surrounded by the former railway yard. And in order to get there from the city centre was a kind of a journey because you have to go through the railway. You have to

a tunnel within the train. So it was not an easy travel despite the distance from each other and Brera it few 100 metres but was completely blocked by the former railway yard. So when we open up the Piazza Gae Aulenti, and we have been able to connect it through that passage was was a kind of

joy moment for the residents of Isola.

Carlton Reid 10:32
And the bike infrastructure, the bike paths that are there now, were they planned originally or was this a later addition?

Stefano Corbella 10:39
No, no, it was all planned was all planned all the pathway. The design of the landscape was planned since the beginning. We build up in in phases, but there was a part of the plan that works, actually, after the project in the city of Milan also increased the connection further, because they

they find out that that was a good connection through Isola and the city centre.

Carlton Reid 11:11
So do you monitor as a developer do you monitor how many people are arriving by car, how many people arriving by metra, because we are surrounded by public transport here.

Stefano Corbella 11:22
Yeah, yeah.

Carlton Reid 11:23
And how people many by bicycle? Foot?

Stefano Corbella 11:25
Yeah, we we have a close monitoring of the pedestrian footfall, which has now reached more than 10 million people here in the Piazza Gae Aulenti. We are working to increase that footfall to 15 millions in the next few years by

addressing the cultural events here, the leisure

people enjoy to live in Porta Nuova and better it is because make the site more attractive and more livable and so on.

Carlton Reid 12:09
Now, COIMA is also involved in a Porto Ramona.

Ramona?

Stefano Corbella 12:17
Porta Romana.

Porta Romana

Carlton Reid 12:20
At least one of those is correct.

Which is going to be the site of in 2026, the Winter Olympic Village.

Stefano Corbella 12:30
Yeah.

Carlton Reid 12:31
That has obviously the the student accommodation on top. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s that’s kind of your part of the development. But underneath, there’s an awful lot of car parking space, which in today’s presentation was was very much you know, this is a very boring bit, we’re not going to talk about this very much we’re going to what the surface stuff, but then there’s an awful lot of space underneath — is it half? — is car parking.

Stefano Corbella 13:02
Exacty.

Carlton Reid 13:03
So, is that

And I kinda know the answer to this is that the municipality having a parking code. So, if you have a development you need x number of car parking spaces?

Stefano Corbella 13:16
Yeah, there is a national law which obliges new developments with certain end with a certain typology of building use to provide for parking space and that is a mandatory requirement.

Carlton Reid 13:31
So, there is no way you can avoid that?

Stefano Corbella 13:35
There are only few places where you can not apply that law and is in within historic centre like Rome, because obviously, there is no physical space to create or you know, technical difficulties to create any basement in such a historic centres. But for other for other parts of typically, all the development has to provide that amount of capacity even though in some cases, we as a developer, we know that we will probably not need such amount of parking.

Carlton Reid 14:12
This is student housing …

Stefano Corbella 14:13
Exactly

Carlton Reid 14:14
… you’re building and students famously probably do not have their own cars so you will not need all that space.

Stefano Corbella 14:20
What we have done, what we are doing, is that the first level of parking, we design and we will build with a slightly higher floor to ceiling height.

with in order to build up some flexibility to repurpose that area in the future if we will be able to change the use of that.

Carlton Reid 14:42
Do you think it will be used as parking during the Olympics for the month but you haven’t yet but then maybe afterwards is you so no, no, I’m gonna say look forward and do so far with this law?

Stefano Corbella 14:53
That is going to be a kappa there’s no way we can change. One day if this law

will be no, no longer applicable. And because the car parking we expect that will be used less and less, especially in well connected cities, we will have a lot of space that is unfit. No? And so the idea is let’s build a floor that would be able to accommodate other function. So to use the space, otherwise, we will have an empty space for nothing.

Carlton Reid 15:25
Yes. So many cities or many countries around the world are removing those or trying to remove those parking minimums, because this …

Stefano Corbella 15:34
France, London

if you’re closer to public transportation, you have a derogation on that.

Carlton Reid 15:41
So, do politicians in Italy recognise that other countries are removing the parking minimums be no matter what other countries are doing we should remove parking minimums because from a sustainability point of view, parking minimums now kind of crazy.

Stefano Corbella 15:57
Yeah, I don’t know.

I certainly hopw that with this will be taken into consideration by future legislation, because I think in some places make totally sense not to push for that amount of parking, because sometimes we believe is not needed. So it’s a waste of money. It’s

an impact on on the environment, because you build more space for for things, but we will see. Hopefully, they will at some point will be taken into consideration.

Carlton Reid 16:35
And going back to this development here. Again, something that I think it was Kelly, who mentioned this was that in the in the original master plan, the there was much more of the roads that are around here. were much, much worse, supposed to be much narrower. Yeah. cobbles, maybe. And it was the municipality who said no, leave it as a highway now. So do developers, such as yourselves? Try and do things and municipalities, for whatever reasons, push back? Are developers actually, further ahead of what we need in this world?

Stefano Corbella 17:21
Sometimes, yes. But it is as as you know, it’s it’s a negotiation, you know, we may not see something that the municipality see or they have in the plan, what we can do is to try to demonstrate our, you know, thesis with calculation, we are the, and we always have

all the all the things works, and we don’t want to necessarily narrow streets, because they look pretty, we want the street that works for the purpose of the function that have to do. So we have transport consultant. And if we believe that

street could be smaller is because there’s there’s a calculation that demonstrate a simulation that demonstrate that, but you know, is a negotiation with the municipality, and sometimes we win the discussion. Sometimes we lose the discussion. At the end of the day, I think the project is, is is is beautiful is a nice place. People love it.

Carlton Reid 18:37
So are he roads that are out, basically are outside of your development. So the exterior one, obviously the one that’s coming through here, you’re above it, you’re not you’re not interacting with it below, but the ones outside. So that’s the municipality who have put

the bike paths in? Or is there?

Stefano Corbella 18:58
No, no. As part of the in for this project, because it was so big. And in general for big, huge urban regeneration project.

There’s uban agreement between the developer and the public authority, and typically happens that the developer has to pay taxes for the building that they built, and for the urbanisation, and that is two way, you can pay by cash to the municipality or you can give back in equal value infrastructure works. So we take we we’ve been taking care about the design of everything, including the public spaces, all the infrastructure, and we built on behalf of the city. And then once we completed the ownership

was given back to the city so we did everything and we gave back to the city

Carlton Reid 20:00
Because outside when we’re when we’re very high up, and we’re looking down at everything you had some from from I’m a I’m a bike geek. Yeah. I kind of know the infrastructure that’s been built here. But there’s like a roundabout. Yeah. With it’s like Dutch style roundabout. Yeah, the priority to the cyclists go round it outside. And then at the junction where we started the UK, that’s that’s called a cyclops junction, where the red is for the pedestrians and the cyclists, it gets, you know, cyclists and pedestrians across these major, major junctions. So were they, you might have built them, did the municipality provide the designs for them?

Stefano Corbella 20:44
No, we did the also the design and we had to, you know, get their approval from the municipality. You know, everything has been designed and built by us. There are certain rules that we have to follow those design guidelines, specifically provided by the municipality, so we had to follow those guidelines. Once we completed the design, we gave back to the municipality for approval, we had to provide the bill of quantity than the cost because obviously, you have to match the equivalent of the taxes that you have to pay so and that has to be checked by a third party. And in order to match the equivalent amount of money that you have to give back through taxes. But the design is, is all by as, approved by the municipality.

Carlton Reid 21:36
At this point, let’s take a quick commercial interlude with my colleague, David.

David Bernstein 21:40
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 EFBE, 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 the loved ones 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 22:50
Thanks, David. And we’re back with COIMA’s Stefan Corbella as we continue our amble through BAM.

Rather than looking at this this particular project where we are now going just in general across maybe any number of projects that COIMA is involved now are going to be involved with

do you see the pedestrianisation that you have here and the bike paths? Do you see that as something that that’s only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger in the future?

Stefano Corbella 23:23
I totally agree. In fact in Porta Romana, we are actually doing the same exactly the same things. Porta Romana has two lines of train cutting in the middle of the master plan. We are rising the landscape to get across with the park get across the railway. And we are building up like a bridge the

the forester spacer the suspended forest in this case, that cover with a pedestrian path, all the two train lines. So in the landscape will be way better. The train will pass without any any interruption. And most important pedestrian and cycling paths will pass without any trouble and problem without crossing any cars.

Carlton Reid 24:19
And so in the London Olympics, and I’m many of the Olympics, I guess there were the roads because London’s a very congested city they had VIP Olympic lanes. So only a Olympic officials, athletes could drive in these lanes. Is that something that?

Stefano Corbella 24:39
Yeah,

Well, the, the I’m not sure. What I know is that within the Olympic village or the there are there will be a protection around it. And certain parts of the street will be restricted for security purposes. But I’m not I’m not

aware about the street that is being given the VIP path? That I don’t know.

Carlton Reid 25:06
Okay. And do you envisage athletes and people who are connected to the Olympics to use bikes to get around?

Stefano Corbella 25:15
I don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Carlton Reid 25:19
Because that isn’t part of the sustainability plan. No, we need X amount of people to be not in cars?

Stefano Corbella 25:26
No, there is no requirement. Although all the Olympic village and the building that we are built, building, there is quite a huge cycling storage for the future student because we will build the Olympic village but then the buildings will be converted straight afterwards into the student housing. And the idea is to make it very design and the properly the building in order to make these changes very quickly. Because the academic year starts in September. So we want to be sure that we have the students that can use the buildings straight after the Olympic

Olympic season.

Carlton Reid 26:14
And every chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Stefano Corbella 26:19
Yeah.

Carlton Reid 26:19
So as a developer, you may provide very, very good bike paths through Olympic village and through through here, etc. But then when people get outside of the perimeter there, then just the municipality, yeah, is what they provide. Now, do you lobby Do you ask the municipality look, if we’re going to build all these fantastic bike lanes here, can you please make sure that this extends to the Duomo, extends to here, extends to the station?

Stefano Corbella 26:52
Yeah, it’s, yeah, when we when, as I mentioned, we have traffic consultants in our projects. And obviously, we we check the continuity of the bike lane, and you know, not to build a bike lane that is 100 metre long and then start and stop in the middle of nothing. No, because that will be

will be okay, but a waste of money.

Carlton Reid 27:22
So I know this is Isola as an island. But yeah, so you’re not looking at a development as an island and you provide great stuff. You know that for the plan for it to work it has to be an area.

Stefano Corbella 27:35
Yeah, yeah. And to be honest, at the beginning, I remember that the beginning of the project.

to tell you on other things is the city of Milan has changed the the mindset, in bike lane, in green areas, and so on. I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the municipality or in general the city was sceptic about planting trees. Now the city of Milan has a plan to plant 3 million trees, now is completely change their mindset fortunately.

Carlton Reid 28:35
I was in a brand new cafe that opened this afternoon on Via Tunisia. Eroica.

So that’s a famous race in Italy. And this is the third cafe. And the manager who I was speaking to there, had had just been speaking to in fact, they left as as I came in, with the mayor

with about five or six people from the, from the municipality, yeah, talking to the manager and looking at this new cafe. Now, the managers said, and I know politicians will say anything, but the mayor said that they are very serious, very serious about getting rid of cars.

Stefano Corbella 29:21
Yeah, I know.

Carlton Reid 29:22
And is this something you’ve heard before?

No, no, no.

Stefano Corbella 29:40
it’s a much more pleasant city with less cars, way more pleasant. And

Carlton Reid 29:48
But is it feasible though?

Stefano Corbella 29:52
Yeah, yeah. I think I believe in certain in certain areas, with well connected public transportation

it should it could be feasible.

But, you know, we will see how we develop certainly is an improvement of quality of the city. That’s for sure.

Carlton Reid 30:11
I should do my research here. But how long is the mayor being the mayor for? How long has he got left? And if if a city mayor went to the city’s resident and said, I’m going to be taking lots of cars

out of the city, would that mayor be voted in again?

Stefano Corbella 30:31
He just started his second mandate? So he has other almost four full years. He’s just started the second mandate. So has a long way.

Carlton Reid 30:44
Would he be voted in again? And this is a hard question, but would he be voted in again if he had a plan to remove many cars? Is that something that you think Milan people would be?

Stefano Corbella 30:53
Well, that would be I think, Milan has several things. That will be one of the many. I’m not sure they will, these aspects will be key to

Carlton Reid 31:09
being voted in again?

Stefano Corbella 31:11
I think there are many other reasons. I think he’s done a very good job. And, you know, there’s four years to, in front of us.

Carlton Reid 31:21
So it’s a good sign that he’s he’s going into a bike cafe.

Stefano Corbella 31:24
Exactly. That’s definitely a good sign.

Thanks to Stefano Corbella and thanks to you for listening to Episode 317 of the Spokesmen podcast. Links to COIMA’ developments, including Bosco Verticale, can be found on the show notes at the-spokesmen.com. The next episode will be on the role of data in getting more people on bikes, but meanwhile have a Merry Christmas and here’s to a green and happy New Year and, as always, get out there and ride …