The Life-Sized City Blog

Cyclists crossing the bicycle bridge over the harbour in Randers were rewarded with hot cocoa last week. Randers is a provincial town in Jutland with about 60,000 citizens. The city's traffic department and the European Union programme Trendy Travel and Beredskabstjenesten [anyone have a good translation for THAT?] set up a table and offered winter cyclists a hot drink of chocolate goodness in the morning as a pat on the back for cycling in this year's harsh winter. Not everyone fancied stopping - cycling is A to B business in Denmark and when you leave A you generally just want to get to B - but a number of people took up the offer of cocoa. Like Ilse Andreasen, above. She rides her bicycle to work all year round, except for about five days when it's too slippery. She said to Randers Amts newspaper that it has to be exceptionally cold before she freezes. Good on you, Ilse. The free cocoa is the first of a series of initiatives scheduled for the spring that will place foc...

A historical photo of two classic figures in bicycle history. Two knife sharpeners. They rode about both the countryside and the city, offering their blade sharpening services to anyone who would pay the price. The usual setup was like the bicycle on the left. The back bicycle wheel was rigged with an external cog onto which a strap was attached so that they could sit stationary and pedal whilst sharpening knives, scissors and all manner of blades. The chap on the left as a similar but seemingly more complex system. The last time I saw one was in the city centre about ten years ago. Parked in a courtyard behind a trendy café, he was handed knives from the chefs through the window and he would mount his bicycle and sharpen them to perfection. Here's a more recent version from the streets of Africa. Wonderful. Thanks for the link in the comments.

Last year the City of Aarhus - Denmark's second largest city - launched a comprehensive campaign to encourage more citizens to cycle. The city's post code is 8000 and the campaign is subsequently called " 8000 Advantages to Cycling ". Here's some of the highlights of the campaign. Aarhus lags behind Copenhagen and Odense in the levels of cycle traffic so this campaign is aimed at doing something about it. By and large, from a marketing perspective, the campaign does well to sell urban cycling as positive. There are snippets of fear mongering present in the form of bike helmet promotion, despite the warnings of doing so, but it's impressive in the current Culture of Fear climate in Denmark that the campaign is largely positive. Photo from the campaign. The eternally iconic Cycling Girl so dear to Danish culture. There were also various programmes as a part of the campaign to bring the joy of cycling to children. The city sent people out onto the streets and b...

Dublin. 1961. The frightening " Two-wheeled Taliban " terrorize the streets of the Irish capital. Like I always say, welcome to Bicycle Culture 2.0. We've been there before. We're there again in many cities. We're going there again in many, many others. Time to get used to it. Will Dublin be at the head of the pack or lagging behind? Hopefully I'll be visiting in June to check it all out.

The vast majority of parents to children at our daycare drop off/pick up their kids on bicycles. Last Friday the children dressed up in costumes to celebrate Fastelavn, the millenia-old Nordic pagan version of the carnival celebrating the approaching spring. The parents were invited to hang out and have a cup of coffee and a fastelavn pastry, which is why there is congestion in the bicycle parking out front. Normally, the drop off / pick up times are scattered all over the morning / afternoon depending on each family's routine so it was cool to see the armada of bicycles all at once. This is just one angle. I was in a hurry. The bicycles continue around the corner and into the beyond. It's different at schools where the bell rings daily at 08:00 so there is an intense flow of bicycles approaching my son's school in the 10-15 minutes up to the bell. Get there early to get a good bike parking spot.

This text was seen on posters circulated in London back in 1908. Quite visionary. Time for history to repeat itself? Time to reclaim our streets, not just for cyclists, but for all citizens? As read in the book Death on the Streets - Cars and the mythology of road safety , as mentioned in the previous post.

Death on The Streets Another book which is so interesting that it makes my head hurt is by Robert Davis. Death on the Streets: Cars and the Mythology of Road Safety. I've been reading it for ages. A couple of pages is enough for me to put it down and reflect. It's chock full of facts and references, as well as thought-provoking observations about the role of the car in our societies. It discusses how most of the 'road safety improvements' of the past 50 years, from road design to seat belts, have actually resulted in a terrifying increase in danger from cars, which permeates all over lives and the book is also 'a social history of the terrible toll of car surpremacy...' Worldwide, between 15-20 million people have died and hundreds of millions have been permanently injured in road accidents since the beginnings of motorised society early last century. The book's publication in 1993 brought about the formation of the Road Danger Reduction Forum , of which Rob...

Photo by Marie. You see this truck quite often around Copenhagen. It's from the Københavns Cykelbørs - Copenhagen Bicycle Exchange - who rent bicycles to tourists as well as selling bicycles and doing repairs. The truck transport the bikes around to various locations where and if they're needed. The text on the artwork " Det er et yndigt land... " is the opening lyrics to the national anthem and translated it works out as: "It is a lovely country..." To hear what the national anthem sounds like when sung by 42,000 men, women and children at a national football match, click here . There is a lovely land with broad, shady beeches Near salty Baltic beaches Its hills and valleys rise and fall its ancient name is Denmark, And it is Freya's hall This land is still as fair, the sea is blue around it, And peace is cherished there Strong men and noble women still uphold their country's honour With faithfulness and skill Anyway, there have been various owners...

Screen grab from DRs 21 Søndag news programme . The Danish Finance Minister, Lene Espersen , was on the national news last night in another attempt to sell the tax cuts the party she leads - The Conservatives - have advocated for. She did so in a photo op at a bicycle shop with the angle: " this is how I'm spending my extra cash... I'm buying a new bicycle. " The bottom line is that it's great she was using a bicycle purchase to illustrate her point and she repeated the Conservative mantra of 'buy, consume, repeat' in the interview to underline how the economy can be boosted. She encouraged us to buy, for example, a new bicycle and create a chain of good reactions in the economy. Hang on.... what's that underneath the bottom line? Ah... it's the small print. It tells a different story. Firstly, the Conservatives and the Liberal Party , who both govern Denmark at the moment, are not exactly legendary bicycle advocates. Secondly, the tax cuts are fri...

The City of Copenhagen issued a press release last Friday about how the City's stash of salt for the roads and bicycle lanes is very low due to the snowstorms of the past few weeks. Salting: Bicycle Lanes and the main roads have the highest priority Because of the hard winter conditions of the past several weeks there is a shortage of road salt all over Denmark, including Copenhagen. We must therefore prioritize which roads and paths we salt. At the moment we are prioritising the bicycle lanes/cycle tracks as well as the main approach roads to the city, so that the police and ambulances can get in. Nice to see they have their priorities right. And even with another snowstorm on it's way to Denmark - the third in a week - the bicycle lanes must be kept clear.

I spotted this around Nørreport metro station. A sign from the City of Copenhagen. The train and metro station are the busiest in the nation. This is, apparently, a rescue zone in case of an accident. The sign reads: Rescue Zone Is your bicycle gone? Maybe it's in the bike rack on Israel's Square. We moved it to be on the safe side. [or 'for the sake of safety'] I like the gentle, helpful tone. What a nice sign. The City moves bicycles a hundred metres away to a large bike rack on the nearby square so that the rescue zone is kept clear and they let you know where you can, perhaps, find it.