Today, two stories were displayed at the very bottom of the page (after cricket, mind you). The second was an irritating read about how the UCI is once again treating pro cyclists like they're seventeen-year-old rehab rejects; but the first story was a nice, feel-good blurb describing this rehabilitation program they've got going over in France where incarcerated men and women have the opportunity to train for and ride the Tour de France course (or something near thereto).
They get those cool white kits, nice bikes, and a police escort the whole way (2,300km, or 1,400mi)! I guess its still a raw deal since they have to stay grouped together and breakaways are, of course, not allowed.
I think its a good move by the french penal system to use cycling to reinforce health and social skills among people it needs to reintroduce into the world. According to the article, they were able to leave the penitentiary twice a week for real-world road training and spent much of the rest of their abundant free time on trainers they have available to them. That sounds quite a bit more exciting than any jail I've ever heard of or been witness to.
And in other news....
Copenhagen, in its usual style, began implementing a bike-theft prevention program by issuing RFID tags to bike owners in hopes that stolen bicycles would be recovered faster and thieves might be deterred somewhat. Here's a video of Copenhagen's City Hall Square filled with cyclists of all shades (though townie bikes seem to rule the day) lined up in typical Nordic fashion waiting to get their chip.
Få en lille chip på from Kristian Foldager on Vimeo.
The video is quick and promotional so I may be mislead here, but are those tags held on by zip ties? Mikael at Copenhagenize mentioned something about the chips being disguised as reflectors, but still, as a paranoid American, I'm not going to have much faith that something which can be removed with a commonplace tool or swift kick will prove a greater problem to the average bike theif than a ten pound kryptonite.
Even if they hid those tags in all sorts of different components, It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to assume the rate of bikes being stripped would rise greatly. Plus, they're similar to EZtags in that you have to be within a certain radius for it to be detected by a special transmitter, so only specially equipped police would be able to tell if a bike was stolen. I think the best route to take here is have a GPS locator device mechanically attached to the inside of the frame or handlebars. It could be programmed to GPS enabled phones so that you can see where your bike is at all times, or at least where the part its attached to is.
In NY a stolen bike is frequently as good as gone, thanks in part to the aggressive "fixter" scene here than breeds contempt and elicits poor behavior from the police...
No comments:
Post a Comment