Cycle-to-school routes in the Tyrol.
Rain. Lots of Yorkshire rain. That’s what the 197 pro cyclists who started the 2019 World Men Elite Road Race at the UCI World Championships are riding through right now. Standing water at the base of Buttertubs–one of the key passes on the 174-mile course through the Yorkshire Dales–forced the slight shortening of the route, disappointing hardy skin-is-waterproof fans, some of whom have been camped out on the steeps for some days.
Last year the nine-day World Championships staged by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) was hosted in Austria’s Tyrol region. What would the Tyrol’s Weather Duke and Weather Duchess make of the decision to curtail the Yorkshire route? They were awarded their nom de plumes for cycling to school in all weathers, but perhaps even they would balk at having to ride through deep puddles as the pros are doing today?
The Tyrolean Alps gets its fair share of foul weather, but the kids still cycle to school. It’s partly for this determination that the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, has this week appointed Austria’s western state of Tyrol as a UCI Bike City, a recognition of the region’s friendliness to cyclists.
The region is famous for its mountain-bike parks and its long-distance cycle routes, but the Bike City designation is given to those cities and regions which promote everyday transportation cycling. The other cities awarded by the UCI this week were Copenhagen, Glasgow, and Paris.
Handed out since 2016 other cities and regions to have been awarded Bike City status include Bergen in Norway, Drenthe in the Netherlands, Vancouver in Canada, and the whole of Yorkshire.
Tyrol’s regional government has a strategy–“Tyrol on the bike”–to promote the use of bicycles. €60 million is spent annually on cycling infrastructure in the region, with a further €12 million invested in projects to improve cycle touring.
The region’s slogan–“The whole of Tyrol is cycling”–isn’t terribly accurate because cycling currently has an 11% modal share of journeys in Tyrol, and the goal for next year is just 14%.
Cycling is more mainstream in Innsbruck–it has a 22% modal share, thanks in part to 80 miles of cycleways.
UCI’s Bike City label has been awarded each year since 2016.
Austria creates not just local and regional Weather Dukes and Weather Duchesses, the government’s Bikelines program also designates an overall Bike Emperor and Bike Empress. This is for the boy and girl who accumulate the most cycle-to-school miles each year.
Bikelines are routes to school, often chosen by students themselves, usually in geography lessons. Students meet at designated points and then ride to school together. Cycle-to-school kilometers are logged by helmet RFID tags or check-in cards.
All Austrian school children get transportation cycle training in their fourth year of primary school, a scheme run by the Federal Ministry of Education.
