"Rise of the Foldies" - a talk at blinkBL_NK

Photo by Kevin Lim

The Rise of the Foldies, How Singaporeans are re-discovering the freedom of cycling

“Cycling was a liberating experience of our childhood, made possible by a safe environment available to young and unsupervised riders. Through scraped knees and elbows, our skills developed organically with time.
Urbanization has since robbed our streets of their nurturing role in communities. Increasingly crowded roads with fast and large vehicles saw cyclists fade with loss of safe spaces even as we became more sheltered.

But in the past few years, there has been a dramatic change, brought about by the rise of foldies and the extension of the PCNs. Thousands have returned to the saddle and we now ask “how ready is our city to embrace this evolution?”"

This was a 20-minute talk last night given for the blinkBL_NK #22 audience, who saturated the Q&A with questions non-stop, as the organiser had indicated they would.

The talk is in its infancy but even this version 1 was helpful for raising awareness. It can do with revisions and be extended but should certainly be done more frequently. A faster way to gain an appreciation about issues before reading this blog!

You can get some idea of the talk from the slides here.

Video available here.