Raphaël Krafft is a radio journalist working for the French national broadcaster who for the past ten years has been finding his stories by bicycle. Krafft’s two wheeled reportage has taken him around Latin America, the Middle East, the French West Indies and on several occasions his own country, which he has toured during presidential election years, to find out what France really thinks.
Kieron Yates visited Raphaël Krafft in Paris for this extended profile, which features audio material from his radio broadcasts.
You can follow Raphaël and Alexis on their current trip La Campagne à Vélo.
All the programme-makers on Resonance FM, and all the studio engineers, give our time for free.
There are just three and a half paid employees at the station. Three and a half. There are probably more people employed to make tea for You and Yours.
Resonance FM’s staff keep the station running and the studio up to scratch, they they make sure the antenna safely on top of a tall building near London Bridge, run special events and outside broadcasts and commission new shows and secure the charitable foundation and Arts Council funding that provides the bulk of the station’s income. As well as a very modest staff bill, Resonance has to pay rent on its small premises, pay various broadcast license fees and keep all the studio equipment working.
The station’s fundraising target is £30,000 by the end of this fundraising week. There’s an Auction going on over here.
If everyone who regularly listens to The Bike Show by podcast gave just £3, that would meet half the fundraising target for the whole station.
You can just donate using the Paypal box to the left. Or even more simply, send a text message.
Text RZFM14 followed by the pound sign and either 5 or 10 (or more if you’re feeling generous) and send the text to the following number: 70070. That’s seven zero zero seven zero.
Andrew Sykes tells of his six week summer journey from his home in Reading in Berkshire to Puglia, on the southern tip of Italy, along the Eurovelo 5 long-distance cycle route. He reads from Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie, the book he’s written about the trip. Andrew will be appearing at Blue Door Bicycles this Wednesday 15 February at 8pm for a book reading and discussion.
Jen and Jack talk about the terror of the Waterloo bridge roundabout and the Mayor’s plans to remake it (again). Finally, a tribute to Henry Warwick, a veteran London bicycle messenger who was killed in a crash with a coach while working earlier this month.
Or just donate right now. The first 20 donations in excess of £10 (UK), €15 (Europe) and $20 (rest of the world) will get a Bike Show screen print by Richard Mitchelson.
In the studio with Stephen Taylor and Katherine Hibbert of Londoners On Bikes: a new group of London cyclists who want to put cycling front and centre in the London Mayoral elections this May.
We hear from Allister Carey, father of Ellie Carey, the 22 year old woman who was the 16th person to be killed while riding a bike on the streets of London last year. Allister talks about his family’s loss.
Jen Kerrison reports from the latest Bikes Alive protest – spiky or fluffy?
For more on how you can help make the Elephant & Castle a better place for cyclists, check this out. Please send your letter as soon as possible.
Earlier this month, Graeme Obree was at Look Mum No Hands! for the London launch of The Obree Way, a training manual for cyclists.
Obree is a two time individual pursuit world champion, has twice broken the world hour record and is multiple winner of British national time trial championships. He is renowned not just for his athletic prowess but for his technical innovation on the bike and with the bike itself. His autobiography, The Flying Scotsman, was made into a major feature film. At 45 he is still on the bike and currently planning an attempt on the world land speed record for a human powered vehicle.
In a wide ranging conversation with Jack Thurston, presenter of The Bike Show, Obree talks about his own life as an elite athlete, his approach to training and his enduring love of just riding a bike.
“It’s a sport, it’s a pastime and it’s a form of transport. You don’t football down to the shops.”
Graeme Obree, 19 January 2012.
Channel 4 produced an excellent documentary about the rivalry between Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman. It’s on YouTube in four parts.
In the late 19th century, people looked with alarm at the new ‘horseless carriages’ that were appearing on the public highways. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic responded by passing ‘red flag laws’ to regulate this new and potentially dangerous form of transport.
In the UK, the Locomotive Act of 1865 required motor vehicles (mostly steam engines at that time) to be led by a pedestrian, waving a red flag or carrying a lantern, to warn bystanders of the vehicle’s approach.
According to Wikipedia Quaker legislators in Pennsylvania unanimously passed a bill through both houses of the state legislature, which would require drivers of “horseless carriages”, upon chance encounters with cattle or livestock to
(1) immediately stop the vehicle,
(2) “immediately and as rapidly as possible… disassemble the automobile,” and
(3) “conceal the various components out of sight, behind nearby bushes” until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified.
The bill was vetoed by Pennsylvania’s governor.
With the coming of the internal combustion engine, steam gave way to petrol-power and a new breed of ‘automobiles’ took to the roads. The UK Parliament repealed the red flag law in 1896 and raised the speed limit from 4 mph on country roads (2 mph in towns) to 14 mph. Motorists celebrated with an ‘emancipation run’ from London to Brighton, an event that is still commemorated in by a vintage car rally.
More than a century later and in the town of Kirkland, Washington, it is pedestrians who are encouraged to carry yellow warning flags when crossing the road.
Sergeant Mike Murray of the Kirkland Police Department is in no mistake about who’s to blame when a car runs down a pedestrian in his town:
“we had 62 car-pedestrian collisions in the city and of those 62, none of them were carrying a flag”
Progress, eh?
But don’t be downhearted. The fightback is underway. And it’s deliciously subversive:
via iTunes
via email
