Auto-Mat

Our friends the urban mobility NGO Auto-mat in Prague have produced this classy poster for an upcoming event. It's called A Different Experience and it's all about allowing the citizens the opportunity to see their city in a new light on five chosen streets. To gain insight into what a city can be.

Thanks to Todd for the link.

Prague Cycle Chic

After visiting Pardubice, Prague was quite a different story. The city didn't feature any decent concentration of Cycle Chic. The poster, above, for a new Czech film - Protektor - was the best the Czech capital could come up with.

And this girl advertising Praha Bikes - bike rental. In fact, I think I only saw 30-40 cyclists the entire time I was there.

But we're working on it. :-) I'm in Budapest as I write this and it's quite a different story. Many cyclists on the streets. More on that later.

Czech Cycle Chic in Pardubice

I arrived at Prague Airport and was whisked away down motorways and country roads for an hour and a half. I saw one cyclist on the route.

Then, suddenly, we rolled across the town limits of Pardubice, and it was almost like coming home.

Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. The town of about 90,000 is the cycling capital of the Czech Republic and it shows. 18% of all trips to work or school are by bike and the vast majority of the people on bikes were just regular citizens pedalling about on, for the most part, vintage bikes like the girl in the photo above. It was brilliant.

The occasion of my visit was two-fold. Firstly, I was invited to give my lecture at City Hall about Marketing Bicycle Culture. The Danish ambassador was on hand to say a few words.

Secondly, there in a street exhibition of 30 of my photos along the main stretch of town. 30 photos of a Copenhagen bicycle life. I can't tell you how fun it was to see the photos out in the open like that. In a gallery is lovely, but on the streets is somehow cooler and more appropriate. Images from one urban landscape transplanted into another.



The lecture was, by all accounts, well-recieved and it was wonderful to meet so many Pardubicians of all ages and to discuss how the city can take their bicycle infrastructure to the next level.

I was whisked away to Prague, where I had other business the next day and I'll write about that shortly.

Saturday Certainly

Pure brilliance from my mate Lars, who is one of the top film composers in the land when not photographing on his way to work.


One of our esteemed readers sent us this link to a book titled Romancing The Dead. I know nothing about the book - I just like the Cycle Chic on the cover. Fits well into the It's Not Just Us category.

We're pleased to have been translated, in part, into Czech! My mate Hynek is offering up the Five Senses Series for Czech readers. Nice one. Thanks, Hynek!

Prague Cycle Chic

Photo by Jakub Turek, Horydoly.cz
There was a massive bike ride in Prague the other day, under the critical mass banner, and a friend of mine sent me these lovely photos. I have criticized the critical mass approach earlier as being counterproductive. Things are different, it seems, here in Europe. In Budapest and in Prague, the rides are as they are meant to be - a celebration. There is great cooperation between the organisers and the authorities and hardly any confrontations to speak of. Certainly not like what you see in New York. What a treat it would be to take part.


Photo by Jakub Turek, Horydoly.cz
Perhaps we have more of a tradition of protesting here in Europe. Each summer during "Strike Season", there are protests and strikes across the continent. They are a part of life - citizens passionately demonstrating for or against issues. So perhaps these European versions of the rides are just another demonstration in the eyes of the spectactors.

Whatever the case, it's lovely to see a spot of Cycle Chic in the Czech capital. Go Prague Go!