Cars and Bicycles / East and West

This week I'm in London.

It seems all the cool kids here are riding these amazing (or, as Lawrence Lessig might say, "W2C4M") folding bicycles, which go from this:

to this:

My cousin Ben (who I caught up with last weekend, has two imaginative and rambunctious children - well, one's too tiny to tell just yet - and works in the City) was a big enthusiast of commuting to work by bicycle a few years ago, and probably still does. People in the Big Smoke are really going for the cycling commute (a 100% increase between 2000 and 2005 according to the BBC), which led me to thinking . . . isn't it curious how, just as the Asian car markets are exploding (particularly in China), people in large western "metropoli" are starting to cycle more? Perhaps there's an equilibrium to be found somewhere.

I'm still waiting to settle somewhere and get a folding bike for myself . . . or perhaps a Segway . . . dream dream dream . . .