The Bicycle Flower Pot

Flowers and bicycles go hand in hand. One of the loveliest events we've seen anywhere in the world is the Bicycle and Flowers Festival in Riga, Latvia. But what about if you want some permanent plant growth adding some green to your machine? And the Bicycle Vase just isn't big enough for your green thumb needs?

Two Danish designers, Mads Busk Larsen and Jacob Bang Korsholm have been thinking about this and they have developed a design for a bicycle flower pot. They were kind enough to let us test it out, above. The first thing we noticed is how many people smiled at us at red lights. Above, the flower pot looks lovely on the handlebar of my Bullitt cargo bike, together with the little wooden bike bell.


The flower pot is designed so that the small plants and flower pots you can buy at supermarkets will fit. With the earth and roots in a small fabric bag, the plant is stable in the pot. You can attach it to your handlebars, but there's no reason you can't attach it elsewhere on your bike, like on your back rack, for example.

While many Copenhageners park in bike sheds in their back yard, bikes are often parked out in the open, so the plant will grow under the same conditions as if it were in your garden.

Mads and Jacob are looking at a series of colours to suit different tastes. Colour coordination is always important.

We love the Bicycle Flower Pot. Nothing wrong with some more green in any city.


Of, course, if one lovely plant isn't enough, you need to go BIGGER.

Winter's Last Stand - Hopefully

If you follow me over at Instagram you may have seen these shots. This year, winter is hanging around like that last irritating guest at a party. Winter is lovely. We just think it should know when to leave. It has overstayed its welcome here in Copenhagen.

Spring, it seems, has a problem getting here. The trees and flowers have yet to bloom - and we're in April! It's getting to be too much. So let's send Winter a signal. Thanks for coming, now get off our lawn. Here are some photos from Winter's Last Stand.







A little piece of Brazil in the form of a Brazilian flag chain sleeve on my bicycle. And my green retro headlamp really believes in spring.

The Lulu stills loves the ride, but the girl is itching for spring, too.

Until it comes, we'll have to fabricate it ourselves.

Cycle Chic Bags - OMG! That's FUNIA!

Hopping to another side of the world, Tel Aviv is one of the new booming bicycle cultures with plenty of Cycle Chic citizens getting from one shop to the next via bicycle. Complementing this movement, our friend Liat has designed her own growing urban brand, Funia. Sunflower yellow and totally retromodern, it playfully grabbed our attention.  Like a gust of wind carrying you along, this bag makes it look easy and slaps a wide smile on our comic-strip-loving faces at the same time.

Most common use: carrying bags full of pastries to the Cycle Chic headquarters.

For more from Funia, here's a link to her fashion and culture blog, in Hebrew.

Bicycles at London Fashion Week

The Bicycle Renaissance rolls on. Bicycle featured in this catwalk show at the London Fashion Week. The bicycles are from Rule Bikes.

The fashion industry embraced Cycle Chic shortly after the blog started and it's reassuring to see that they aren't tiring of them after over four years. Good for returning the bicycle to the urban landscape.

Cosmopolitan has a write up about the catwalk show here. It was, they say, the first time bicycles appeared on the catwalk during London Fashion Week.

The bicycle is all over the place. Fancy a bicycle print handkerchief? Designer Alice Nichol has one for you. A penny farthing necklace? Bottica will help you out. A blouse with a bicycle print? Check out ASOS for one of those.

Bike is still the new black.

Spitzel - The Handlebar iPhone Holder

The SPITZEL is really truly one of the products we've been waiting to see pop up on the market. An attachable iPhone holder- we were told it adapts brilliantly for nearly any activity and its equipment- shopping cart, baby carriage, golf bag, you name it. We, of course, promptly attached it to bicycle handlebars to give it the Cycle Chic test.

Just as promised, it is super quick and easy to install. Less than 30 seconds quick and easy. With the flexible holder, my phone was readily and snuggly perched on top of the handlebars, and we were heading toward our meeting in no time. This model was designed for an iPhone 4, but my 3G fit neatly in anyways.


One of the selling points is that it's better for safe cycling. While we are safe riding these streets as is, the SPITZEL certainly proved that it's better for social cycling. It held up to our expectations while sipping coffee and texting on the ride to work. In addition to texting, navigation ended up being the perfect use for the phone holder- and my favorite use.

No more taking gloves on and off, digging in my coat pocket for my phone to check the unpronounceable - and therefore impossible to remember - road name we'd be turning on. The phone was there, the map was there, and my fingers could be warm in their mittens (had I actually remembered them).


Oh and while we're at it, their cycling handbag is pretty cool too. It attaches to nearly any part of the frame and is big enough for your netbook or tablet.


As an added bonus the SPITZEL, and all other Fahrer products, are made out of recycled materials and in cooperation with sheltered workshops in Berlin. You can check out their online shop here.

Lovely Things We Love

Here at Cycle Chic we have an affinity for lovely things. Bicycle-related and not. And when the things are particularly lovely, we just have to share them.

Above is an exquisite sticker that appeared in the postbox last week, sent to me by a friend in San Francisco, Yumi, who runs the wonderful neo bohemia blog. The kanji characters mean "self-moving vehicle". The sticker looks brilliant on my Velorbis.


It typical Japanese fashion, the way the sticker arrived was elegant and perfect. Look at that attention to detail. Stunning stuff.


Another treat from another friend of ours, Musji. Hand-crafted hair elastics stamped out of fine leather.


My daughter, Lulu-Sophia, was thrilled with this one and it's a battle to get her to take it out.


Although this bird was a close second.

Check out Musji's website for more gorgeous, hand-crafted lovely things.

Cycle Chic Photo Shoot for Velorbis

It's Copenhagen Fashion Week this week and what better reason than to write about bicycles and fashion.

It's no surprise that we like photography and we like bicycles here at Cycle Chic. Often we get to combine the two in a little more detail than normal in the form of photo shoots. Danish bicycle brand Velorbis needed some new imagery for the new catalogue and we said 'oh, yes' when they called. We shot the catalogue over two days here in Copenhagen and had a fabulous time.

Here are some of the photos from the shoot that we fancy. We shot a number of Velorbis bicycles as well as a bunch of their cool, new accessories like gorgeous leather bags for urban living.







And here are some behind the camera photos of Mikael at work. :-)









There were, of course, a number of things we wove into the concept for the photo shoot. If there is any bicycle brand out there that understands how to sell their products positively, it is Velorbis. So right off the bat, we had a whole marketing world in common.

We wished to present cycling and bicycles like they always used to be presented, from the very beginning of bicycle culture in the late 1880's. Elegance, practicality, effortlessness. We were inspired by the many examples of bicycle posters from the late 1800's/early 1900's. Not directly, but merely in the style of the messaging.





We also developed a concept for the photo shoot that is quite rare in bicycle advertising. We found hardly any examples of bicycle ads where the model looked right into the camera, at the viewer. So we integrated this into the shoot, as you can see in a lot of these photos.


Here is a little slideshow from the photo shoot with Velorbis - both behind the camera and the shots we took:


Now we're looking forward to a shoot - stills and a film - for our good friends at MUUSE.COM next month.

Copenhagenize Consulting, who run Cycle Chic, works with consultancy and communications regarding urban cycling but fashion and photo/film jobs are the jam on our bread and butter sandwiches. See the commercial for Biomega bicycles, for example, here.