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.
We've always loved the Danish cargo bike brand Triobike. Cool design, lightweight build and a real statement on the urban landscape. The Mercedes of cargo bikes, if you like. Their Mono model is becoming more and more popular on the streets of Copenhagen - and beyond.
We also love the way they've branched out into co-branding and using their bikes as marketing space.
This customised model features the trademark detailing of the famous Royal Copenhagen brand and was done in association with them for Illums Bolighus - the iconic design store in Copenhagen.
The possibilities are endless, given the rebirth of bicycle culture and especially the increasing focus on cargo bikes as cool tools for urban life. Burberry Bike, anyone? Or a Paul Smith version?
Flying away or enjoying a cup of joe?
How to get your cheap DIY bits and pieces home from a certain Swedish warehouse.
Here's a bicycle that Cycle Chic has been riding around on for a few weeks. It's fun to test drive new bicycles in the ongoing search for cool urban transport. It's an ocean out there, filled with schools of groovy rides.
Taking a bike for a test drive is great, but I don't think you really get a sense of the bicycle by staring at it intently and riding it around the block or on a parking lot or at a bike fair. The best way to test drive a bicycle is to use it for a longer period.
A short test drive places all your focus on the bicycle and is a bit nerdy. Because it's not about the bicycle. It's about you on the bicycle. So here at Cycle Chic we figured we'd test drive bicycles for a longer period. In order to become comfortable with the machine and, in a way, to forget the bicycle.
Once you ride a bicycle around for more than a couple of days, you don't notice it. You're looking around your city, going from A to B. Then it's possible to return to thinking about the ride. The bicycle featured here is the Velorbis Leikier. It's a co-branding effort between two Danish companies. Lars Leikier is a respected bikesmith, located here in Copenhagen. Together with his business partner he produces that proud workhorse of the Danish cargo bike fleet - the Sorte Jernhest, or Black Iron Horse. Here's a Sorte Jernhest in action in Copenhagen. Lars Leikier is inspired by the American choppers from the 50's and 60's and the Leikier is an offshoot of this fascination. On their website it's described as a Stately City Floater [statslig byflyder]. He crafts 15-20 of these bicycles each year in his bikesmithy. Totally con amore. Now Leikier and classic Danish brand Velorbis have entered into a co-branding of the bicycle. Taking it to the next level. The result can be seen here.
So what's it like to ride? First of all, the bicycle is a real headturner. You can't pedal anonymously through the city on this puppy. Men, women and teenagers notice it and admire it as you roll past.
I've found that the description "Stately City Floater" is a perfect way to decribe riding the Velorbis Leikier. You sit grandly upon the saddle. The design makes your mother proud in the way that you're sitting up straight. I've discovered that it's virtually impossible to ride with two hands. One hand is magically drawn away from the handlebars to hang casually at my side or to glide into a pocket.
You feel like a king on this bicycle. You rise up above your city and survey it from a two-wheeled perch. All desire to go fast is removed from the design - although with 8 gears you can get up to speed if you need to. It is the poster child for the Slow Bicycle Movement. And it looks bloody fantastic, too. Oh, and super easy to find in bike racks filled with hundreds of bikes. It's the tallest bike around.
I like it when you ride a bicycle and just kind of forget about but somewhere, somehow you just feel good on it. If you notice your bicycle too much, it's not necessarily a good thing. It's like holding hands with someone you fancy. It should be natural. You should know exactly how you both like to hold hands and when your fingers intertwine it should feel nice for a moment and then just become natural.
During the Velo-City Conference 2010 I loaned the Velorbis Leikier to my friend Joel, from Ottawa. A good choice. He dressed for the bicycle.
- The Velorbis Leikier is available from Velorbis - www.velorbis.com. - It retails for 10,000 kroner - $2995 in the States. There are only 15-20 of them hand-made each year at the moment. - They come in two colours; black and silver.
Cycle Chic is pleased to announce that we've teamed up with Danish bicycle brand Velorbis for a Climate Conference Gorgeousness Competition.
We figured that since the whole world is in our fine city at the moment, we'd offer our guests the chance to win an iconic, Danish Design, upright bicycle. What better way to remember our cycling city than by winning a red Velorbis Studine bicycle and taking it home with you.
The competition starts today, December 9th, 2009 and entries will be accepted until midnight on Monday, December 14th, 2009. The winner will be announced at 09:00 CET on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009.
It's open to guests to Copenhagen who are in town at the moment for the UN Climate Conference. Participants must answer a question and the best answer will win the bicycle. In 25 words or less, please answer this question:
"How will you personally commit to a better environment IN STYLE, with this bicycle if you win it?"
Entries are submitted to this blog post in the comments section - see farther down. All entries must include at least a first name and a hometown. If you don't want to write more than that when entering, fine, but if you win we'll want your name and photo on the blog!
We like original, funny, ironic, witty, by the way, but we're wide open to everything else.
Here's what you can win:
It's a red Velorbis 'Studine' [the Danish word for female student], fresh from the factory in Germany. You only win the bicycle, not the Danish Bicycle Ambassador and Cycle Chic chap in the photo. Fortunately for you. Seriously. He's high-maintenence. Be pleased you just get the damned bicycle.
The Velorbis Studine has a retail price in Denmark of 4699 kroner and in the USA of $1295. So THAT'S cool.
In addition, and as a nod of respect to that other cycling nation, the Netherlands, you'll get Basil pannier bags - Blossom Twig style. They'll match your red Studine perfectly.
- The competition is aimed at foreign guests who are currently in Copenhagen for the Climate Conference. If you're not in Copenhagen and/or if you don't know what the climate conference is, you probably shouldn't enter. - Cycle Chic decides the winner of the competition. The answer that best appeals to us and that best includes the cycle chic lifestyle will win. Total and utter personal taste on our part. - The bicycle you'll win is the exact one in the photo with Mikael, above. As is, baby. - The winner will be announced on Tuesday, 15 December 2009. It is up to the participants to check the blog to see if they won and to contact Cycle Chic using the information that will be provided on the day here on the blog. - Cycle Chic will arrange with the winner a time - during the day between December 15th and December 17th - to pick up the bicycle, take photos and all that. - Once Cycle Chic hands over the bicycle, what the winner does with it is up to them. Shipping it home or taking it on the plane/train as baggage? That's up to you how and where and when and how much. As soon as you get the bike, it's your bike. Period. No, Cycle Chic or Velorbis we won't help you pay for getting it home. - Entries that are not 25 words or less will be disqualified. - Who knows... we may add stuff here if we think it up.
Blah blah blah... Get writing! May the best 25 words or less win!
The very best thing about having launched this strange cycle chic movement is that I have had the opportunity to meet so many like-minded individuals on my travels. Especially people with whom I developed online friendships under the exquisitely tailored cycle chic banner.
It's always brilliant to shake these hands, kiss these cheeks and look these people in the eyes after ages of communicating in text and photos. Whether it be in Moscow, Budapest, Czech Republic, NYC, Tokyo, France, Riga and so on.
I must admit, however, that the experience peaked last week in San Francisco, when i hooked up with a posse. A group of women who, for me, personify everything I've wanted Cycle Chic to be and who take the concept to new levels. I found myself looking so much forward to meeting them and I wasn't disappointed.
This is traffic... get used to it.
I don't know what it is about San Francisco. The concept of cycle chic seems to go hand in hand with the city. And in that city there are 'roll' models that do so very much for advocating normalising the bicycle once again.
They have their finger on the pulse of the emerging bicycle culture in the city and they are surfing the wave in style. They are active in advocacy but their mere prescence on their bicycles in their regular, funky/elegant/cool/chic clothes is the best form of advocacy. These girls got it ALL goin' on and they are selling the re-democratization of cycling every minute of the day.
First up you got Kristin, mastermind behind the Velovogue blog. Of all the copycats and collaborators who have started cycle chic-like blogs, Kristin is one whom I've hit it off with from the start. She is the first one who I really considered a collaborator. Hanging with her and seeing her navigate the streets on her cool mixte was a pleasure. Up and down the hills we went. Kristin and I both originate in the film/tv industry so we had loads of 'shop talk' but really, it was all about bicycles.
Here you have Kristin and Adrienne before we headed out on a 'bike ride' - something you apparently do in Emerging Bicycle Cultures. :-) Adrienne has long ranked super high on the list of sharp, bright commenters on this blog and especially over at Copenhagenize.com. Her humour certainly lacks nothing at all either. Adrienne blogs at Velovogue, too and she writes/photographs at her brilliant Change Your Life, Ride a Bike blog, as well. Adrienne rides 'the heaviest bicycle in San Francisco', although it wouldn't even make the top 30,000,000 in Europe, let alone Asia, and yet she rides so effortlessly. Even up the hills. All the while relaying a constant encyclopædic flow of information about the history of the city or the status of bicycle culture in this or that neighbourhood. A goldmine of information and a Tiffany's of humour. Such dedication to the cause of promoting cycling positively, too.
Then you have Meli. You can't forget Meli. from Bikes and the City. She also founded Change Your Life, Ride a Bike with Adrienne. This photo really sums her up. She can strike up a conversation with every [wo]man and his/her dog. With such ease that the first 150 times I was sure she had known the individual since grammar school. What a brilliant character trait to behold. Even people just walking down the street recieved a bike bell 'ding' and a pleasant or cheeky comment. Actually, there was no real pattern to her bell ringing. I think she just likes ringing her bell. Which is cool.
These three bikeissima cycle chicistas took such very good care of me in San Francisco. I had to teach them how to drink margueritas and they showed me what the hell a 'bike ride' was as we headed out to the Golden Gate bridge the day after Critical Mass.
Three amazingly passionate advocates for normalising cycling and they all do it with ease, grace and style. When I started these blogs I didn't have a clue what a 'bicycle advocate' was. Meeting these women and I now know the definition of the phrase.
The International Cycle Chic Convention in San Francisco 2009 lasted for more than 24 hours. It involved a lecture [by me] and then quickly progressed into a Halloween Critical Mass before moving to an Ethiopian meal at a restaurant in Mission whereafter it morphed into margueritas at a mariachi joint and then beers at a... bar. Pause for sleep and then coffee, bike ride, coffee, bike ride, etc. on a brilliantly sunny SF Saturday.
I couldn't wish for a better time with better hostesses with the mostesses. Above you can see photos of the ICCCSF2009 and you can also see other members of the posse, including the lovely Lilia of LiliaPilia and the wonderful Melissa. Not to mention Didrik and Caryl and The Man Erik Zo.
Cycle Chic isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Not with these kinds of people selling the idealistic product for the Common Good. And all the anti-cycle chic hatred you can muster won't make a difference.
I've not seen such cool bike parking in ages. At my hotel in San Francisco - the W Hotel - they have three Danish Biomega bicycles for guests to use free. Okay, three isn't much, but it's what they do with them that counts. It's like a museum the way they hang them up on the wall like that. You ask the valet for a bicycle and he walks over with a crank and proceeds to lower - slowly and cerimoniously - the bicycle to the ground. Now THAT is style over speed!
I rode the bicycle during the Halloween Critical Mass and the next day, too, with some friends. A one-speed on the hills of San Francisco. Easy peasy. Photo by Kristin somewhere on Valencia.
The Cycle Chic Guide to Safe Bicycles is really quite a simple concept. It all starts in our childhoods when our mothers taught us to sit up straight. All we need to do is apply this simple advice to riding bicycles.
The invention of the so-called 'Safety' Bicycle around 130 years ago was a revelation and and revolution. It provided easy and effective urban mobility for the masses and the masses were quick to hop on board.
Prior to the invention of the Safety bicycle, bikes were the domain of the sub-cultural upper classes who got their kicks on the contraptions by racing them and trying to outdo each other in daredevil stunts. Calling the design of the bicycle that we still use today the 'Safety' bicycle was simply a marketing move aimed at distancing the bicycle from the speedfreaks and 'daredevils' in order to sell bicycles to women and men in the other classes.
If all this sounds familiar it's because we are currently revisiting this pivotal point in bicycle history once again. In many Emerging Bicycle Cultures the male-dominated adrenaline crowd have had decades to brand cycling as a sport or adrenaline-based recreational activity, with little or no opposition to their marketing.
Now, fortunately, we are all very aware of the importance of urban mobility, creating liveable cities and using the bicycle as a tool to re-establish bicycle culture in urban centres around the world - and harvesting all the fruits that this move entails. These are exciting times for urban cycling. Bicycle advert from the late 1800's. So, is the upright Safety bicycle safe? Yes, it is. There is a very good reason that it has been the most popular bicycle on the planet for more than a century. If you morphed all the bicycles in the world right now into one bicycle, you'd end up with an upright model. It would probably be black, with three speeds and a chainguard/skirtguard and coaster brakes.
Why is the upright bicycle safe? First of all, have a look at the two girls in the photo at the top. Look at their posture. Not only pleasing their mothers, it is elegant. But more than that, this upright posture means that their centre of gravity is in much the same spot as it is when they are walking. Homo sapiens have been around for about 200,000 years and prior to that, other upright-walking species have spent around 2 million years evolving this all-important centre of gravity to near-perfection. In other words, our centre of gravity is quite handy in helping us get around. In addition, it is something that we use every single day in almost every move we make. We're quite good at using it. Look at the people on bicycles in this shot and compare their posture with the pedestrians in the background. There is little difference. All the centres of gravity are pretty much the same.
Compare this to the riding position on, for example, racing bikes. The upper body is pitched forward, which causes the centre of gravity to shift. In this position the point is dangling in mid-air somewhere over the crossbar. Just think about braking sharply. Your body must battle to keep the weight of your upper body from chucking you forward, which is unnatural for homo sapiens. In an upright position, your body knows how to readjust itself for this sudden stopping motion, much like when you stop suddenly when walking or jogging.
The racing position is great for people who... well... race or who like to go fast. Works perfectly for them, which is super. If you look at established bicycle cultures, the majority of people don't wish to adhere to this way of riding, prefering to merely use the bicycle as a quick and easy tool for getting around and wearing the clothes they have in the closets to do so. Not surprisingly, the upright bicycle is more often than not their vehicle of choice.
To illustrate the relaxed and natural upright position, here's a little film from Copenhagen. The majority of the people on bicycles in the film are using this safe, natural posture, on bicycles built for this purpose. This upright posture also raises you up above the cars, making you more visible on the urban landscape, instead of being hidden amongst the traffic, crouched over.
Acceleration Acceleration on upright bicycles is also much easier, simply because your centre of gravity remains, largely, the same. You just stand up and assume even more of a walking posture.
Even if you have to lean a bit forward to accelerate a bit quicker the leaning forward motion is still not over-exaggerated, allowing you to maintain that all-important centre of gravity instead of tilting it into a more unstable position.
Shoulder Checking Much the same physics applies to the simple but important task of keeping an eye on what's around you, including traffic. Walking down the street and turning your head to see if the bus is coming is not far removed from sitting upright on a bicycle and turning your head to perform a shoulder check. Your balance is stable.
Try sitting at a table and lean over it, as though you were on a racing bicycle. Then try to perform a shoulder check. Odds are you'll be mostly checking your shoulder, as opposed to the traffic. If you want to get a clearer view, you'll have to shift your centre of gravity to the side. Rather unnatural for humans, not to mention unstable. Sure, you could look under your arm, like racing cyclists do, but then you're removing your vision almost completely from what's ahead of you. Not advisable.
While you're at the table, leaning over, try looking straight ahead. Your neck is not in a comfortable position the way you have to keep it lifted up. This isn't a problem you'll have when you're sitting up straight.
All of this is basic physics and we don't need a PhD to understand it. There is, however, a number of scientific studies showing that upright bicycles with step-through frames are integral in reducing accidents. Marc at Amsterdamize posted a piece about the healthy posture. And a ten-year study of bicycle accidents featuring elderly cyclists in Sweden by Ulf Björnstig at Umeå University resulted in him advocating step-through frames and lower seat heights. April Streeter over at Treehugger did a piece about this: Swedes Conclude: Girls' Bikes Safer
Besides the safety aspects of the upright bicycle, the design encourages you to have a look around your city when you ride, instead of speeding off. You'll notice more on your daily ride and, indirectly, feel more of a part of your city. This sense of community is a fantastic bonus.
Interesting, the rapid growth in sales of bicycles that feature "Easy Boarding", or a frame that makes it even easier to get on or off the bicycle, is an indication that the upright bicycle is experiencing yet another renaissance. Originally designed for the elderly, these easy boarding models are quickly going mainstream, thanks to their ultra low frame. By way of illustration, the Danish brand MBK Cykler has this Queen Shopping model.
