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Now listening to The Bike Show podcasts. via velorution: … and a party.

This BBC NEWS | Wales | South West Wales | Car ban 'may breach human rights' is surely crazy.

The idea that having 24 hour access to roads by car is a human right seems absurd. I hope the council is willing to challenge that assertion.

Note that does not mean that the plans are ok, it simply means that calling this a human rights issue is wrong.

Pedallingmythoughts has been trying out bikes for to allow family cycling to include his eldest son who has cerebal palsy.

He went to London recumbents (which is where I bought my Challenge Fujin) and seems to have fallen in love with the Hase Pino Tour (see Pedallingmythoughts: London Recumbents and the Hase Pino Tour).

We have seen a number of these on the Bike Culture Weeks we have been on, plus a few around about.

They seem to be to be an excellent choice. They are manouverable, give the stoker a much better view (and comfy seat), they make talking easy, they can have a superb stand making it easy to help the stoker onto the seat. The handlebars look weird but work well. They also work well when you need to ride them solo.

I would like to go to the Cycle 2006 Exhibition, not sure though how much there is for weird cyclists like
me who prefer recumbents and trikes.

See the exhibition web site although not a huge amount of detail there yet.

We recently bought a TomTom Mobile 5 Sat Nav. Here are some thoughts:

We first tried my brother's TomTom 700 and liked it, but we wanted to be able to use it for cycle touring and the size and battery consumption ruled that out.

Then we discovered there is a version for Nokia mobile phones. It is also cheaper. It includes a small separate GPS unit that it communicates with via bluetooth.

In the car we have the phone, a Nokia 6680, on one of the simple vent clipon mountings. The GPS unit just goes on the dash under the windscreen. With a cigarette lighter dobling socket we can charge both at the same time.

In use in the car we have found that it works better for us than the full size model. In our Citroen C8 the windscreen is so far away that fitting, touching and viewing the TomTom 700 is tricky. Being closer the smaller display is still fine and anyway when driving the voice directions are all you need.

We have both used it when we have been driving alone and we have also used it with the whole family. We have used it mostly for journys to places we have never been before. We have not taken a single wrong turning on those journeys. Today we found a new bypass which was not in the map, but it was so obvious that it was not a problem.

We have not yet tried it on the bikes as we have not been out far since getting it. We have got a portable Silva solar charger to use on them as TomTom tends to use the phone battery pretty quickly (combination of Bluetooth, screen and loudspeaker I guess). We expect to mount it for the stoker to operate on the Trice X2 tandem by mounting it on the back of the captains seat which means it will be easy for the captain to hear.

Conclusion.

More fiddly to setup than a dedicated unit. But much smaller and cheaper so suitable where portability and flexibility are an issue. Also a lot more secure as you don't have to worry about leaving it in the car - it fits in your pocket. It does not replace paper maps for deciding where to go eg for a day out, but it gets you there and back very easily.

We did not find out about Christiania trikes until it was too late for us - the kids had got too big. If you have small kids or are expect to have them then a Christiania Trike is a fantastic way of getting them around. So this (The Christiania Mum) invitation from Velorution might be just what you need.

The Christiania tricycle has transformed urban family transport in Copenhagen. Thousands of families use it daily to transport children to school and to take their shopping home. And now more and more Londoners are finding out that they can accomplish many daily tasks much faster, more economically and in a more pleasant way with the Christiania tricycle.

Annie Lerche and Lars Engstrom, the wife and husband team who for the past 30 years have managed Christiania Bikes, will soon be coming to London and we would like to invite you to meet them as well as many of the parents who use the Christiania tricycle. There will be also be a short presentation by Simon Bishop, School Travel Plan Officer for Camden Council.

When and where: Monday 5th June, between 12:30 and 14:30 at our shop (18 Great Titchfield St. London W1W 8BD)