You say tomato, I say paradicsom

There's an interesting new publication, put together by one of those European Acronyms the EESC and brought to my attention by Carlton Reid, which is a kind of pan-EU phrasebook for cyclists.

It consists of a series of pictures of bike parts, cycle infrastructure and so on, with the term describing it underneath in 23 eurolanguages.

So, if you want to know what 'mountain bike' is in Polish (rower górski), or 'bike hire' in Italian (noleggio bici), or 'shock absorber' in Greek (aposbestiras kradasmon), then this is the place to come.

And if you're not sure how to pronounce anything, you can just point at the picture. And if all else fails, just shout English VERY SLOWLY, omitting all the definite and indefinite articles, like my granddad used to when he was anywhere foreign, such as Lancashire.

It's all good fun and may well come in useful, especially in places such as former Soviet-sphere states. Or Lancashire. And it's amusing to wonder why the Lithuanian for 'basket' should be as cumbersome as metalinis krepsys dviraciui.

The choice of languages may raise a few eyebrows: Irish Gaelic but no Welsh, for instance. Realistically, how likely is it that you'll be stuck in Ireland with a flat tyre and require the assistance of a 104-year-old fisherman from the Gaeltacht?


And there's a few oddities in the English, too. What I'd call a 'pannier', they call a 'bicycle bag' (German, Fahrradtasche). Where I'd say 'lube', they say a touch unnecessarily 'bicycle oil' (Slovakian, olej na retaz).

And what we might call 'trouser bands' they refer to as the Larkinesque, good old-fashioned 'cycle clips' (Hungarian, nadrágcsipesz).

But it's in the infrastructure section that things fall apart a bit. Some of the English here is hopelessly wrong and misleading. For instance, the thing they call 'advanced cycle stop lane' (Slovenian, prednostni prostor za kolesarje pred kriziscern): the accurate English term is in fact 'taxi rank'.

Then there's what they deem a 'marked cycle lane' (Bulgarian, markirana koloezdachna aleya). It's what any normal English driver would call a 'car park'.

And there's what purports to be an 'underpass for a long-distance cycle route' (Maltese, mina twila taht l-art ghar-roti). In England, it's what we'd call a rubbish dump and public toilet.

Crossings and double-crossings

Another day, another route across central London into work. This time I went past the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, by Wellington Arch, and through Soho and Bloomsbury. I like the game of following the bike-route signs - to 'Euston', say - and then seeing where I actually end up when the route disappears into a back-street cul-de-sac.

As ever, there was lots to enjoy on the way. For instance, just off Parliament Square, at the junction of Tothill St and Storey's Gate, is officially Europe's Safest Pedestrian Crossing (right). Well, that's what the 'Eurotest consortium of motoring bodies' thinks, according to the BBC. Yes, I know. It just looks like a crossing.


London's pedestrian crossings were in the news again yesterday. The mayor is proposing 'countdown crossings', which tell you how much time you have left to cross. At some crossings this may be used to cut down the time.

Cut down the time? Hmm. My route took me past Wellington Arch (right), where the cycle path grandly goes under the arch itself. Countdowns here would panic everyone except Dwain Chambers: you have a mere four seconds or so to cover the 25 yard (22m) crossing.


A horse might come in handy, which is presumably why this is also an equestrian crossing, complete with rider-height push buttons and horse-shaped green lights (right).

As you can see in the YouTube snippet here, the jogger just about makes it, but the chap crossing at normal walking pace only gets half way across by the time the green man disappears. No wonder the cyclist, who seems to be a regular, sets off a couple of seconds early. The green-man symbol should be in shape of a sprinter.

Finally, feeling like an adventure, I followed the separated bike lane west along Maple St, somewhere in the back lanes north of Oxford St. At the junction with Fitzroy St (right) the bike slot is excitingly situated on the wrong side of the road. That might put you in conflict with traffic turning right, so there's a separate traffic light for the bikes.

Except that when you press the button to request, you might have to wait two whole iterations of the other lights before you can proceed, forcing a wait of 90 seconds or so. Most cyclists, like the one in the picture, simply plough through the red.

On the other hand, if you had a countdown crossing here, you could do something useful during the wait, such as listen to a Wagner opera, or sit out the recession.