Like mother, like daughter

This week, our friend Rachel brought over some toys that her daughter had outgrown, including a carrying rack for a kid's bike. Sequoia loves it. Part of being like her Mom is packing your little ones around when you're going to work and running errands.

Breaking out the Bikes

The weather's been brilliant this week -- the first real spring weather this season. But it was a long, long time in the coming. Hungary had more precipitation in the first quarter of 2013 than it's had since 1911. The last snow fell just a couple weeks ago. So when the sun came out this week, people started biking like they might not get another chance. And who knows if they will? We've  had summers in recent years that never really materialised.

Anyway, this was the scene Thursday morning on the Buda korzó bike path on the north side of the Margit híd tunnel.  The first bike jams of 2013.

Could be a stutter start for spring, though. The forecast's calling for rain -- which will be less than optimal for the Critical Mass on Saturday. However, the predicted high temperature, 21 C, will be balmy compared to what Budapest had until a week ago. So the prognosis is still good.

Cycling Entering Mainstream

If you're quick, you can still get a copy of the current copy of HVG (http://hvg.hu/default.aspx) with a 17-page special section on Hungary's bicycling phenomenon. The section leads off with some antedotes about a couple Budapest enthusiasts who put on crazy numbers of kilometers on their bikes week-in and week out, and then mentions the Critical Mass successes (60-80,000 riders last spring, the article recalls) and the frequent weekend traffic jams of cyclists entering and leaving Margit Sziget.

The section includes an article on the domestic bicycle manufacturing market, the annual bike race around the Balaton, and -- one of my favorite topics -- the example of Paris's cycling "Velorution." The focus of this last is on Velib, the massive bike-sharing scheme of Paris. I've written lots about Paris as a good example for Budapest in terms of cycling development. Check my master's thesis (http://www.greenmedia.hu/gspencer/) or an article in Hungarian that had a more narrow focus on Paris (http://epiteszforum.hu/node/9672.

I don't think there's much information in the article that hasn't already been widely circulated through Hungary's cycling blogosphere, but the fact that the subject merited such extensive treatment in Hungary's most prestigious news weekly (HVG is often said to be Hungary's version of the Economist) is just one more sign that cycling is becoming a popular movement. Now if we can get Budapest City Hall to give it the support that it deserves.