At the Velhop

First came the Facebook page which I was informed of and liked about a month ago.  Then came notice that the Strasbourg stand at the Foire Europeanee (See yesterday) would feature the Velhop.  So, whilst there I hastened along to the stand and had myself pictured there in my rather fetching new jacket and shoes.  THEN came the appearance at the beginning of this week of properties around Strasbourg saying they would be Velhop shops and yesterday came the adverts on the trams saying the Velhop is coming.  As an awareness raising campaign it has been building impressively from social media through to on-street advertising.  I am looking forward to finding out the details of the new city-bike scheme for Strasbourg.  In 1996 when I had some influence over decisions on transport in a large town in the south of England I went to a European Car Free Cities conference in Copenhagen and saw in operation the city-bike scheme there and was intent on setting one up in the relevant town.  History intervened and I was not able to introduce the scheme.  I am surprised at the amount of time it has taken for the scheme to spread to other cities, probably the introduction of such a scheme in Paris by Bertrand Delanoe is what gave the idea momentum.  Strasbourg is the city in France with the highest level of cycling and has been designated the most cycle friendly.  Certainly being flat helps enormously as does the sheer number of on street and separate cycling facilities.  I will be watching interestedly to see how this scheme develops, though as someone with their own bike at home that they use regularly around the cycle-lanes of Strasbourg I don’t expect to be using them very soon.  I am also looking forward to colleagues mentioning the scheme as a judge of it hitting public awareness.

The title for this post is, of course, a corruption, a jokey play, on the title of the song by Danny and the Juniors, ‘At the Hop’ which can be seen below.  Aren’t the 1950’s suits and dance just great.

The song is sung  on the soundtrack of the film Woodstock by Sha-Na-Na(wiki) whose version of the song from the film of Woodstock is posted afterwards.  The two films really are very different, the clothes are very different and the dances are very different.

Tags: current affairs, cycling, Daily life, health, music, Pictures, Strasbourg