My bicycle bombs story (see previous blog and comments – http://john-adams.co.uk/?p=122 ) was also aired on the BBC Today Programme and the BBC World Service on 30 July.
I still haven’t received any convincingly documented case of a bicycle bomb, in the form of the frame packed with explosives, killing anyone anywhere in the world.
One commentator says, “I have heard of a bicycle used as a bomb reported to be in Sofia c.1948. The reports are of the saddle being ejected by some 300 feet but the bike remained rideable.”
The trick in making an effective pipe bomb (see How to make a pipe bomb – http://www.linkbase.org/make-pipe-bomb/) appears to lie in fixing caps that are stronger than the pipe itself. Otherwise the pipe won’t explode. The caps (or the saddle) pop off and you have an interesting firework.
I’ve had a number of responses indicating that the anti-terrorist bureaucratic paranoia I complain about is not confined to Parliament Square in London.
More comments/examples would be welcome. It would be interesting to see just how widespread the ban on cycle parking is, and the extent to which it is rooted in anti-terrorist paranoia or simple anti-cycle prejudice.