Cyclists from above, Utrecht The Netherlands. Source: NL Cycling

The winners of the two copies of Where to Ride provided by Bicycling Australia for the current competition are Sian Dart and Jane Lodge.

They answered the question – How many bicycles in the one household is just too bloody many?

They didn’t win because of their answers (as sensible as they are) but because the random number generator at random.org picked them out for the prizes.

If you’re looking for an answer to this challenging and important question, go the comments on the competition page. Sian reckons one per cyclist in the household plus a spare. Jane says she’s already got seven but it’s not enough!

Martin Mankowski responded by asking his own question: “how long is a piece of string”? Martin actually knows the answer – it’s at least 17 bicycles:

You need:

• A commuter for work
• 2 for road cycling (one training bike, 1 race bike)
• A touring bike for long distances
• A time trial bike for triathlons
• A mountain bike for any off road stuff
• A fixie for when you ride to any hipster areas to have a latte or cider
• A penny farthing for any novelty events
• A unicycle in case you join the circus
• A tandem bike to ride with your partner (whilst humming the obligatory ‘Pushbike Song’ by the mixtures!)
• A BMX so you can give your mates a ‘dink’
• An old bike with no chain you can leave in the front yard to rust and have the grass grow over
• A bike with spokie dokies and a flag pole you can ride to school for bike ed
• A $15,000 super light weight carbon bike you never ride cause you’re too scared you’ll crash it
• One of those push bikes with a little motor that have a top speed of walking pace, for when you cant be bothered pushing into that 60km/h head wind.
• The bike with the dodgy seat and slow leak tyre that you give to friends to ride when they stupidly come over without their bike.
• The bike that weighs a tonne and so you never use, but keep just because you like the colour!

I’m sure i’ve missed a few here. I’ll just go and check my garage…

Sian and Jane will each receive a copy of Where to Ride for the Australian city of their choice courtesy of the publisher, Cycling Australia.

I’d like to know how many bicycles the Dutch think is enough (see exhibit). I suspect they see them like most of us see cars – as an unexciting but necessary commodity to get you from A to B.

A lot of cyclists in Australia see it as something special – it’s racing, it’s exercise, it’s ‘cycle chic’, it’s advocacy, it’s identity – but it’s not often hum-drum transport.

We’re cycling enthusiasts. We’re a little bit analogous to, dare I say it, “rev heads”, aren’t we? (“cad heads”, “cad lads”?)

The Urbanist is giving away two copies of Where to Ride (in the city of your choice)

THIS COMPETITION IS CLOSED.

The Where to Ride series published by Bicycling Australia provides comprehensive guides to cycling paths and routes in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane (SEQ), Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart (Tasmania).

Information on how to enter is provided below. The winners can choose the book on the Australian city of their choice.

These are high quality books, selling at my LBS for $34.95. Here’s the publishers blurb on the Sydney version of the guide:

The 144 rides included in Where to Ride Sydney range from short rides, suitable for beginners or younger riders, to longer distances that demand a reasonable degree of fitness and skill. Each of the rides described is rated to give a guide as to what to expect. There is also a location map and directions to help navigate you through the ride.

Designed to be a useful resource, Where to Ride Sydney is much more than just a good read. With clear directions, stunning photography, GPS generated mapping, and interesting background information for each ride, Where to Ride Sydney sets a new standard for quality and presentation in cycling guide books.

The book uses a gloss paper stock, tough enough to cope with the rigours of sweaty hands and plenty of use out on the trail. Riders will appreciate the sturdy construction and convenient spiral binding of the book, this includes a fold out overview map of all 144 rides that doubles as a book marker with map legend, ride ratings and terrain guide. Riders can refer between the map they are using and reference information with ease.

Author Simon Hayes, who is also Editor of Bicycling Australia, brings a wealth of experience to Where to Ride Sydney. He has personally ridden hundreds of kilometres around Sydney to map the rides for the book. An exciting bonus is a chapter on kid’s rides, so everyone in the family can join in the fun of cycling!

Bicycle Australia also has guides to cycling routes in regional Victoria, as well as mountain biking routes in Sydney and Melbourne.

It publishes guides to cycling routes in overseas cities too, including London, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland and Washington DC.

To be in the running to win one of the two copies on offer, all you have to do is answer this simple question: How many bicycles in the one household is just too bloody many?

Post your answer in the Comments section below. Entries close midnight, Friday 10 May 2013. One entry per person and the books will only be posted within Australia.

The winners can choose which Australian cities they want. Books will be posted direct by Bicycle Australia.

As always, the quality of your nomination has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not you’ll win. The winner will be determined strictly at random.

There’s no correct answer – you just can’t be in the running unless you offer an answer of some sort.

Of course, a little explanation and even a modicum of wit would be appreciated, but isn’t necessary. If you can’t think of an answer, your entry will be valid if you put “too many is never enough” or “nil – everyone should walk”.

This competition is closed. The winners selected strictly by the random number generator at RANDOM.ORG are #31 Jeff Tyson,  Friends of Alieu, and #33 Charles Richardson, Scarlateen.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Now that the political drama over who will lead the Government is over and we, the Australian people, are back at centre stage where we should properly be, it’s time to get down to some serious policy action.

Social justice is an important part of that agenda, so I’m pleased to say that thanks to New South Books, I have two copies of Andrew Leigh‘s latest book, Disconnected, to give away.

Information on how to enter the giveaway is at the bottom of this post.

This is a book about declining social capital in Australia. Dr Leigh guides the reader through the reasons that our social fabric has begun to fray, and outlines steps to creating a better civic and personal life. According to the publisher’s blurb:

In this forensic examination of how we live, Andrew Leigh, one of our most exciting young thinkers, rips though Australian life and asks whether we are tightly-knit and looking out for each other, or are we all disconnected? Organisational membership records and surveys show that our society is shifting rapidly. These days, chances are you never quite get around to talking to your neighbours, or you’re always too busy to give blood.

Andrew Leigh holds a PhD from Harvard University where he worked closely with renowned social capital researcher and author of Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam. He was a Professor in the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University up until 2010, when he entered Federal Parliament as the member for Fraser (ACT), representing the ALP.

He says that while we were once a nation of joiners, now we’ve become increasingly disconnected from one another:

Organisational membership is down. We are less likely to attend church. Political parties and unions are bleeding members. Sporting participation and cultural attendance are down. Volunteering is most likely below its post-war peak, though it did record a rise in the late 1990s. We have fewer friends and are less connected with our neighbours than in the mid-1980s. Other measures have flatlined, but few have risen.

Here’s a review by Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald and here’s a column in the Financial Review by Dr Leigh summarising how raising social capital can not only be good for our society but also our economy. And here’s a review by Leanne Weymans published in M/C Review. She says the book would make interesting reading for anyone

who feels even a little disillusioned or overwhelmed by a world that increasingly involves a screen to communicate, entertain or interact with others……It confirms some of the sneaking suspicions I have about the world my children will grow up in, which is both frightening and fascinating. Disconnected also provides me with the awareness and tools on ways I can work at ‘reconnecting’ with my community and while I mourn the loss of ‘idyllic’ childhood, I wonder what the next generation will miss.

To be in the running to win one of the two copies on offer, all you have to do is nominate your favourite/preferred charity or Not-For-Profit, either in Australia or elsewhere. To enter, just make your nomination in the Comments section below. Entries close midday Saturday, March 10, midnight, Tuesday 13 March 2012. One entry per person and I can only post within Australia (NOTE of 9 March 2012: Crikey’s web site will be upgraded over the weekend of 10/11 March and will not accept comments, so I have extended the date for the comp to 13 March).

As always, the quality of your nomination has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not you’ll win. The winner will be determined at random. You just can’t be in the running unless you make a nomination. Of course, a little explanation would be appreciated, but isn’t necessary. If there’s no NFP that you’re prepared to endorse, nominating the Please Don’t Talk About Kevin Foundation is acceptable.

Win a copy of Jarrett Walker's new book

Here’s some great news, just in time for Christmas! I’m very pleased to announce I have two copies of Jarrett Walker’s much-anticipated new book, Human Transit, to give away at random to readers of The Melbourne Urbanist.

This is a very big deal. Many readers will know Jarrett as the “transit experts’ expert”, as well as through his internationally renowned blog, Human Transit. His new book, Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives, will be published later this month in Australia by NewSouth Books (ahead of the rest of the world, too).

The book aims to make transit choices clear to the interested general reader, including elected officials, advocates, and professionals in related fields. Here’s NewSouth’s blurb:

Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it’s often hard to channel that support into good transit investments. In Human Transit, Jarrett Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.

To be in the running to win, all you have to do is nominate your favourite rail station, tram stop or bus stop in Melbourne. Follow this link to enter, or go to the Pages menu in the sidebar (whatever you do, don’t enter here!). Entries close in two weeks at midday Saturday, 17^th December 2011. One entry per person and I can only post within Australia.

As always, the quality of your nomination has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not you’ll win. The winner will be determined at random. You just can’t be in the running unless you make a nomination. Of course, a little explanation would be appreciated.

You can get much more info on the book if you follow the link, including the entire introduction and a detailed Table of Contents. You can order an advance copy direct from NewSouth Books and get a 20% discount.

I’ll be reviewing Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives just as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.

Remember, follow this link to enter, or go to the Pages menu in the sidebar (but don’t enter on this page).

To be in the running to get one of the two copies of Black Glass, all you have to do is say which café, restaurant or bar in Melbourne you think has the most interesting ambience. Not so much food, more the design, setting and people who frequent it. Follow this link to enter, or go to the Pages menu in the sidebar (don’t enter on this page). Entries close in ten days at midday Thursday, 15 September 2011. One entry only per person. And the odds are much better than Crown!

As always, the quality of your nomination has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not you’ll win a copy of the book. The winner will be determined at random. However, explanation is encouraged. If you’re really at a loss and don’t care what the world thinks of you, “Pascoe Vale RSL Club” will do.

If you’re one of the winners, you’ll have to provide Scribe Publications with an Australian address they can post the book to (I won’t know who you are or where you live).

I probably live a sheltered life, but I must say I haven’t seen a ‘book trailer’ before (other than those execrable things on First Tuesday Book Club). There’s lots more info about the book at Scribe Publications and I’ve got more on the entry Page. But I think Chris Womersley sums it up well:

‘Black Glass is a superb debut novel. Meg Mundell has invented a compelling futuristic version of our urban world that is not only original but — like all great speculative fiction — frighteningly recognisable. In addition, she has populated it with a cast of charismatic characters, notably the resourceful sisters Tally and Grace — truly an endearing and heroic pair.’

Don’t enter here – follow this link.

Detail from cover of 'When we think about Melbourne'

Affirm Press has kindly supplied two copies of Jenny Sinclair’s beautiful book, When we think about Melbourne, to give away to readers of The Melbourne Urbanist.

To be in the running to get a copy, all you have to do is say which shopping/activity centre in Melbourne you think is the best. Follow this link to enter, or go to the Pages menu in the sidebar (don’t enter on this page). Entries close midday Saturday, 3 September 2011. One entry only per person.

As usual the quality of your nomination has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not you’ll win a copy of the book. The winner will be determined at random. However, a little explanation is encouraged. If you’re stuck, “the Bourke Street mall”, is acceptable.

If you’re one of the winners, you’ll have to provide Affirm Press with an Australian address they can post the book to (I won’t know who you are or where you live).

Here’s how Readings describes When we think about Melbourne:

Considering most Melburnians remain as steadfastly loyal to their city as they do their chosen AFL team, Jenny Sinclair is not alone in her love of Melbourne. When We Think About Melbourne charts the geography of Melbourne by exploring the historical and cultural significance of its landmarks and suburbs. Each section is accompanied with images and maps, which make for an interactive reading experience.

Sinclair’s interest lies in the way people make sense of their surroundings and come to call a particular area home. She does this through analysing the importance of maps, whether they are grand-scale drawings, something found on Google, or lines scrawled on notepaper. She also explores the potent effects of Melbourne on its artists – from Paul Kelly to Helen Garner – and how their works shape our own view of this ever-evolving city.

Here’re some images from this very visual book; here’s a review by Anson Cameron published in The Age; and here’s the author in conversation with John Faine (in company with Sonia Hartnett and Chopper Read!).

This extract from one of the chapters, City Stories, looks at how novelists have imagined Melbourne and here’s a small part of the rightly famous chapter on the Melway, a cartographic delight. Best of all though is this extract from a glowing review by The Melbourne Urbanist:

One of the observations made by Jenny Sinclair in When we think about Melbourne really strikes a chord with me – just how different the city is when you see it from the saddle of a bicycle. In this extract, she’s just cycled up the middle of St Georges Rd to Reservoir:

Perched on my bike on the track that runs through the park opposite these fine houses, I look down across Preston, Glenroy and to the city, and think: ‘it’s all downhill from here’. When I get home, I felt my sense of the world had expanded a little. Moments like this, of unexpected connection and revelation – I call them ‘surprised by joy’ moments after Wordsworth’s poem – come when we immerse ourselves, when we walk and ride; they are why we should get out of our cars for ourselves, not ‘just’ for the environment or for exercise

Cycling through the city is one of those pleasures that other less-fortunate souls haven’t experienced. Seeing the arse-end of factories from inner city bike trails, the undulating topography, the small exchanges of street life, or the great complexity and detail of inner suburban streetscapes that otherwise might seem regular and monotonous, is to be privy to a hidden world.

The author looks at how Melbourne has been approached by painters, musicians, novelists and film makers. She explores how television, the souvenir industry and the internet have interpreted the city and how indigenous and non-indigenous people see each other…….

The book opens with a spatial interpretation of Melbourne through the “lens” of the Melway refidex. Ms Sinclair frets that her book will only be known for this chapter but that’s probably inevitable. That’s because it’s innovative and creates wonderful behavioural and emotional “maps”:

You’re cycling down Canning Street, Carlton (Ref: 29 K12) towards the city, your earphones whisper the stories to you: this house was built with blood money, a murdering brother’s inheritance; the two genteel English sisters who lived in the terraces named ‘Irene’ and ‘Elaine’ were actually lovers, fooling the neighbours for forty years.

The use of maps as a device to interpret and decode is continued in the next chapter. It looks at Melbourne through historical maps, tourist guidebooks and even radical cartography, using the example of a tourist map issued in 1996 by the gay and lesbian community:

Where a government-issue map might show a coffee cup in Lygon street or a lion at the zoo, this one is packed with (iconic) stereotypes: pouting drag queens and moustached leather-boys prance across its pages……

DON’T ENTER HERE – FOLLOW THIS LINK.

All you have to do is tell me your favourite song that references or evokes Melbourne in some way and you’re in the running. To enter, just follow this link or go to Giveaways in the sidebar under the PAGES menu). Entries close midday, Thursday 25 August.

As usual, the quality of the song you choose doesn’t matter, because the winners will be chosen at random (if you’re stuck, Up There Cazaly will do). Still, it’s nice to show some taste and wit if possible. It would be wonderful to compile a comprehensive anthology of Melbourne-related songs from all eras.

If you’re one of the winners (and the odds are pretty good!), you’ll have to give the publisher, Black Inc., your address and they’ll post your bounty to you direct.

Here’s a summary of the book from the publisher:

In 1835 an illegal squatter camp was established on the banks of the Yarra River. In defiance of authorities in London and Sydney, Tasmanian speculators began sending men and sheep across Bass Strait – and so changed the shape of Australian history. Before the founding of Melbourne, British settlement on the mainland amounted to a few pinpoints on a map. Ten years later, it had become a sea of red.

In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, the key personalities of Melbourne’s early days, and the haunting questions raised by what happened when the land was opened up. He conjures up the Australian frontier – its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today.

Here’s a review by Mark Rubbo from Readings. Here’s an interview with James Boyce that appeared in the Herald Sun and another he did on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live.

And to whet your appetite, here from the author himself is a dozen things you may not have known about the founding of Melbourne:

1. Melbourne’s mother island was not Britain but the notorious penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land.
2. Melbourne was founded by unauthorised boat arrivals (or to use the contemporary term, ‘illegals’) who were breaking British law.
3. The founding fathers (sadly there were few founding mothers) of Melbourne were not the cashed up squatters but their former convict workers. Very few of the famous Port Phillip Association members who sent sheep and shepherds across the strait were permanently resident in the Port Phillip District during the first year.
4. The emancipist workers were experienced and environmentally attuned bushmen.
5. By the time Melbourne was founded other Europeans had already been living on what is now the Victorian coast for decades.
6. The site of Melbourne was a well-known Aboriginal gathering spot with its own bridge across the Yarra.
7. Melbourne’s environs were ecologically diverse containing extensive wetlands and vast grasslands.
8. The lowland grasslands contained an incredible number of plants and were as different from ‘improved’ pastures as a tree plantation is from an old growth forest.
9. In 1835 the first tents were pitched roughly where the Immigration Museum now stands.
10. The founding of Melbourne represented a direct challenge to the long established British Government policy of concentrating European Settlement within defined boundaries.
11. The eventual capitulation to the squatters and the opening up of Australia’s grasslands to private conquest led to one of the fastest expansions of Europeans in the history of the British Empire. Within a couple of years more land had been settled than in the fifty years before
12. It was thus the founding of Melbourne, not the settlement of Sydney that signalled the emergence of European control over Australia.

Courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia, I have two copies of the newly released book by Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City, to give away to readers.

This is not really a competition, it’s more of a giveaway. To enter, all you do is nominate your favourite Melbourne building, but the winners will be selected randomly.

Go to this page to enter or see PAGES menu in the side pane (don’t use this page to enter, although comments about the book are welcome here)

Edward Glaeser is a professor at Harvard and is the world’s “go to” man for research on cities. I’ve mentioned his work many times before on these pages (e.g. see here). This brief video shows him discussing Triumph of the City with The Daily Show’s John Stewart.

I read the US edition of Triumph of the City a few months ago and it’s a book worth reading and worth having. As the New York Times Reviewer wrote, you’ll “walk away dazzled by the greatness of cities and fascinated by this writer’s nimble mind”.

Here’s a “sample chapter” (it’s an adaptation but pretty close to what’s in the book) that Professor Glaeser published in the Atlantic:

IN THE BOOK of Genesis, the builders of Babel declared, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth.” These early developers correctly understood that cities could connect humanity. But God punished them for monumentalizing terrestrial, rather than celestial, glory. For more than 2,000 years, Western city builders took this story’s warning to heart, and the tallest structures they erected were typically church spires. In the late Middle Ages, the wool-making center of Bruges became one of the first places where a secular structure, a 354-foot belfry built to celebrate cloth-making, towered over nearby churches. But elsewhere another four or five centuries passed before secular structures surpassed religious ones. With its 281-foot spire, Trinity Church was the tallest building in New York City until 1890. Perhaps that year, when Trinity’s spire was eclipsed by a skyscraper built to house Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, should be seen as the true start of the irreligious 20th century. At almost the same time, Paris celebrated its growing wealth by erecting the 1,000-foot Eiffel Tower, which was 700 feet taller than the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.

Since that tower in Babel, height has been seen both as a symbol of power and as a way to provide more space on a fixed amount of land. The belfry of Trinity Church and Gustave Eiffel’s tower did not provide usable space. They were massive monuments to God and to French engineering, respectively. Pulitzer’s World Building was certainly a monument to Pulitzer, but it was also a relatively practical means of getting his growing news operation into a single building.

For centuries, ever taller buildings have made it possible to cram more and more people onto an acre of land. Yet until the 19th century, the move upward was a moderate evolution, in which two-story buildings were gradually replaced by four- and six-story buildings. Until the 19th century, heights were restricted by the cost of building and the limits on our desire to climb stairs. Church spires and belfry towers could pierce the heavens, but only because they were narrow and few people other than the occasional bell-ringer had to climb them. Tall buildings became possible in the 19th century, when American innovators solved the twin problems of safely moving people up and down and creating tall buildings without enormously thick lower walls.

Elisha Otis didn’t invent the elevator; Archimedes is believed to have built one 2,200 years ago. And Louis XV is said to have had a personal lift installed in Versailles so that he could visit his mistress. But before the elevator could become mass transit, it needed a good source of power, and it needed to be safe. Matthew Boulton and James Watt provided the early steam engines used to power industrial elevators, which were either pulled up by ropes or pushed up hydraulically. As engines improved, so did the speed and power of elevators that could haul coal out of mines or grain from boats.

But humans were still wary of traveling long distances upward in a machine that could easily break and send them hurtling downward. Otis, tinkering in a sawmill in Yonkers, took the danger out of vertical transit. He invented a safety brake and presented it in 1854 at New York’s Crystal Palace Exposition. He had himself hoisted on a platform, and then, dramatically, an axman severed the suspending rope. The platform dropped slightly, then came to a halt as the safety brake engaged.

The Otis elevator became a sensation. In the 1870s, it enabled pathbreaking structures, like Richard Morris Hunt’s Tribune Building in New York, to reach 10 stories. Across the Atlantic, London’s 269-foot St. Pancras Station was taller even than the Tribune Building. But the fortress-like appearance of St. Pancras hints at the building’s core problem. It lacks the critical cost-reducing ingredient of the modern skyscraper: a load-bearing steel skeleton. Traditional buildings, like St. Pancras or the Tribune Building, needed extremely strong lower walls to support their weight. The higher a building went, the thicker its lower walls had to be, and that made costs almost prohibitive, unless you were building a really narrow spire.

The load-bearing steel skeleton, which pretty much defines a skyscraper, applies the same engineering principles used in balloon-frame houses, which reduced the costs of building throughout rural 19th-century America. A balloon-frame house uses a light skeleton made of standardized boards to support its weight. The walls are essentially hung on the frame like a curtain. Skyscrapers also rest their weight on a skeleton frame, but in this case the frame is made of steel, which became increasingly affordable in the late 19th century

You can read the rest of the chapter at the Atlantic. Please don’t use the comments section below to enter — go to this page to enter or see PAGES menu in the side pane. Of course you can still make comments about Edward Glaeser and the chapter from his book here.