Erstellt am: 18. 9. 2009 - 18:16 Uhr
Don’t Get Angry, Get Artistic.
While exhaust fumes help warm the earth, Austria, like many European countries, is gradually warming to the idea of eco-friendly bike culture.
Indeed it was reported this week that half a million bicycles have been sold in this country this year alone, and I've begun to find it increasingly hard to find a spare lamp post to chain my bike to (more bike-stands in Vienna please, Mr Häupl, I’m fed up of locking my beloved two-wheeled chariot to a dusty old bin!).
As our politicians speak earnestly of encouraging people to choose “greener transport options” a hotly anticipated “Radlergipfel” is on the horizon in Vienna this Autumn, in which experts and officials will broach ways to address the inherent vulnerability of cyclists in motorized traffic.
The City of Vienna, meanwhile, has announced that over the course of this year it is dedicating nearly 6 million euros to improving its bike infrastructure.
But more joyfully than all of that is the news that the wild and colourful International Bike Film Festival is back in town, firing off in style with an opening party at the Badeschiff last night: As a committed cyclist, it all makes me want to sing:
“Komm wir fahrn im Prater solang wir im Rücken Südwind ham. Der uns verweht wie Clark Gabel, mitsamt Drahtesel!”
OK, I admit it’s not exactly poetry worthy of Ginsberg (vielleicht doch?) - but I find it very evocative. The lyrics are from Linz-based rapper Skero and his track „Fuss vom Gas“ which has already become the unofficial anthem of the Vienna stop on the globe-trotting trail of the BFF.
Bike Film Festival
By the time the festival ends on Sunday, visitors to the Urania on the banks of the Donaukanal will have had the chance to go goggle-eyed with the 50 bike-themed films. Some are short, some are long and some are even animated. They highlight such eccentricities as riding a tall-bike down the length of Africa and even riding underwater with oxygen tanks. The festival promises to-“celebrate the bicycle in all forms and styles.” It's inclusive not exclusive.
And that is a Good Thing.
“Scheißradler”
That the diversity of bike culture needs a bit of a push was highlighted in jolly old Britain this week by a jowly celebrity chef from Yorkshire, James Martin. He, in the Daily Mail of all rags, dismissed cyclists as "city-boy ponces in fluorescent Spider-Man outfits, shades, bum bags and stupid cleated shoes". Furthermore, he confided in the Mail readers that he enjoyed running pedalers off the road in a sports car. "The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge” he wrote, “was the best thing I've ever seen in my rear-view mirror,"
Well I’ve heard his recipes, which rely primarily on large vats of butter, are disgusting anyway!
Luckily this is Austria, where people are slightly more civilised than in my often barbarous home country (bless it). But when the director of the Skero video, Nicholas Platzer cycled to our studio to chat about the festival on yesterday’s Morning Show, he turned up late and rather bemused after an altercation with a moped rider.. He says he had been called, not for the first time, a “Scheißradler”.
BFF
So why the hate? More cycling is obviously a win-win situation for any traffic-clogged, exhaust poisoned city, particularly with Austria shamefully behind its Kyoto Protocoll targets (only Luxembourg and Spain are doing worse in the EU Bloc). The development surely should be celebrated. It’s a no-brainer. And yet when reports about rising cyclist numbers crossed, journalists from Austria went out searching for stories of conflict “Nehmen sich Radfahrer zu viele Freiheiten heraus?” asked the Kurier in a reader poll. “Yes!” answered a large number of posters.
This negativity is admittedly partly the fault of the cyclists themselves, or at least it partly the fault of the aggressive minority of who replace common sense with a blind sense of rush. Intimidating pedestrians - the one group of road users who are more vulnerable than cyclists - doesn’t do much for your popularity levels. And it is important to stick to the rules of the road. Cycle lobbies are pushing for more rights to use one-way streets in both directions, but special rights clearly come with the obligation to use them responsibly.
Anti-Cyclist Vitriol
But even taking the sins of that minority into account (and it surely is a minority), the vitriol against cyclists who in recent media columns is inexplicable on logical terms. They have been accused of such heinous crimes as “herbal tea-drinking” (nothing wrong with tea! Anm d.Red) or “whirring their angry little bells”. Or even, in the words of London Times columnist Matthew Parry wearing “vile materials” that "poison entire provinces of China.” And that is in the main articles, not the internet forum postings!
(I'd like to point out to Parry and his knife-tongued friends, by the way, that the Nazis despised cyclists, declaring they pedal-power had no place on German roads and banning cycling groups in 1936 - but I suppose the argument is flawed since the Nazis hated everyone.)
Brendt Barbur
It’s this sense of distrust or even dislike that the festival aims to challenge. The concept was originally created in 2001 by Brendt Barbur after he was hit by a bus while riding his bike who New York City. His took his revenge on traffic by creating a forum to celebrate the bicycle and change public perceptions of cycling. I like that idea: don’t get angry, get artistic.
“The must-have element of modern civil disobedience.”
Get artistic and, of course, get organized. As cyclists have increasingly tried to redefine the way we share the urban environment, the British Guardian recently dubbed the push-bike as “the must-have element of modern civil disobedience.”. The films on show at the Urania celebrate that guerrilla-culture and the festival in Vienna will be accompanied by a ride, tonight, by Critical Mass, the urban environment pressure group that is colourfully pushing for more space for cyclists on city streets by demonstratively riding in a big peleton around the city. When you are alone on your bike, you are all easy to ignore or shove unthinkingly into the kerb. Safety in numbers is more than just a cliché - statistics around the world show than the higher the concentration of cyclists the lower the accident rate per kilometre cycled.
Anyway - back to the festival: its organiser Alec Hager of Fahrrad IG says the festival is primarily about having fun. And if you are feeling too square-eyed from the abundance of films showing at the Urania, you can always free-wheel down to the Strandbar Herrmann where you watch such entertaining silliness as Tall Bike Jousting and BMX bunny-hop competitions. There you'll find out, if you didn't realise it before, that there is more to the diverse world of bike culture than jelly-pants and products to boost your blood-sugar.
Niemand Kann Fliegen (apart from R.Kelly)
Perhaps, the rush hour-vexed Justice Minister Claudia Bandion-Ortner should have a look what's going on down at the Urania this weekend. She filled our Sommerloch delightfully with her office's clumsy plans to get an exemption permit for her to be driven down the bus lane. Now, I read in the Kurier, she says the logical consequence is that she'll simply just have to be late to work when the city traffic is busy. "Ich kann ja nicht fliegen." she points out, accurately. But - like the British Conservative leader David Cameron, for example - surely she could ride a bike to work? It's not such an absurd concept, is it? Really?