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Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Coming from a medieval city in the heart of Tuscany, I’ve never felt the necessity to drive my car every day preferring to use my legs walking or cycling. Despite that I’m not a fan of bicycling but there is a region, in the north of Italy, where inhabitants are addicted: Emilia Romagna. This place can truly claim to be a paradise for cyclists, and many Italians declare that it offers the best ‘mixed’ routes in the whole Europe. It was really surprising for me to discover how important is bicycling in its main cities, Ferrara and Reggio Emilia.

But what visibly marks a city out as a cycling city?

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

In Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city, you bicycle at your risk in spite of the clear advantages to the environment and physical health.

Next to the pedestrian, the bicycle is regarded as the lowest in the mode of transportation chain.

Chiang Mai’s roads team with vehicles of all sorts and ubiquitous motorcycles that screech, hoot and zig-zag through the traffic.

If anything, the undefined movement of the motorcycles poses the biggest threat to bicyclists. They are forced to stay on the edge of the road where they can potentially ram into the curb. The absence of bicycle tracks on many roads further worsens the situation.

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

The Internet search engine company Google, now a reputable green icon with its solar powered Mountainview headquarters, last year gave away bicycles to its staff in Europe, Asia and Africa as part of its efforts to reduce the impact of transportation on the environment.

Nearly 2,000 members of Google permanent staff benefited from this scheme that also provided free helmets emblazoned with the famous brand name.

The great bit about this stuff is that they had freedom to choose from a variety of trendy, sexy models from Raleigh, the German bike maker, and these included men’s and women’s hybrids, as well as a Google cruiser. Another sexy model, the Dahon Curve folding bike, was retailing at about US$ 280 in 2007.

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

In South Korea, it’s easy to tell a toned, avid cyclist when you see one. You’ll know by his killer ninja looks.

Underneath the cyclist’s sleek helmet: a bandanna. Below the rim of the bandanna: steely sunglasses. Wrapping from the bandanna to cover the rest of the face: a hard face mask.

All in all, the cycling outfit looks like something straight out of a ninja movie. But what battles are there for a modern day bicycle ninja to fight? Just as in a Hollywood film, these ninja lookalikes toil to protect the young and the old from a common threat. And as it turns out, that ninja-like mask and outfit isn’t just for show. It protects bicyclists from a very real enemy.

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Despite more evidence that cycling is universally good, this time in the form of a report showing that it saves the government $227.2 million in annual health costs, there is still no denying there is just one king on the Australian roads—the car!

The fact that the bureaucrats actually have to commission a report into the health benefits of cycling probably tells you exactly what you need to know about the way that Australian governments treat the activity. Does any one really doubt that cycling is healthy? And what do they intend to do with this number now that hey have it?

Part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Bicycling as a sport, whether it is for participants or spectators, has always held a special place in the hearts of Italians. Professional bike races, including Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France are followed passionately by the Italian people. This mass interest in cycling as sport helps to make Italians among the world’s most knowledgeable consumers of bicycles. Everything you have ever heard about bicycling in Italy is true. The weather, roads and cities are all perfectly suited for bike touring. Each of bicycling and walking itineraries throughout Italy is carefully crafted to blend the best that our country has to offer by taking the active traveler off the beaten track.

A growing number of Italian citizens look today at alternative mobility as the solution to a stressful way of life.

Part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around
the world.

A bicycle, I once read somewhere, is the most efficient form of human transport ever developed. Coupled with the fact that bicycles are relatively cheap and trouble free, and suffer few of the traffic problems that dog other forms of transport it’s no wonder that cycling has never been more popular.

But I’m starting to wonder if this popularity might start becoming a problem?

If you want a blissful sex life, don’t ride a bike. I am not a keen biking enthusiast, particularly of the black mamba or Indian type, those old type ugly contraptions that are the primary mode of transport in most parts of Africa, other than human feet.

While walking is good for health and the environment, when you do it for miles and miles on end with a heavy load on your back or head as most men, women and children do in Africa, a bicycle comes in handy for it is in black Africa what a camel is in Arabia or a Llama is in some parts of South America.

Those who can afford a taxi ride take not the yellow cabs you’ll find idling on any street corner in New York City but a boda boda, as they are known in East Africa, literally a bicycle taxi that would take you from one border to another.

But the bicycle taxi riders here have learned the hard way and have taken to heavy drinking of cheap, traditional brew to drown their troubles. Becoming sexually inactive or rather a man who cannot sexually perform is the worst thing that can ever happen to a man, especially if his wife starts looking for fun elsewhere, risking catching the HIV/ Aids virus in the process.

This week at EcoWorldly, we’re talking about bicycling, bicycling, and more bicycling!

All week long, EcoWorldly writers from six continents will put their heads together to explore the ups, downs, ins, and outs of bicycling in many countries around the globe.

You can stay tuned to this topic by checking in daily at EcoWorldly, or subscribe to the RSS feed to stay tuned in by [...]

Note: This article is part of an Ecoworldly series on the topic of bicycling. This week our writers are discussing the activity and its importance in a number of countries around the world. Please check at the bottom for links to more entries and check throughout the week for additional entries in this series.

In some places in Peru it is just as common to see people bicycling as it is driving cars. Most Peruvians cannot afford cars and for this reason, bicycles provide an excellent, inexpensive means of quick transportation. Peruvians also are masters at modifying their bicycles in creative ways so that they can be used to transport goods and tools for their work and businesses. Fruits, vegetables, construction materials, ice cream, meat, bananas, pets, and countless other items can be transported by bicycle, when a cart has been added. Unlike in the United States though, these aren’t your everyday bicycle carts.

Streets are for People sponsored this anti-car petition on an actual car in Ontario.

We the undersigned do hereby demand that not one more dollar go to promote, support, or perpetuate car culture. We want bike lanes, public transit and a train system. We want our public space back. We want local food, clean air, sustainable industry, a liveable future for our children, and an end to oil

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