What is it? Well, the term “quaxing” originated from Auckland’s councillor, Dick Quax who stated:
@lukechristensen @BenRoss_AKL @Brycepearce no one in the entire western world uses the train for their shopping trips
@Brycepearce @lukechristensen @BenRoss_AKL the very idea that people lug home their weekly supermarket shopping on the train is fanciful
@Brycepearce @lukechristensen @BenRoss_AKL sounds like that would make great Tui ad. “I ride my bike to get my weekly shopping – yeah right”
While I’ve never described it as “quaxing”, and likely will not describe it that way, this is how I’ve been shopping for the past 5 years.
This, is my shopping trolley, literally… it gets unhitched and taken into the shop with me.
Shopping on the bike, “quaxing” to the twitter-croud.
Now true, strictly speaking, Australia is not the “western world” geographically speaking. Neither is NZ; any further east and you hit the International Date Line. However this is a “westernised” country, as is NZ. Isn’t it funny how people assume cycling is merely a third-world phenomenon?
It’s merely a third-world phenomenon only in Australia and NZ. Here in the UK we are seeing a social change towards cycling from being purely recreational much like how it is seen in Australia, to, as London mayor Boris Johnson put “de-lycrafying” where utility cycling like going to the shops or taking your children to school becomes a normal everyday thing not just done by those who a trying to promote such activities as normal.
If Europe is anything to go by, the only way cycling culture in your neck of the woods will change is due to politics. It was Danish and Dutch politicians in the 60’s and 70’s that radically changed the cycling attitudes of their respective countries – putting in infrastructure and education did most of it. In a country where everything is so spread out, and being one of the few countries in the world with mandatory helmet laws it will take time for change.