Thursday, May 5, 2011

Things I like about Adelaide

Adelaide is a very pretty city. It has gorgeous buildings, beautiful gardens, and pandas in the zoo! It is also a lot more bike-friendly than Melbourne.



For one thing, it has free bike hire during the day, and as far as I'm aware they didn't have the issue of helmets being mandatory and yet not provided.

I also like that the city realised the folly of having bikes being unable to trip road sensors in order to change the lights, given that the sensors are in the middle of the road and the bikes need to keep to the far left, preferably in the bike lane. So, you'll see a lot of these:


It's the same as our pedestrian crossings, but for bikes! I think it's awesome.

I also liked a lot of the bikes I could see around the place, like these guys:


I especially like the one in the front, with the hand-made basket on the back and a couple of loaves of bread :-) It also has an interesting detail on one of the tubes:



I also love the autumn colours. It's seriously gorgeous. This is one from Hahndorf:



I also like seeing that people do things like this:






It's a lamp post. Wearing a jumper. You may ask "Why". I say "Why not"! :-) It also had a funky monster badge on it:


So yes, I rather liked Adelaide :-)

2 comments:

  1. Man, it's sad that you think Adelaide is more bike-friendly than Melbourne. If I want to ride into the city from my home, the bike lanes disappear the moment I reach North Adelaide. I can tell you from experience that it is not fun at all riding down O'Connell St in peak hour with no bike lane. It's fun once you get to Morphett Road, though, where all the cars are backed up, and you just scoot past them, the wind blowing in your hair and laughing at the silly people who have to wait at the lights for ages.

    I must say, though, having not really done much riding in Melbourne, that I never really thought about the bike buttons. I always assumed they were a kind of regular thing.

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  2. The knit thing is called yarnbombing! People do it all over. Putting it on bike racks is especially popular, and somewhat useful too, it keeps the rack from scratching your bike.

    If you think that's great though...if you ever get a chance to visit the USA, you'd LOVE Portland. Oh man. We don't have a city rental system yet, though. Just individual shops doing rentals.

    Went on a ride with my youngest brother and his girlfriend today, we had one of the first really warm days and it was just lovely.

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