I was at Eurobike last week. This is the 13-hall mega show that dwarfs all others in the world of bicycles. As I was working on the Eurobike Show Daily, the officially-sanctioned English-language magazine, I wasn’t able to focus on much apart from my allotted news stories but, thanks to an iPhone 4, iMovie phone editor, and a wifi connection, I was able to post three rough and ready videos from the show.
When they go online, I’ll post the show dailies here but in the meantime here are the three vids (be warned, the Knog one is rather rude in places):
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Axa, the car insurance company, doesn’t just have an iPhone app that stores insurance details and proffers crash info, it has commissioned a whole bunch of videos to promote its ‘Respect on the Road’campaign.
As well as a video showing typical ‘road rage’ language and behaviour acted out by tots, there’s a whole series featuring a cab driver. Yes, that paragon of road safety, a cab driver. Funnily enough, he hates speed bumps.
The AXA Respect On The Road campaign has a growing number of ‘Cab Cam’ videos featuring a taxi driver eliciting views from his passengers. At least two of the videos feature views about cyclists.
This is a sponsored post: clearly Axa wants its campaign to spread virally, including on blogs aimed at cyclists.
AXA said its campaign is to…
“…try and bring courtesy and respect back to British roads. All too often inexperienced drivers give themselves away behind the wheel of a car; they lose their manners and sometimes their marbles too. Respect on the road is an issue people genuinely care about; with your help AXA want to highlight the state of disrespectful and sometimes dangerous driving practices in the UK through debate and discussion which will be largely hosted on Facebook.”
UPDATE: Following this posting - and coverage on blogs, news sites and forums - I was inundated with pre-orders for the iPayRoadTax.com jersey. It will now be produced in partnership with Foska.com, story here.
Alongside the ‘all cyclists blow through red lights’* canard from motorists there’s the classic ‘we pay road tax, cyclists don’t.’ This is an objection voiced the world over. This morning on Twitter, Nick Bertrand said:
“I pay road tax/VED for the car I rarely drive. Should I wear a copy of the tax disk on my jersey?”
I replied, telling him that’s a great idea, and others agreed. I then went on a bike ride. On the road to Dunston - Damascus being too far for a hill-climb quickie – I had a light-bulb moment: jerseys with tax discs printed on them.
And arm-warmers, so cyclists thrown the ‘we pay road tax’ argument can counter by simply pointing to an upper-arm. It’s sure easier than getting a tattoo.
When I got back from the ride I registered iPayRoadTax.com and iPayRoadTax.co.uk. I commissioned Luke Scheybeler to produce the fake tax disc above. This will be used on the jerseys and arm-warmers. For product updates, follow iPayRoadTax on Twitter.
The fonts and colours for the jersey and arm-warmers aren’t set in stone. Others on Twitter suggested headset spacers and topcaps, too. Oy, could do loads of things. Like mugs, badges, t-shirts? Or how about, ahem, a tax-disc holder for your car, emblazoned with bicycle symbols?
When I twittered the fact I’d registered a domain-name and who would like some arm-warmers and jerseys, the response from Twitterdom was immediate. Within seconds I got firm orders. Really. Seconds. Amazing. From inspiration to product idea to mock-up to orders within minutes. Who says Twitter is a waste of time and thence money? I may have just created a micro-business thanks to picking up on a 140-character message (or I may be wasting my time and money).
If you’d like to express interest in items from the forthcoming I Pay Road Tax collection, have a look at this.
* Just cyclists blow through red lights, huh? Two wrongs don’t make a right but there are plenty of online examples of motorists doing things they shouldn’t. Here’s four drivers in one go busting through a red light in Manchester:
NB Road tax was abolished in the UK in 1936. Since then we have paid ‘Vehicle Excise Duty’ and, as every fule knows (except the majority of motorists, it seems), this does not pay for the upkeep of roads. This comes out of general taxation. Cyclists are tax-payers…And, of course, the majority of adult cyclists also own cars so pay VED, too. It’s just that many cyclists prefer not to use their cars for every blummin’ short journey.
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I produced this bike security video for Northumbria Police. Newcastle students get their bikes nicked hand over fist. And walking around the campus, it’s clear to see why: many of the bikes are poorly locked with weak locks, easy prey to scallies with bolt croppers and bottle jacks.
Naturally, many of the locks could be breached with pliers never mind meaty bolt croppers.
Despite the credit crunch, the corporate Christmas card is alive and well. I got two from Japan today. Both from Shimano.
There’s a pop-up with two roadies from Shimano chairmen Yoshizo and Ikuko Shimano, or there’s a product placement card from Yozo Shimano.
In the fullness of time I’ll upload images of all the corporate Christmas cards I get and we can all vote on the cheeriest and the cheesiest, but for now, here’s a vote on which of the two Shimano cards you prefer. Neither were signed, both came with the same database-driven address labels. (Sorry, there’s no answers 4 or 5, it’s my first time with Polldaddy and I screwed up).
Over on BikeBiz.com I’ve campaigned against unsigned corporate Christmas cards since 1999. I like personalised ones - even if the image is trying to sell me stuff - but database cards aren’t terribly clever.
To its credit, Shimano Europe took my bah humbug complaints to heart and, in 2000, cancelled its Christmas card budget. The money - many thousands of Euros - was funnelled into good causes instead. Cycling ones, of course. And, along with two other European cycle trade mag editors, I was a judge in how this cash got spent. It always went on youth cycling projects.
Commentators such as Chris Brogan aren’t big fans of corporate ‘holiday cards’. He blogs about alternative ways of showing care.
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Earlier this year, Transport for London ripped off a video awareness production of Dr Daniel Simons and had an enormous success with it. The ‘basketball video’ has had 4,980,000+ views on YouTube.
TfL has now produced a new set of videos. They will also go viral and may make motorists think twice about their duty of care on the road. It’s just such a shame the agency which produced the videos for TfL won’t credit the originators of the earlier inattentional blindness videos.
Cyclists are often on the receiving end of such blindness, so much so there’s an acronym for it: SMIDSY (’Sorry, mate I didn’t see you’).
Do The Test:
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Now, if only the producers of this new BBC comedy sketch show had used a Mac instead of a PC this attack could have been a metaphor for what Mobile Me has been doing to users…
Upset at outages? Me.com?
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Wow, I had no idea so many of you were on Macs and wanted to auto-sync between iCal and Google calendar. The other day I posted about Spanning Sync, the nifty little app that works like a dream.
To promote its superiority over Google’s CalDAV, Spanning Sync is promoting itself with a win-win discount offer. After a 15-day free trial period, Spanning Sync usually costs $25 a year, but you can save $5 by using my discount code if you decide to buy it: WRBTS8
Sixteen of you have so far used the discount code. I’ve made eighty bucks. I thought I was going to make a big fat zero but I like the app anyway so I thought I’d give it a go.
I use it to create a sync-able Bike Dates thingy on Google Calendar. All of the major bike events for 2008 are here. Click to subscribe to the dates, if you use Google calendar.
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For a couple of years now I’ve released a sync-able Bike Dates thingy on Google Calendar. All of the major bike events for 2008 are here. To update the list of dates I don’t use Google, I use Spanning Sync, a nifty little Mac app that works like a dream.
If you use iCal to sync your dates to Google Calendar, you might be aware that Google recently released CalDAV support for Google Calendar. I’ve been playing with it, and have found it wanting in many areas. It’s fiendishly difficult to set up and calendars synchronized using CalDAV become read-only on the iPhone.
To promote its superiority over CalDAV, Spanning Sync is promoting itself with a win-win discount offer. After a 15-day free trial period, Spanning Sync usually costs $25 a year, but you can save $5 by using my discount code if you decide to buy it: WRBTS8
If you use my code I’ll get a $5 referral fee from Spanning Sync. Once you’re a subscriber you’ll get a referral code of your own to use. It’s a pretty cool viral offer from a pretty cool little apps maker.
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Check out my latest vid. It was produced for Scicon bike bags of Italy and stars Quickrelease.tv commenter Karl McCracken of the Do The Right Thing blog. He’s now got a very nice bike porting device, useful for his tri-travelling.
See, if you comment on here you too could benefit from untold riches, perhaps sourced especially for you, from Nigeria.
PS
Karl really is that fast at packing a bike into a box, the film isn’t speeded up or anything…
