Lux

The Nordic summer has unique qualities that are difficult to explain. After long, dark winters, the world opens up and the light embraces you. You are giddy. The light is the defining factor. Light illumination is measured in units called Lux.

On a moonless, overcast night you get about 0.0001 lux. The lighting in an average family living room is about 50 lux. The Nordic winter - overcast, snow, rain and with a sunset, in Copenhagen anyway, at around 15:30 in mid-December - is not generous in it's distribution of lux. Rarely does it rise above about 400 lux.


On a sunny, summer's day, on the other hand, your body and mind is splashed with upwards of 100,000 lux. What a shock in the first sunny days of spring. It triggers that feeling of a rush and it increases your energy levels and even your sexual desire. It's quite a difference between winter and summer. I love the Copenhagen summer, needless to say.


Copenhageners at a stop light near the city hall square, on the bike lane.

There is Safety in Numbers

In Japan I was often ask about how to get more people to bike. Unsurprisingly, safety is the main concern. If people feel safe they are perfectly happy to bike - and to let their children bike. So is the answer bike lanes, bike traffic lights etc.? Absolutely. And they lead to the best - free - solution: Numbers. The more people who bike the safer it gets.



We know by instinct that there is safety in numbers. True for Cyclists in Copenhagen as well as Wildebeest in West Tsavo. And our instincts are backed by statistics and science. Even in Copenhagen we have seen the number of accidents drop as the number of cyclists rises.



Cars are the real danger. Their big, bulky steel structures do not mix well with cyclists. In Japan the drivers are very considerate towards cyclists - if they see you. But often they do not because they are not used to bikes. In Denmark drivers are used to keeping a watchful eye open for cyclists from all sides. And doing so is essential for anyone trying to get a driver's license.


Take care and happy cycling!

[Wildebeest pictures found at Creative Commons thanks to "Rainbirder" alias Steve Garvie / "amanderson2" alias Mandy / Dom Cram / "biggles621" alias Steve Johnson / all at Flickr - Thank you!]

Symbolism

Hats Off to these 21st Century Heroes

When cycling in the midst of a snowstorm, in sub-zero temperatures and a headwind roaring out of the Arctic at 15 metres per second, a hat is a nice idea.

New York Cycle Chic

Brooklyn.

Downtownishness.

Ditto.

US Postal Serviceishness.

More Ladies on Bikes, Please

Sustrans, the UK's leading sustainable transport charity, has started a petition on their BikeBelles website that encourages women to cycle

They interviewed 'over 1000 women to find out what they believed would most persuade them and other women to cycle more'.

'Overwhelmingly women wanted more cycle lanes separated from traffic, so Sustrans has launched our Motion for Women petition calling on governments to prioritise the creation of environments that encourage and support cycling, including cycle paths separated from traffic, as a way of enabling many more women to travel by bike.'

In Copenhagen, half of the citizens cycling each day are women. Much the same is seen around Denmark and Holland.

Sustrans has started a petition to show support for safer bicycle infrastructure.

Cycle Chic encourages you to sign the petition until November 29, 2009 right here.

A Bit More Winter

While struggling in a nasty winter headwind that makes the temperature plummet to -25 C will always be a second choice to a bicycle ride to the beach in 30 C, daily cycling is and always will be a year-round activity that is safe, healthy and refreshing. Copenhageners are MY cycling heros.

Love the hat.

Poetry on Wheels

Just standing on a street corner talking to a friend and then this Copenhagener rolls up.

Iconic Copenhagen Cycle Chic. Right there. Appearing out of the grey winter mist like a dream.

These iconic shots are not everyday occurances but whether they are iconic or almost so, it's moments like these that are nothing less than the transportational equivalent of standing on a street corner and having Shakespeare walk past, stop up, mumble to himself "'Hmm... a horse... a horse... my kingdom for a horse... yes, that works...". Then he jots down the line in his notebook and walks off. Or John and Paul passing by, one humming a melody and the other trying out lyrics... "How about, 'I Wanna Hold Your Ha-aa-aa-nd'...?" Or Kieslowski eagerly and expressively explaining a plotline to Piesiewicz.

It's instant poetry, created on the spot. Epic to witness. Breathless. Add to that simple aesthetic fact the whole 'most efficient machine ever created' / sustainable / effortless / enjoyable angle ... and my goodness it's nice.

German Cycle Chic

Due to travel, computer problems and lots of work (yeah ok it's no excuse!), Velomama has been away from the blog for a while - physically, if not mentally!

This summer, Velomama went around Europe with an InterRail pass. It gives you free travel by train all over Europe for a given period of time and is good value for money if you have the time to spend hours and hours in trains! (Very environmentally friendly & slow travel-like).

First stop was Gera in Eastern Germany, where my good mate Sam Hopkins was artist-in-residence. Here on his bike with girlfriend Nina on the pedals.



Then on a train to Hamburg, where cycle chics crowded the area outside the Central Station..



Stay tuned for more pics from Amsterdam, Marseille and Serbia...

It's good to be back!
Love, Velomama

Seriously

Serious Heels.

Seriously small dog.

Seriously big dog.

Seriously wide bike lane. Read why it's suddenly wider on copenhagenize.com.

Calmly Calmly

Waiting for the light to change along the one of the busiest streets in the nation need not be a stressful affair.

The golden light of a late-autumn evening shines on this couple who walked slowly along outside my flat. She didn't need to pedal, he just pulled her along as they spoke in a quiet, intimate tone.


We added a few more t-shirt designs for gentlemen and ladies to our online shop. The idea above is that if you melt a car, you'll have enough metal to weld 118 bicycles. Frightfully unscientific but fun all the same.

Montage

The heart of the city we love so much.


A happy marriage of Dutch and Danish. Bike from the Netherlands. Citizens of Denmark.


Business suit on the way to work. Complete with a coffee holder on the handlebars for her latte.



Evening couples using the bicycle as a means of transport and togetherness.

Le Flâneur et al

Take two to tango at a red light in Copenhagen.

Copenhagener with a new plant in the process of transporting it home.

A different angle on cycling in Copenhagen.

Thanks to a friend, Nicole, in Paris, I have been suddenly presented with a definition of myself. In a word... Moi je suis un flâneur. In more than one word, via Wikipedia:

The flâneur's tendency toward detached but aesthetically attuned observation has brought the term into the literature of photography, particularly street photography. The street photographer is seen as one modern extension of the urban observer described by nineteenth century journalist Victor Fournel before the advent of the hand-held camera:

This man is a roving and impassioned daguerreotype that preserves the least traces, and on which are reproduced, with their changing reflections, the course of things, the movement of the city, the multiple physiognomy of the public spirit, the confessions, antipathies, and admirations of the crowd. ( from "Ce qu'on voit dans les rues de Paris", "What one sees on the streets of Paris")

The most notable application of flâneur to street photography probably comes from Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay, On Photography. She describes how, since the development of hand-held cameras in the early 20th century, the camera has become the tool of the flâneur:

The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'

Bird's Eye View & Turning Signals

The blue, blue bike lanes of Copenhagen go with any colour.


He's not part of the traffic. He IS the traffic.


Are we turning?


She's turning.

Heels and Patterns

Copenhagen Bike Culture Colours. As long as we keep hearing "people ride in HEELS there?!" we'll keep showing that they do.

Hmm. I many have discovered another pattern here. For the second time in a couple of weeks I've seen a Copenhagen Supermum with a cargo bike with heels, steering with her right hand and holding her keys in her left hand.



A lovely stretch of bike lane.


I cleaned up the bikes at the summer house. They came with the place, two lovely old school bikes and an old BMX for kids. But somehow the bikes looked lovelier covered in cobwebs.