Antwerp Cycle Chic - Pour Hommes

Went to Antwerp last week to give a talk and open my Monumental Motion photo exhibition. Cool town. And what a stylishly-dressed town, too. Not least the gents.

Monumental Cycle Chic

Check out the Top 5 Bicycle Monuments over at Copenhagenize.com, including these two monumental cycle chic sculptures. Know of any other bicycle monuments? Add it to the comments or use the hashtag #bikemonument.

Cycle Chic(ish) from Belgium

Here's the cover of the weekend supplement for the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. Shot by Javier Barcala © La Fortuna Studio.

It really is wild how vintage bikes are conquering the market.

Dreamers on Bicycles

Max Pinckers is a Belgian photographer with a splendid series of portraits of cycling commuters called 'Transitions'. Thanks to our mates at CycleChic.be for the tip.

‘With the series Transitions, I explore this idea by making an attempt to ‘catch’ people as they are dissociated from the encompassing world, deeply entranced in their own thoughts and absorbed in whatever is going through their mind.

The people in these images are cycling on a long and straight daily commuter route. When we cycle we’re disconnected from the world around us, we dream and ponder whilst mechanically riding along a familiar, somewhat mundane path.

Submerged into an ‘absorptive mode,’ people’s expressions depict themselves in an honest way – unposed, unconcerned and unaware of either the photographer or the camera. The relation between the photographer and the subject has therefore been obscured, something which provokes us to ask ourselves if these really are portraits.’

Brilliant series. Beautiful.


Thanks to Stefan for the link.

Cycle Chic Belgium

Our friends at Cycle Chic Belgium have had a successful campaign worth mentioning. Through their Met Belgerinkel naar de Winkel- campaign, or Ring your Bicycle Bell to the Shop they were encouraging people in Flanders to ride their bikes to the shops, instead of taking their cars.

The Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck had designed a pannier bag and the campaign, which ran from May 16 to June 20, 2009 managed to get 175,000 people to choose the bicycle to go to the shops. And part of the campaign was a discounted price on the pannier bags. A whopping 16,500 people ordered one.

A cracking result. Well done, Cycle Chic Belgium! Promoting cycling positively and a role model for bicycle advocates everywhere.

Ymer Dress

Went to a little street party last Saturday in the cosy Nansensgade quarter of Copenhagen. The groovy shop Ymer Dress was celebrating their new website and, not least because it's summer, it was a good enough excuse to slap some tables out on the street, get a DJ and let the vibes, tunes and beer/cider roll in the neverending light of a Copenhagen June evening.

Here's Kristine, owner of the shop. She has a cool old three-wheeler covered in bamboo parked outside. I got her to mosey on down the street a bit to a splash of sunshine and photographed her there. Yes, the tyres are flat, but the bike is cool, as is she, as is the shop. What a cool little party it was. Perfect warm-up to heading out on the town. Thanks for the beer!

Ymer Dress should definately be on your shopping hit list if you're visiting Copenhagen. It's at Nansengade 38.

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Regarding our post about The Good News and The Bad News About the Cycle Chic Movement, here's a couple of sensible pieces.

Our friends at Cycle Chic Belgium posted about an article in a Belgian newspaper about the Cycle Chic movement - Copenhagen Cycle Chic was mentioned, bien sur. The paper interviewed two women who ride each day.

As Stefan at CycleChic.be writes on the post:

Some folks still don’t get the idea of cycle chic, I guess. And that is that there really is none. It’s just normal. Nothing special. Both the cyclistas interviewed in the article however do get it. They both say they would never visit such a specialised store. One even says: ‘I think it’s typical that cycling gets commercially exploited (…) but I don’t need it.’

Good girls! And a good message to end the article, so all is good.

And on the other side of the Atlantic, the Bike2Work2Live2Bike Blog has this post about suitable cycling clothing. His local bike shop has a mannequin in regular clothes and a little sign reading "This is Appropriate Cycling Clothing" attached to it.

Some people, at least, get it right. For appropriate cycling clothes, open your closet.

Brussels Cycle Chic

With all that said in the last post about Brussels being rather devoid of Cycle Chic in the true sense of the phrase, there were some cool cats round about.

Brolleys always make bicycles look nicer somehow.

This guy rode along with a cigar in his mouth, hopped on and was hurrying off to a bar when I accosted him and made him pose.

Negotiating traffic in style.

I'm in Japan at the moment and I forgot my laptop charger in Copenhagen so here's me running around trying to find one so I can blog my photos from this wicked cool country... Stay tuned.

Barcelona Cycle Chic in Brussels

When you're in a city virtually devoid of cycle chic like Brussels, it's bloody handy to know a lovely girl from Barcelona.



Not to mention cool chappies from the Copenhagen Bike Gang.

The United Bicycles of Europe

I just got home from a visit to Brussels and Amsterdam. In Brussels I was attending the Velocity 2009 conference about bicycle culture. I'll be posting about it later at Copenhagenize.com but I'll spare all you bikeistas the details. The important thing here is that I met heaps of cool people - through this blog - and could finally put alot of faces to a lot of names.

It was non-stop chatter at the City of Copenhagen stand and when I needed a break I'd head out back to the loading docks of the conference centre. Just before leaving the building there was a cool Belgian NGO called Cyclo and I hit it off with Jean-Philippe, Vincent and Abdal. They had loads of bicycles for people to try and I would invariably borrow one or the other to ride around a bit, smoke a cigarette and relax before heading back into the fray.

Nearby there was a massive, empty building - an old market - and I thought it so cool that I brought others with me for a ride.

Here's the film about it. The music is Coeur de Pirate, whom I saw live in Brussels last Tuesday. You'll might remember them from an earlier post about their lovely bicycle music video. What a coincedence they where playing in town. A smashingly soulful concert. They went number one on ITunes in Belgium the day they were playing so there was an extra good atmosphere.

In the video there are good people from Belgium, Catalunya, Denmark, Germany, UK and a Canadian living in Sweden. Regular people in regular clothes on a variety of bicycles. But as we all know by now, it's not about the bicycle, it's about YOU on the bicycle.

Global Cycle Chic Guest Photos

Here is an update with guest photos sent in by our readers. This one gets a space all its own:
Dottie from Let's Go Ride a Bike.
My fanciest cycling duds yet. :) I wouldn't have attempted this, if I hadn't seen all the women on your site.

Thanks, Dottie!


Here's a pile of lovely guest photos that I haven't had time to post. Wonderful stuff. Thanks for sending them in.
New Orleans: Jillian from Button McSweet. San Sebastian: Raquel from Gratis Total. Belgium: From Cycle Chic.be. Sevilla: From Martin. Stockholm: Fra Cykelsmart.se. Great Britain: Shit, sorry! Can't remember! London: From Cyclodelic.
Copenhagen: From Hugo-Andres. USA: From LastNightsParty.com. Norway: From Per. Budapest: From Cycle Chic.hu.

Russian Cycle Chic in Europe

One of our readers, Elizabeth from Moscow, sent us a smashing series of photos of herself, taken by her husband on their travels around Europe. Travels which invariably involve bicycling around the cities they visit. Elizabeth is a musician and she has a website here.

We're grateful for the chance to post the photos here! Thanks, Elizabeth!

Guest Photo: Brugge/Bruges

Next is a classic low countries shot from Luke over at CrazyAboutBelgium.
A cyclist forcing a bridge over a canal in Bruges/Brugge - depending on which end of the country you hail from.
Thanks for thinking of us, Luke!