By Neville Hawcock

On a bad day, cycling in London feels like dinosaurs versus mammals. You, the warm-blooded cyclist, may ultimately inherit the earth, but until then you run the grave risk of being squished by a lumbering, petrol-fuelled sauropod. You have the acceleration, the visibility, the manoeuvrability; they have the weight, the momentum, the airbags.

There are good days, of course, when pedalists and petrolheads give way to each other in a haze of goodwill. But they are rare. So it is with some trepidation that I approach BugBugs’ Holborn Viaduct lock-up. My task is to give one of its pedicabs a test-ride; and pedicabs – as their operators prefer to style these latter-day rickshaws – are the SUVs of London’s bike scene: big – maybe too big – and apt to provoke extremes of opinion. (more…)

Tags: bike scene, bikes, Cabs, driver, Drivers, drivers association, fun, London, Main Street, national cycling, NEW YORK, Operators, passenger, Pedicab, Pedicab News, pedicabs, rickshaw, rickshaws, Safety, slow traffic, taxi drivers, test ride, traffic, trike, yellow cab

Entrepreneur powers his one-man horseless carriage during the wee hours Downtown

Wes Weisheit vigorously pedaled his bike along North Fourth Avenue, pulling a reporter in the “cab” behind. The gentle bumps during the ride seemed to echo the pulsating beats from the Bose stereo attached to his bike.

This open-air taxi burns no gasoline and provides a leisurely ride to your destination.

Otherwise known as pedicabs, rickshaws or bike taxis, you’ve probably seen them cruising the streets during University of Arizona football games or late night on Fourth Avenue.

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Tags: advertising, bicycle, Cabs, downtown, downtowns, Drivers, Main Street, Main Street Pedicabs, operator, passenger, Pedicab, pedicab driver, pedicab drivers, Pedicab News, pedicabs, pub crawls, rickshaw, rickshaws, street pedicabs, taxis, transportation, weekend, wheels

Am I the last person in the western hemisphere to find out that the pedicab, known in Far East since the 30s as the cheapest means of city transportation, has made it big in the urban US? After 11 years on the streets in the Big Apple, there are enough of these bicycle-drawn passenger vehicles to rile the City Council into regulating them and banning the ones with electric motors. The spoilsports. The New York horsedrawn carriage and taxi trades are complaining that pedicabs cut into their business without having the expense of licenses and insurance.

Pedicabs are also beginning to tote tourists in downtown Portland, OR, Denver and Ft. Lauderdale, as well as in Spain, Denmark, England, Israel and Canada. Most carry two people, but there’s a four-passenger pedicab being operated in Phoenix. They’re even emblazoned with advertising, like taxis and buses.

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Tags: advertising, bicycle, bicycle messengers, Cabs, Canada, city streets, city transportation, Denmark, Denver, Drivers, Electric, England, Financial District, horsedrawn carriage, Israel, La Paz, Legs, Main Street, Main Street Pedicabs, Mazatlan, NEW YORK, passenger, Pedicab, Pedicab News, pedicabs, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Spain, taxis, Transport, transportation, US