TV presenter Ben Fogle and Olympic gold medal-winning rower James Cracknell set off on their latest challenge on Saturday – a 450-mile rickshaw ride.

The adventurous duo, who have rowed the Atlantic and taken part in a race to the South Pole, are hoping to pedal the rickshaw from Edinburgh to London.

They are giving themselves just 60 hours to complete the marathon journey.

The pair set off from Edinburgh Castle with a band of pipers playing as they made their way down the esplanade. (more…)

Tags: Airmen, ben fogle, dynamic duo, edinburgh castle, esplanade, James Cracknell, journey, London, Olympic, olympic gold medal, passenger seat, Pedicab, Pedicab News, pipers, pride of britain, pride of britain awards, push bike, rickshaw, ride, royal regiment of scotland, Sailors, servicemen, trek, tricycle, US

Ah! A Flick-shaw, it’s a 126cm by 130cm London rickshaw designed to be an incredibly comfortable way to catch movies on the move.

Done in honor for the Virgin Media Shorts Awards at the BFI, the Flick-shaw is a luxurious two-seater cinema. The mobile cinema, which is perhaps the smallest in the world, is fitted with red velvet seats, a bespoke screen and curtains draping down to the floor. The entire set-up comes complete with surround sound speakers, popcorns, drinks and… and two lovely usherettes. The Flick-saw was seen on the London streets showing 12 short movies listed for the Virgin Media Shorts Awards.

Tags: London, london streets, Main Street, mobile cinema, Pedicab, Pedicab News, rickshaw, usherettes, virgin media

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

Apr 19th 2007 | DENVER, LONDON AND NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

Regulation threatens a booming business with, er, a cyclical downturn

AP

A PEDICAB borrowed from a friend for a conference on pedestrianisation in 1990 got Steve Meyer pedalling what is now a fast-moving business. Hoping to liven up the often-deserted streets of downtown Denver, his hometown, he bought two of the bicycle taxis. But they did not work very well, so he started building what has since become the industry standard, with 21 gears, hydraulic brakes and so on. His firm, Main Street Pedicabs, now caters to rising demand both in America and abroad.

Alas, regulation in two of the biggest markets for pedicabs threatens to puncture Mr Meyer’s upbeat mood. Last month New York’s city council voted to impose onerous rules on the hitherto unregulated pedicab industry and to limit the number of pedicabs to 325. A protest prompted Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, to veto the new rules, apparently out of entrepreneurial fellow feeling for the pedicab drivers, but the city council is likely to override his veto, perhaps as soon as next week.

Pedicabs first started operating in New York in the mid-1990s, but their numbers soared from around 100 to over 500 after they featured in an episode of Donald Trump’s business reality-television contest, “The Apprentice”, in 2004. For the sort of fit youngster who wants a flexible job—many drivers in New York are actors or students—it pays well: $300 on a good day, though typically half that. The cost of entry is low, perhaps $4,500, compared with $400,000 for a yellow-taxi medallion.

Pedicabs are under attack in London, too, where an estimated 400 operate. Transport for London, a regulatory body, is reviving its controversial claim that pedicabs should be regulated as “hackney carriages”, like the city’s black cabs. Chris Smallwood, chairman of the London Pedicab Operators Association and boss of Bugbugs, a 60-strong pedicab firm, says treating pedicabs like black cabs would impose unbearable costs on the industry. He has helped to draft an amendment to a bill now before the House of Lords that would introduce lighter pedicab regulations.

There is striking agreement between the pedicab trade groups in both London and New York that some sort of regulation is needed, not least to deter rogue operators. But current proposals seem to serve the interests of motor-taxi drivers, who want their rivals off the road.

The irritation is that pedicabs do not compete much with motor-taxis, say Messrs Meyer and Smallwood. Pedicab journeys tend to be the short trips that drivers of gas-guzzling taxis hate most. Pedicabs’ main competition is walking, says Mr Meyer, who points out that if New York’s 12,000 yellow cabs were replaced with pedicabs, “there would be a lot less congestion”. Here’s hoping that politicians on both sides of the Atlantic cast their votes for pedal power.

Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Tags: amendment, America, apprentice, business reality, Chris Smallwood, city, controversial claim, council, Denver, donald trump, downtown, downtown denver, flexible job, Group, hydraulic brakes, London, Main Street, Main Street Pedicabs, mayor, Messrs Meyer, michael bloomberg, Mr Meyer, NEW YORK, Newspaper, Operators, operators association, pedestrianisation, Pedicab, pedicab drivers, Pedicab News, pedicabs, steve meyer, taxi medallion, television contest, Transport, transport for london, upbeat mood, yellow taxi