2024-09-11T14:32:09Z

Bike bloat. Unlike car bloat, it's a good thing. Bigger bikes with wide handlebars and child seats and shopping baskets and cargo trailers and people carriers. Safe, functional everyday transport. Better, quicker, nicer, quieter, healthier and more likely to make you smile and say ‘whee!’ going downhill than a car.

One downside: bike rack design is lagging behind. Bike park engineers still design racks with narrow spaces as if we’re all just sporting around for fun on slim racer bikes.

#Bike

An Aarhus mid-city street, shops and cafes on either side. Pedestrians and cyclists have priority ahead of cars and there’s a 15-kilometre speed limit. We see café tables on the narrow pavement and cyclists, pedestrians and people pushing prams on the road. In front of us, by the kerb on the road, a row of parked bikes. The nearest one is a fabulous, bright pink Bullitt cargo bike with a long front carrier. It’s about two and a half metres long.

By the harbour, near the library, a bike park in the rain, full of bikes too long and wide for the densely packed bike rack wheel slots. We see bikes with big wide baskets, child seats, pannier bags, wide handlebars, covered front trailers big enough for two adults or four children, cargo carriers.

Outside apartments, mid-city Aarhus. Close-up of bike racks. The wheel slots are too close together. They are fine for slim racing bikes. But too narrow for bikes like the ones we see lined up here with wide handlebars, child seats with side foot supports and big wide front baskets. Often, every second wheel slot is left empty and the overflow bikes just get left standing free-style until they blow over in wind.

Sep 11, 2024, 14:32 UTCda