Pedals Into Ploughshares In India

Now I'll reveal what a city girl I am:  Until a little while ago, I didn't realize how much farmers the COVID-19 pandemic has affected farmers.  The same things that have caused people in other businesses and professions to lose work and income are causing distress to the growers of our food:  lockdowns, disrupted supply chains and labor shortages. 

It seems that all of those factors have been exacerbated in India.  In contrast to that of nations like the United States where corporate agribusiness dominates, agriculture in India  is still in the hands of family-owned and other small farms. They depend on seasonal migrations of laborers to the countryside. Moreover, many farmers have no Internet access. So they obtain credit, supplies and equipment mainly through face-to-face transactions.

COVID-19 lockdowns disrupted the flow of workers--and closed banks, shops and other businesses. That cut off their credit and their access to all sorts of other necessities.  And,  unlike large farms that own tractors and such, most small farmers in India rent their equipment.  With rental shops closed, Nagaraj and Alex Pandian could not get even basic equipment to till their father's field.

After losing last year's crops, they had no choice but to try again.  "This land is all we have," said Alex.  "We cannot sell it."  They decided to plant Sammangi flowers, used in garlands for temple offerings.  And, to till the fields, Nagaraj appropriated the only piece of machinery in his household:  his 11-year-old son's bicycle.

From the photo, it looks as if the front wheel and fork, cranks and saddle were removed, some sort of device with a blade was attached to the seat post, and the bike was flipped over before a harness was attached to it. 

Dhanacheziyan, who says he "loves to farm," was happy to help.  To help his father, "I hold the press" and his father "pulls the plough." 

I hope that they have a harvest that allows them to make it through this year.  I also wish future prosperity to them--and that Dhanacheziyan can use his bicycle as a bicycle again!

Can Silicon Valley Become Amsterdam--In India?

Efforts to get people out of cars and onto bicycles are most commonly associated with European (and, to a lesser extent, North American) cities with relatively young and affluent populations.  Most of them are places that have long been established as regional, national or worldwide centers of commerce, culture and technological innovation.  

Those cities, with a few exceptions like Portland, are relatively compact:  San Francisco, Montreal and New York are hemmed in by water, while European capitals are ringed by long-established, if smaller, municipalities.  In other words, they can't expand, so if people move in, their population densities increase--and housing becomes scarcer and therefore more expensive.  That, as much as anything, puts a damper on the growth in such cities' populations.


Most people don't immediately associate car-to-bike campaigns with rapidly-growing cities in developing, low- to middle-income countries.  If anything, people want to parlay their newfound prosperity, or even flaunt it, with their new automobiles.  That their shiny new machines may spend more time idling in traffic than moving to any particular destination seems not to deter them from getting behind the wheel rather than astride two wheels.

So it is in Bangaluru, known in the English-speaking world as Bangalore.  It's often called "The Silicon Valley of India" for its concentration of high-tech firms, which have drawn migrants from the rest of India. As a result, it's been one of the world's fastest-growing cities and metropolitan areas in the world: The 2011 Census counted 8.4 million residents (about the same number as my hometown of New York) but current estimates say that there are between 10.5 and 12.3 million people living in the city where fewer than 3 million lived in 1981 and only 400,000 took up residence in 1941.

But Bangaluru, like other rapidly-growing cities in developing countries, has even more knotted and chaotic traffic than what one encounters in First World cities.  As I've mentioned before, millions newly middle-class Bangalureans have taken to driving.  The real problem, though, seems to be that the city's roads simply can't handle so much traffic.  They are narrow, and many people won't cycle because they don't want to compete with motorized vehicles for space.  Worse, they are jostling with cars and trucks on the roadway while dodging huge potholes:  Before the boom, there wasn't money for maintenance, but now it's difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with needed repairs.  

The possible model for Bengaluru

So, the city and its regional administration are working on a several-pronged plan that both takes its cues, and learns from the mistakes of, other schemes in the area's cities.  In those places, bike lanes were built but people didn't use them because they weren't useful for getting to wherever they had to go or were simply seen as not much safer than riding on the streets.  Also, Bangaluru planners have learned that city-owned bike share programs have had a number of problems and, as one report put it, while municipalities are good for providing the needed infrastructure, private companies are better at providing share bikes.  A problem with those services, though, has surfaced in cities all over the world, especially in China:  the bikes are left anywhere and everywhere when people are finished with them.  So, a possible solution is to have a company like Yulu or Ofo provide the service, and for the city to build dedicated parking facilities--like lots for cars, only smaller--where people can leave, or pick up, bikes.

Could India's Silicon Valley also become its next Amsterdam?

20 Million Hacks

Mumbai has two and a half times as many people as my hometown of New York.  Its population is also about half that of Canada, and a third of the UK or France.

It's been said that there are 8 million stories--the same as the number of people--in the Five Boroughs.  Well, one might say that there are 20 million ways of using a bicycle--one for every resident--in the City of Seven Islands.

At least, that was the impression I got from yesterday's post on Hackaday.  In the Gateway to India, it seems that bicycles are used, not only for transporting one's self, but also for moving other people, cargo that seems better suited for ship containers, hay, livestock and even gas cylinders--12 to 16 at a time!-- that weigh 15 kilos empty and 30 when full. 

I don't know which would scare me more:  the potentially-explosive cargo, or that those bikes, with 300-kilo loads, have the same brakes found on typical roadsters.  Come to think of it, I shudder thinking about maneuvering such rigs through winding, narrow, crowded streets that make Broadway in lower Manhattan seem like a Dutch bike lane.

Where Are The Most Skilled Bicycle Mechanics?

Someone once told me, only half in jest, that the best auto mechanics are in Cuba.  "After all," he explained, "anyone who can keep a car running when replacement parts haven't been made for it in fifty years must be very skilled--and creative".

I don't have any way of refuting his assertion, so I'll accept it.  Any mechanic, anywhere in the world, who can keep, say, an Edsel running is almost certainly better than most.

Perhaps a similar principle applies to bike mechanics.  It's really not that difficult to repair or maintain a well-maintained late-model machine that's been used mainly for recreational cycling.  On the other hand, people whose bikes are used for transportation or other utilitarian purposes are more likely to be riding older bikes.  Think of all of those English three-speeds and European city bikes people rode to work every day, and for an occasional weekend jaunt in the park, for decades.  To my knowledge, no one is making replacement parts for Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs that were made in England or cottered cranksets.  Still, many such bikes are still in use in their home countries and all over the world.

Mechanics in places where the bike is still what one rides because gasoline and car ownership are expensive, I imagine, have developed some interesting work-arounds. Somehow I think mechanics' tricks are even better-developed in places where people depend on bikes, and are poor--say, India, where this photo was taken: