Critical Mass

Katie riding her cousin Georg's "TallBike"

While we were in Frankfurt we stayed with Georg and Katrine, and met their wee son Jonah. Georg is a passionate urban cyclist and has established the Frankfurt branch of "Critical Mass". Every 4th Sunday about 70 cyclists meet and ride in a large bunch through the city, effectively "re-taking" the road from the cars. The idea is to promote the use of cycles as eco-friendly transport, as well as forcing car-drivers to recognise bicycles as traffic (if you ride in cities you will know how dangerous it can be) Apparently the more cycles used in a city, the lower the bike-vs-car accident rate becomes!

Georg welded up the TallBike (above) for a bit of novelty effect - it certainly is a traffic-stopper! We rode it thru the park on a Sunday, and it was great fun to see people doing double-takes, and kids laughing and pointing etc. Getting on and off the bike was a little exciting thou!

There are Critical Mass rides in all of the major cities in NZ - get on ya bike!