Today's delivery run by bike. All the parcels that I send begin their journey by bike, and are taken for a short journey on the cycling infrastructure which exists between my home and the post office.
In this example there's a single direction cycle-path which becomes bidirectional at the junction just ahead of my bike. The reason why this happens is to allow visitors to the shops behind the hedge on the right to make their journey without having to cross the road twice. Bidirectional cycle-paths substantially improve cyclist safety and convenience when they prevent road crossing in this way.
To the greatest extent possible I do my work by human power, but there are limits to how much I can control.
This morning I made a delivery to someone who lives in a village in Drenthe so that delivery was made 100% by human power as I rode there and back in my velomobile.
Parts ordered by people who live thousands of km away are a different story. I can then only control the first few km. So I go as far by bike as I can and then those parcels continue their journeys by commercial shipping companies.
I suspect this good result is mainly because there is no tracking on the website. i.e. no loading of components from nor setting of cookies for google or amazon or other big "we sell your information" companies. #dutchbikebits#carbonrating
Eternal wet weather due to climate change, fewer and fewer of us cycling, and ever more cars causing more climate change.
Is that how civilisation ends ?
This car park never used to be full. Now it rarely has any empty spaces and there are always cars parked haphazardly in places where they should not be.
Setting off with parcels today I stopped for a photo outside our home.
Our roof is the only one on the street on which you can still see some of the snow which fell yesterday. This is because we insulated everything in our home.
We also have the only house in the street from which the gas supply has been removed. Our heating now comes from an air-air heatpump.
Due to installing a lot of solar panels we have no energy bill.
There's no car parked on our driveway because we don't use motor vehicles, which also saves a great deal of money.
We have a low income and had to do everything on a budget. We had to save up for expensive jobs and spread everything out over years to get to the point that we're at now. But we live with a relatively small impact because of these measures. It's all described on my blog:
Photos from today's second parcel run, featuring typical everyday Dutch cycling infrastructure.
The first photo shows a bus-stop bypass, but the cycle-path is straight and reasonably wide (about 2.5 metres wide for single direction use) so this doesn't inconvenience cyclists.
The second photo shows a junction with a side road. We have priority and drivers have a place to stop at 90 degrees to the cyclepath and look both ways before they cross.
The second isn't perfect. Sight lines to the right are less than ideal, and drivers sadly cannot be relied upon to drive safely. But generally this infrastructure works well.
There's more about Dutch cycle-paths here, including lots of photos:
Top cycling tip: when your tyre is with enough that the puncture resistant layer becomes visible it's probably time to replace it.
Also, I should probably follow my own advice :-)
It lasted over 15000 km, with some fairly enthusiastic cornering (three wheelers can be hard on front tyres) and never punctured, as you'd expect from a Marathon.
Today's parcel run. I again had lots of odd shaped parcels so took them in a trailer.
And this time the photo is from the edge of Assen's city centre. The street from here on has restricted access. It's a pedestrian area where cycling is permitted, but we are supposed to look out for pedestrians.
No cars.
Deliveries to shops can be only made in the morning.
This afternoon's delivery run. I had a couple of odd shaped parcels so I took a trailer.
Any bike becomes a cargo bike if you pull a trailer.
The junction ahead gives cyclists priority, as you'd expect at a side road in the Netherlands. In the second photo you can see drivers heading in both directions yielding to cyclists.
Note that the cycle path curves away from the road to allow a whole car length between the main road and the cycle path as this enables safe crossing at 90 degrees with good sightlines, and it gives the drivers somewhere to wait. https://www.dutchbikebits.com #bicycle#biketrailer#BikeTooter#dutchbikebits