How Could I Forget?
I am amazed that I managed to forget that this is National Bike Week! Then again, as the weather is doing nothing to promote it, I thought I would bring you some useful bike facts.
- 16% of Brits would steal a kids bike to get home after a drunken night out.
- 1,000 bikes are stolen in the UK each day (Presumably not all by drunks).
- Kirkpatrick MacMillan invented the first bike in 1839, weighing in at half a hundredweight!
- He was also fined 5 shillings in 1842 for injuring a girl who walked in front of his bike, earning him the first ever fine for dangerous cycling.
- In 1888 a law was passed giving bikes full use of the UK road networks, as they were classified as carriages.
- Between 1888 and 1930 is was mandatory to ring the bell non stop while riding a bike.
- The first bicycles were called velocipedes, and cyclists were velocipedestrians.
- Cycling is second only to basketball as the main cause of sporting injuries in the US.
- Leo Tolstoy took his first cycling lesson at 67 years old!
- Orville and Wilbur Wright owned a bicycle repair shop before they started flying in 1903.
You may also be interested to know that this week is also currently:
- Huntington’s Awareness Week
- Homeopathy Awareness Week
- Architecture Week
- Great Landscapes Week
- MND Awareness Week
- National Childminding Week
- Neighbourhood Watch Week
- ‘Get Active’ Week
- Learning Disability Week
- Traidcraft Week
- Big Arts Week Wales
- Bowel Cancer Faster Diagnosis Week
- Bring Your Bear Week
- Child Safety Week
- Colitis and Crohn’s Week
- National Insect Week
- Refugee Week
At this rate the year will be over by 10th July! Anyway, get back to whatever it was you were doing before, or if you were really bored then you could post a comment or look around the rest of my wonderful site (Hah!).
June 19th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
its also celebration no more gcses after friday week