Bird's Eye Cycle Chic

This gent did a spot of window shopping as he rolled past a shop on his morning commute.

These guys continued their conversation as they walked the last stretch to their destination.

Finding a new playlist, checking a map or a crucial, dramatic text from a love interest? We may never know.

Double basket action.

Adjusting the dog on the back rack.

Portraits of cyclists: 1976 SCO bike rider: “I came across a guy on the same bike. We looked at each other bike and said “hello”

"I'm on my way to the office. I work for a suit company called "Lasse".
I fell good when I'm riding my bike. It's quite easy to ride: single speed, back break, limited maintenance.

"You always have to wear nice clothes due to work. Do you think that cycling is compatible with it?"
"Not always. I have a winter bike as well, for the rainy days, with a mudguard."

"Do you have a good memory related to your bike?"
"Yes of course, especially in Copenhagen. It happens with my old SCO bike (a Danish brand), known to be the world champion bike from 76 and quite rare in Copenhagen. I came across a guy on the same bike, the frame was almost the same. We looked at each other bike and said "hello".


Mercier single-speed bike - French brand.

More pictures of CPH everyday on Byliv in CPH

Middle of August: Copenhageners are back in town

It's still the summer holidays in many countries, but in Copenhagen, children are back to school and inhabitants back to work. We are still looking forward to welcoming hundreds of foreign students who are going to arrive in a few weeks and the city will be ready to start a new university year.

On the bicycle lanes, the atmosphere is back to business, we can see:

 
 Young man drinking coffee before going to work (with socks matching the shirt)

 
 Young lady undoing her ponytail after a day at work


Time to suit up!

More pictures of CPH everyday on Byliv in CPH

Vintage, Dapper Bicycle Style

Those were the days, indeed. Bicycle messengers in Copenhagen were always dressed splendidly back in the day. A far cry from their modern brakeless, gearless and perhaps reckless counterparts.

Uniforms for bike messengers in official service, like the telegraph companies, were de rigeur for decades. For more wonderful photos of Copenhagen's cargo bike and bike messenger history, pop over to Copenhagenize.com.


And the style parade doesn't stop there. Here's a wonderful shot from Winnipeg on May 4, 1918, on the occasion of a bicycle parade. Thanks to Dustin in Winnipeg for this one!

IBM's Short History of Cycle Chic

We were well pleased to see this infographic show up today. Richard over at Cyclelicio.us let us know about it. He got it via Karl over at Jaunty Angle.

IBM - of all companies - decided to track Cycle Chic in this short history, as a part of their Smarter Planet marketing intiative "Birth of a Trend". Click on the graphic where it says to, in order to go to the next slide.

We knew all this, of course. We're doing it almost every day and our Cycle Chic Republic continues to grow. Tomorrow we're leaving for Budapest for the annual Cycle Chic Blogger's Conference (where we'll host a massive Cycle Chic Breakfast for the Citizen Cyclists of the city, as well as a Fashion Show on Saturday) and Cycle Chic continues to blossom.


Dapper IBM Repairman in the 1950s on his Worksman Cargo Bike.

Everywhere - and I seriously mean everywhere - that I travel to speak about urban cycling, designing cities for bicycles and all manner of conferences and events I invariably meet people who come up to say hello and to thank us for the blog. As a rule, it is women who do so, which is fantastic.

The one person I remember best was a young woman in Brazil who, after one of my keynotes, came up to say that Cycle Chic was the reason she bought a bicycle and now cycles in her city. It choked me up. As do our testimonials every time I read them.

IBM has their methods and it's great to see the tech side of the evolution. We also have a list of press mentions which also serves as a timeline evolution of the movement/brand.

Scroll to the bottom for the first mention of Cycle Chic, in a Copenhagen magazine, and then scroll up to see how it grew and continues to grow. Worth mentioning that last year we started losing track of the press mentions so 2011 and 2012 are thinner, but that's because it went really crazy.

Who knows where Cycle Chic will end up. The ultimate goal is that it no longer needs to exist because cycling has been reestablished on the urban landscape as transport and is normalised like it is in Copenhagen and the Netherlands.

We're not there yet but we're working on it. Inspiring women to ride - the majority of readers has always been women here (and over half of the bloggers in our Republic are women) as well as on the Facebook group - and men as well.

We love our jobs and all of you who are inspired by this blog are inspiring to us. You define us in so many ways.

Thank you for cycling. On behalf of all of us who have been active on this blog; Me, Mary, Lars, Marie, Franz-Michael, Andreas, et al.

Monumental Motion

Cycle Chic and Copenhagen's bicycle culture has gone walkabout with my "Monumental Motion - A cycling life in the capital of Denmark" photo exhibition.


These three photos are from the world premiere in Ljubljana, Slovenia last autumn, but the exhibition, in collaboration with the Danish Foreign Ministry, is scheduled to travel the globe for another year or so.

Over at Copenhagenize you can see more about the Monumental Motion exhibition. As well as read about minor diplomatic crisises and tales from car culture.

Cargo Bike Newlyweds

Cycle Chic sends it's warmest public wishes to our friend Sammy - owner of the Danish cargo bike brand Triobike - who got married last Saturday here in Copenhagen.

Not surprisingly, the newlyweds let a Triobike handle their transportation needs on the day, in true Copenhagen style.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Bike Shares Around the Republic, Part I

Barcelona's bicing

We did a tour for a wonderfully attentive and sharp group of visitors from Washington, D.C. earlier this week.  From the Summit Foundation's Sustainable Cities program they were researching and experiencing, well, sustainable cities.  Bike share systems of course play a role and got us thinking, what is it, in the simplest explanation, that makes bike share such A Good Thing.

Copenhagen's City Bike

Boiled down to one easy phrase, it redemocratises the bicycle.  It brings the bicycle back to the city's residents.  It boldly reintroduces the bicycle as urban transport. This is one of the key points in Mikael's keynote, "Four Goals for Promoting Urban Cycling," and features in much of our work at Copenhagenize.

Velib in Paris

Business men and women, Chic'sters, hipsters, going about their daily business with a little two-wheeled help.  No wonder we like it so much.

dublinbikes

Moving people and furniture.  One Montreal Bixi at a time.

Cycle Chic Postcard - Zagreb

Tomislav works at the Danish Embassy and he deftly and elegantly led me around the city when I was there for to give my Bicycle Culture by Design talk and open my Monumental Motion photo exhibition. The bike belonged to his grandfather and was so cool it was painful. Suits the man, though, doesn't it?


A bicycle made for two.


Balkan cool.


A young Zagreb-ian ... uh... Zagrebite... um... Zagreber... uh... citizen of Zagreb out for a spin.


Unfortunately, I found myself in a car at one point. Fortunately, I only spend about 15 hours a year in automobiles.


It's scientifically proven... bicycles make you want to kiss more.


Or just flirt.

Tails

I spotted this brilliant shot over at Valencia Cycle Chic and simply had to post it here. Splendid!

Wherever he is heading, here's a perfect candidate for a date:

Cycle Chic Hommes

Dapper gents in suits. Ultimate cycle chic.



Riding along the course for the World Road Racing Championships last month... after the lycra boys were done with it.

Heading home from watching the bike race, beer in hand.

Taking a stance at the race.

And here's Tyler, one of our incredibly brilliant interns at Cycle Chic / Copenhagenize.

CNNenhagen

CNN's Richard Quest is in Copenhagen with a film crew shooting an installment of Future Cities. Copenhagen is, of course, a future city. Quest looks dapper as always.

Copenhagen Lego Cycle Chic

If we lived in Toy-penhagen, this is what this blog would look like. Citizen Cyclists riding through the city.

Man in a suit complete with mobile. Supermum with her kid and her coffee. Flowers decorating a bike.

The elderly (with baguettes), a doctor, you name it.

Businessman with briefcase. 50% + female ridership. Etc.

One-handed riding. Yep... it's all there. All we need is for LEGO to make stilettos and mini-skirts... :-)

Gentlemen Cyclists of Copenhagen

Some of the stylish and handsome Gentlemen Cyclists in the spring light in Copenhagen.