About One

Sports fans – it's time to dig the TV remote out from under couch and settle in for some serious sports watching!

Thanks to the introduction of ONE, Network Ten's new 24-hour free-to-air sports channel, we now have the opportunity to play sport LIVE - whatever time of the day or night the event occurs, in whichever part of Australia or the world it occurs AND then also replay in peak times as the viewer appetite warrants.

In Townsville, the number one pet peeve of road users was cyclists disobeying road rules such as running red lights, or not wearing helmets.

It follows an intense debate in the pages of the Townsville Bulletin between cyclists and motorists about road rules, and a spate of car versus bicycle crashes in the past month.

Townsville Cycling Club president Dave Restall agreed with the survey.

He said cyclists who ignored road rules topped his own personal list of pet peeves.

''Anyone can buy some lycra, a bike and a helmet and mosey off down the road, and for some stupid reason, think they are oblivious to standard road rules, and run red lights and cut corners and ride the wrong way down one-way roads,'' Mr Restall said.

The bike you ride should be a durable, repairable, functional machine with a minimal ecological footprint. And it must give you value for money. A ‘green bike' does all those things.

Trevor King, a mechanic at an iconic Melbourne bike shop, doesn't believe bikes are just another consumable item, no matter how much or how little they cost. A bike should be a durable, repairable, functional machine for personal transport that lasts, with a minimal ecological footprint. Having worked in all aspects of the cycling industry for 24 years, King is unashamedly enthusiastic about the up-take of all varieties of cycling in recent times, but he does have some misgivings.

"People are sometimes sucked in to acquiring a machine that is marketed towards them as a commuter that does a complete disservice to their hip-pocket, because the components aren't durable or resilient, or sometimes even repairable."

So what's the issue here? What is a green bike? If a bike is the cheapest form of personal transport going around, does it have to be durable as well?

There is no doubt that more and more people are commuting by bike more often, using bikes as cheap personal transport and getting healthy in the process. The growth in new-bike sales is good for our health, and the economy. But there are bike retailers who would suggest that the bike you ride may have an in-built, environmentally hazardous obsolescence that will initially surprise and then disappoint you.

Huw Vellacott runs Commuter Cycles in Brunswick, in suburban Melbourne. He loves dynamo hubs because they last, they don't need batteries, which end up in landfill, and they do the job well.

Talking about affordable, quality bikes for commuting, Vellacott doesn't pull any punches: "Bikes that aren't sold by bike shops," Vellacott says, "are usually terrible, because they're set up incorrectly, and the consumable parts on them aren't replaceable when they wear out. The bike just doesn't do the job it's meant to do.

"These bikes cost resources to produce, and yet being made of as much plastic as metal, nothing lasts on them. These bikes are a mirage, they look like a bike, but they actually aren't one.

"The conversation I always try to have with people about buying bikes," he says, "is that anything less than a certain price range will leave them disillusioned. Spend between $500 and $1000 on a bike from a bike shop, and the parts will last longer, tyres won't puncture so often, and so on.

"Above all," he emphasises, "don't get a cheap bike and say to yourself you'll replace the parts that are of lower quality ... it's a false economy. It doesn't make sense from either a sustainability or value perspective. The bike you need for daily use is a combination of value for money, designed and built in a durable manner, and above all, it must suit the function for which it is intended."

Here's a Commuter Cycles customer story. Melanie is a full-time mature-age university student. Two part-time jobs are barely enough to cover her expenses. She rides a bike everywhere, because it's the most economical option for getting around. Recently the chain on her bike began to mysteriously slip off the middle chain ring; the only solution was to get a whole new crank set, with replaceable chain rings. When she bought the bike, she had no idea about the limited life of one-piece non-replaceable chain rings, but now she knows a lot more. With the new replaceable chain ring set-up Melanie added durability to her bike. Melanie now rides a ‘green bike'.