Friends

I just happen to love this photo. That's Philip on the left, holding hands with Joni from Amsterdam Cycle Chic and that's Aron from Hungarian Cycle Chic up front.

Ah, Budapest.

Our Cycle Chic Barcelona Wheels

So Cycle Chic went to Barcelona. Not surprisingly, we needed bicycles to get around on. From A to B. A being cool cycle events and B being cool bars and restaurants. We were incredibly fortunate to get a load of bicycles to ride fra various sources.

I decided to bring a prototype of the new Cycle Chic bicycle from Copenhagen to Barcelona to show the gang. We hoping for a launch in the fall. Above is the bicycle on the quay next to the yacht that some of us stayed on in Barcelona's Port Vell.

Here's the bicycle being rolled onto the plane at Copenhagen airport. It arrived fine in Barcelona. We're still working on the colour combination for the bicycle and we're working on getting the price down so that it is affordable.

Once on the ground in Catalunya, we needed more wheels. And this is where our good friends from CityBici stepped in to help. They provided us with cool bicycles from Creme Cycles. You know it's a chic city when your lovely friends show up with their friends and all of them are lovely and gorgeous. Here they all are, above, in front of Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. Vanessa from CityBici, in the middle, is beautifully pregnant and we'll promptly add this shot to our Bicycles and Pregnancy tag here on the blog.

Creme Cycles make a variety of bikes. Most are upright but they have funky models, too. Like this one.

CityBici were also kind enough to let us use their gorgeous showroom/flat for our conference where we discussed Cycle Chic and shared experiences from the various countries, as well as plotted out the way forward for the brand. Cold beer, cool friends, groovy city. Me gusto.

We still needed a few more bikes for the bloggers, though. My friend Koos from BikeTech bike shop in Barcelona helped swing some bicycles from another shop. Intemperie is an outdoor gear shop in Barcelona and they were kind enough to loan us 10 Brompton folding bikes. Txell, from Barcelona Cycle Chic, held a master class in folding/unfolding the bikes for the uninitiated on the sidewalk outside Intemperie. On the left is a seat warmer from Velorbis having a test ride on a Brompton.


Once in a while situations arose where the people outnumbered the bicycles, as they do, but our crew merely shrugged THAT off and made it work. Tiago and Saskia on the left and Philip and Joni on the right. If memory serves, I had a certain Quebecoise on the back of my bike when taking these shots. :-)

So, all in all, we were well covered in the bicycle department for the duration of the Cycle Chic Bloggers Conference 2011. A couple of rental bikes were squeezed into the equation, as well as a few Bicing bike share bikes. But thanks to a whole bunch of good, cool people for helping us out!

Barcelona Bloggers

Barcelona is doing just fine as an Emerging Bicycle City. What a transformation this city has undergone over the past four years. It is a role model for cities around the planet.

Needless to say, our Cycle Chic bloggers fit right in to the city during the Cycle Chic Conference. What a brilliant bunch of people. So inspirational to hook up with them all.

The Cycle Chicsters:

Barcelona. Copenhagen.

Sydney. Vancouver.

Montreal. Rio.

Dublin. Budapest.

Bordeaux. Ditto.

Paris. Budapest.

Lisbon. Graz.

Cycle Chic Bloggers Conference in Barcelona

What a weekend. The first Cycle Chic Bloggers Conference in Barcelona was a cracking time. We'll be blogging about it over the next couple of days.

Here's some of the gang in Barcelona. From left, Annie-Claude from Bordeaux Cycle Chic, Saskia from Sydney Cycle Chic, Didier from Bordeaux, Anne from Montreal Cycle Chic, Mikael from The Cycle Chic, Tiago from Rio Janiero Cycle Chic (coming soon) and Txell from Barcelona Cycle Chic.

Not pictured (but present at the conference) are The Zoltan and Aron from Hungarian Cycle Chic, Joni and Philip from Dutch in Dublin, Mario from Graz Cycle Chic (coming soon), Benoit from Paris Cycle Chic, Miguel from Lisbon Cycle Chic and David from Vancouver Cycle Chic.

NOOC - French Rainwear for Cyclists

A good friend of ours was in Copenhagen recently. Sophie is from Bordeaux and she is a designer who owns a cool, French brand of rain clothes called NOOC. In the photo, above, by a Copenhagen canal Sophie is wearing one of her rain ponchos.

While we here at Cycle Chic are rather sceptical about all these "urban cycling clothes" we're seeing cluttering up the market, rain gear is a universal need and, often, in desperate need of an injection of style. Sophie and NOOC have succeeded in bringing some panache to the often geeky world of rain gear for cyclists and pedestrians.

Here's Sophie in NOOC's Perfecto jacket.


Here are some shots from NOOC's catalogue, taken in Bordeaux where the brand is based.

NOOC's products are a classic European mix. A French company acquires recycled material from Belgium and gets the clothes produced in Portugal. Which we find to be very cool. China often gets a bad rap. There are quality factories, not just crappy ones that exploit workers. But an all-European product is definately something that gets our attention and respect.

NOOC's website is currently only in http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifFrench, but the brand is growing faster than fast and an English version will hit the internet tout suite.

It's not all girly clothes, either. Dapper gentleman have great rainwear options in the NOOC range.

All in all, Cycle Chic is fond of NOOC. And we're looking forward to handing out some cool NOOC products to the chic'est cyclists in Barcelona on June 17th, when we'll be photographing the most fashionable cyclists in the city during the Cycle Chic Bloggers Conference, in assocation with BAAC.

Bikes, Breakfast, Barcelona

So we're counting down to the Cycle Chic Blogger Conference in Barcelona on June 17-19, 2011. It's going to be great to meet up with some of the cool people in our network. We're making the final arrangements and getting ready to party.

Together with BACC - The Catalunya Bicycle Club - we're arranging a Cycle Chic breakfast on the 17th June. It's Bike Week in Barcelona so we'll be on hand to photograph the city's chicest bicycle users and hand out prizes.

If you're in town then, here's the Facebook event page!

The big question is... what bikes are the Cycle Chic bloggers going to ride? As we're not locals, we can't get a Bicing card so we're going to need some wheels.

Any bright ideas? Any bike brands that we can test drive? Let us know.

Cycle Chic Blogger Conference 2011

We're counting the days to the first Cycle Chic Blogger Conference. We knew we had a fantastic network of cycle chic bloggers but realised that it was high time we hooked up with them. Face to face. Beer to beer.

So we chose Barcelona as the venue and we're planning a great weekend in June. The guest list is by invitation and we're going to have a blast.

If you have a cycle chic blog and want to be at the conference, or hear more, drop us an email.