Both Sides of The Sound

The Sound is the name of the sea between Copenhagen and Sweden and, on the other side is Malmö, Sweden's third largest city. They ride bikes, too. Upwards of 25% of all trips are made by bike. It's a lovely place to visit, only 30 minutes on the train from Copenhagen.

You get to see so many cool Swedish bikes - Crescent and Hermes/new and old. Normal bikes, of course. With normal people on normal clothes riding them.

What a beauty. For more smashing Malmöliciousness on bikes...

Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen

Don't fancy unsightly raingear? Forget your brolley at home in your rush to get to the café? Not to worry. Just wrap your scarf around your head and you're a female Lawrence of Copenhagnia in the light summer rain.

It's a criss-cross bike world. I love the couple holding hands on the right.

Self-Irony

Cycle Deliciousness for the Weekend

There were showers on and off yesterday but it was lovely and warm. Here's a Copenhagen supermum heading home in the afternoon. Perhaps she's picking up the little one[s] today, perhaps it's the dad.


Here's a little teaser for a longer version I'm working on.


Sometimes you ride with your umbrella, sometimes you walk. Check the Biking With Umbrellas tag for more photos.


Would she have chose those orange earrings if she rode a green bike? Unlikely. Bikes are mere transport, but they are a part of your fashion style and your personality in Copenhagen.


Ride and smoke in the casualness of Copenhagenishness.

We posted about Topshop's new bicycle advert the other day. A reader let us know about The Gap's version from a couple of years ago.

Copenhagen How To

This whole blog is a Copenhagen How To, but here are some recent shots.

How to buy tickets for you, and your bike, in the Copenhagen Metro.

How to park your bike outside a Tiger of Sweden shop. Just a quick click of your wheel lock and off you go. And remember, cyclists make better shoppers than motorists.

How to transport two bottles of beer in style. The bike this chap is on is a Pedersen, or a Dursley-Pedersen. The inventor of this revolutionary bike, Mikael Pedersen, died in 1929 but in 1995 his remains were reinterred in Dursley, Gloucestershire, where this bike was made famous. Sometimes called The Most Comfortable Bicycle in the Universe.

How to say good-bye to friends. A last exchange of words, the light turns green, supermum on left rides straight on, friend on right turns right.

How to ride home in the afternoon.

How to gently accelerate off the lights on your Short John delivery bike.

PLUGGING
We'd be fibbing if we said we weren't frightfully pleased about this article in The Guardian from yesterday. Thanks to Carlton Reid for the kind mentions and compliment. Check Carlton's bike site at Quickrelease.tv.

Traffic Calming and Other Wednesdayish Things

In Copenhagen we have a unique traffic calming system. Traffic lights are sooo last century. Instead, we send carefully selected Copenhageners into intersections with red boots on. Within seconds, the traffic stops, both motorised as well and bicycle and pedestrian. Men and women alike. For those sweet few moments, the city is safe and even more aesthetically-pleasing. Works like a charm.

Yet another brilliant application of the bicycle in the Copenhagen urban landscape. Selling fresh fruit on street corners. They call it the Fruitbike.dk, a custom-built cargo bike for this specific purpose. Nobody does cargo bike culture like the Danes. But then again, we've been at it for a century or so. For more cargo bike culture...


It's funny how many people find riding in high heels or in a suit to be such a foreign concept, while it really is as easy as buttering a delicious, thick slice of Danish rye bread. Above, barristers heading home from the City Courts. Below, a smashing chappie on his Raleigh waiting for the light.



A little criss-cross cycle waltz. Cyclist on left rolls easily along the separated bike lane. Cyclist on right negotiates crossing the street. The 'Copenhagen Bike Lane', as illustrated on the left celebrates 25 years this year. Read more over at our Copenhagenize.com blog. Separated bike infrastructure is the flagship for any established bike culture and the goal for any city wishing to increase the number of cyclists in the urban landscape.

A display at a shop in the Tivoli Gardens. They don't sell bikes or anything to do with bikes but the bicycle is such a quintessential symbol of Danishness that it works in every setting.

Our friends the Dutch are planning on building a massive artificial island off the coast in the shape of a tulip. If we choose to do the same here in Denmark, you can bet it would be in the shape of a bicycle. I'd love to see that. A massive granny bike in the sea between Denmark and Sweden.

For the new visitors showing up on the blog today, here's our Cycle Chic All-Stars Selection:

Copenhagen Cycle Chic Goes to London - Topshop Rules

Topshop is is the current leader of the Cycle Chic peloton with this brand new advert featuring pure Copenhagenesque Cycle Chic.

"This season green is the new black and bicycles are the only wheels to be rocking up in."

Indeed. Nice one, Topshop. Our only minor regret is that it isn't a Danish bicycle, but we can live with that just this once.

It's adverts like this that help generate not only pure Cycle Chic but also pure bike culture. Some people can get with the former, but everyone can get with the latter. Presenting the bicycle as a normal, easy and fun form of transport to an impressionable generation is brilliant. London cycle chic extraordinaire. In many ways, this video sums up everything we try to portray here at Copenhagen Cycle Chic and we're loving this little love-in we have with Topshop.

Here are some stills from the video for your perusal.
One thing is certain, Boris Johnson, the new Lord Mayor of London would love this video. As do we.

The video is also available on Youtube.

Ride on. And have a giggle at the poor soul Jamie Caddick who wrote this letter to the editor in the Bristol Evening Post. Be sure to write a comment.

Handy Dandy

One of the more subtle details of the casualness of Copenhagen bike culture is one that I never noticed until recently.

The sight of a cyclist riding with one hand is truly a sign that urban cycling is relaxing and refreshing. You're at ease on the bike lanes, separated from the traffic. Your only concern is maintaining a comfortable momentum on your way to wherever it is you are going.

One finger riding is even better.

No rush.

No hurry.

The Textural Effect

In the middle distance a cyclist puts on her Danefæ rain jacket. On the right, a chap struggles to get his jacket on before the rain increases and/or the lights change. On the left, a Copenhagener quite unaffected by it all. Looking casual and lovely and ready to pedal away on green.

As you may have noticed I happen to take photos of my fellow Copenhageners on or next to their bicycles. Quite a few, actually. A few of them end up on this blog.

Naturally, I like each photo that makes it to this blog or to my Flickr photostream. I'm a photographer, after all. Occasionally, however, I will present photos that are most interesting in a journalistic persepective - showing people what a bicycling life is like in Copenhagen. Photos that won't make the cut in an exhibition on the subject but which are valid for telling this ongoing visual story.

Occasionally I am lucky enough to take a photo that thrills me personally. There is rarely a specific reason for it. It just speaks to me, the viewer, in a specific, personal tone. The photo above, taken last week, is one of these rare photos for me.

Another photo that I can't seem to forget.
In my Danish daily newspaper of choice, Politiken, the Photo Editor Per Folkver has a weekly column about photography. I translated a bit of his musings from yesterday:

"What is the textural effect in a flat photograph? Is it that you sense the elasticity of the skin as though the person was standing in front of you? That you feel the water's cool blueness as though you were submerged in it? Or isn't it really that the person in the photograph radiates closeness and prescence to such a degree that the photograph becomes more than merely a photograph of a person?

Is the textural effect in a photograph when the photograph's own form erases itself as form and applies its own message and story? In other words, becoming invisible as a photograph but present as an assertion.

A photograph can't, of course, become invisible - then it isn't a photograph. But when you see a photo that you like, you shouldn't think "Wow! That's a lovely photograph!" - you should think "Wow! Is there ever a lot of energy in those people!" - or whatever the subject matter happens to be."

Another favourite.
Sometimes you dear readers will comment on a photo and say that it is your favourite so far, or something like that. I am more often than not surprised by these choices, but as long as something tickles you in a photograph, I'm thrilled to death.

Feel free to comment on which photographs, so far, you remember above all others. I'd love to hear about it.

My Ride Home and other photos

The Ride Home. Beats any motorway, anywhere.

Cruising with ease and elegance.

Waiting for the light to change in the left turn lane of the bike lane is often a relaxing affair.

If you have the time, please click something on the poll on the right. Thanks for your time.