The Life-Sized City Blog

A friend has a photo book of "Naughty Vintage Danish Postcards". Most are from the late 1800's/early 1900's. Loads of rubenesque ladies in sultry positions and then there were these. Bicycle Naughtiness. So risqué. :-) Probably NSFW in some countries... watch out.

ADDENDUM - 09 MAY 2011 The head of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office, Andreas Røhl , sent us a comment about the above article. It's at the end of this article. ------------ On April 16 there was an article in Politiken , a national newspaper, about some visionary new goals for cycling in Copenhagen. The current mayor in charge of the Technical & Environmental Administration (DoT), Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, is quoted as saying the following soundbites: "If you don't dare to be ambitious, you don't get anywhere". The journalist, who apparently suffers from short and medium term memory loss, wrote this: "It is daring. The goal is that 50% of all trips to work or education in the city of Copenhagen will be on bicycles by 2025." He happily quotes the mayor's press release (Ctrl+C - Ctrl+V is, of course, the New Journalism): Aiming High Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard admits that it is a high goal to aim for. "We haven't seen cities that can reach 50%. It'...

Copenhagen Nurse doing her rounds by bicycle . Don't be surprised if you see a cyclist in hospital whites pedalling about the city of Frederiksberg, in the middle of Copenhagen [population: 91,000]. Nurses providing post-natal care to new mothers and fathers ride around the city, and in Copenhagen as well, but treating the elderly in their own home has also proved to be beneficial. Frederiksberg Hospital sends nurses out to elderly citizens in order to treat them at home. An initiative that gives the elderly patients a greater peace of mind, but also saves money on hospitalisation. The nurses ride out to patients when a care home, a doctor or the person's home helper calls for assistance. The initiative has been in place since 2005 and it is now seen to bear fruit. Frederiksberg Hospital believes that 82% of the cycling visits have thwarted a potential hospital visit, because it was possible to treat the problem in the patient's own home. While the hospital is pl...

Just when you thought you had seen everything in the Copenhagen bicycle culture, the Sperm Bullitt appears on the cycle tracks of the city. Yes. The Sperm Bullitt. This is brilliant. If you're cycling around Copenhagen, keep your eyes peeled for this bike. Nordisk Cryobank (European Sperm Bank) is one of Europe's leading sperm banks and the company was looking at environmentally-friendly alternatives to how they could transport their sperm samples to the fertility clinics around Greater Copenhagen. The company's CEO, Peter Bower, says, " The first idea was how we could deliver to the fertility clinics in a C02-friendly way. Shortly afterwards followed the idea of a custom-designed bike with a cooling system. Now, six months later, we can cycle around the city on our sperm cell bike. " The text on the side reads Become a Sperm Donor in Danish. The bike is more than just a rolling billboard for the company aimed at increasing awareness of the need for d...

Ah, out of the mouths of babes. Last Sunday I dropped Felix off at football training and then headed to a hardware store with Lulu-Sophia in the Bullitt. She's three and half. We talked as we rolled along, as we always do. At a red light she looked over at a motorcyclist with a passenger on the back. She commented on it. "Daddy... look. There's a motorcycle with TWO people on it!" Daddy replied with "Yeah! I guess they're friends or something, aren't they?" "Yeah." She thought about this for a moment. "We're two people on this bicycle, too!" "Yes, we are. We're friends, too." "Yeah." The light changed green and we rolled onwards. What then came out of her little mouth and clever mind amazed me. She must have been looking around at the traffic after making her observations. "When people are in cars, you can't see them, can you?" "No, you can't", said Daddy...

Steve from Bristol sent us an amusing email stemming from the recent Every Time a Bicycle is Stolen a Fairy Dies post . As he puts it, Every Time You Buy Lycra, a Polar Bear Dies. He explains: "It's worth noting that since 2004, Lycra and coolmax fabrics have been owned by Koch Industries . The brothers who own most of this company don't believe in global warming - and also think if it is true, it could be good for the planet. Ironically, they are one of the top 10 air polluters in the US, according to a report from last year by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute. Here's an article about the brothers from NPR . And here's an article about the brothers and their support of right-wing causes, including the bit about air pollution from The New Yorker . The conclusion is: if you own old Lycra or Coolmax you are untainted. If, however, you bought stuff after 2004 then you fund Sarah Palin and other mad people,...

Our reader Rachel took this shot in Adelaide, Australia and fired it off to us. Thanks so much for that, Rachel. I quite like it. It reminded me of something completed unrelated. There is an old Danish superstition that if you light a cigarette directly from a candle flame, an Icelandic sailor dies. You can, however, save his life if you quickly light a match, let it burn halfway, grab the burnt end and let it burn the entire length, without breaking it. On a vaguely more related note, Icelanders believe in fairies and elves. They actually reroute roads to avoid rock formations where they may be living in colonies . And this in the most literate country in the world.

The City prioritises the bicycle traffic wherever possible in such situations. It doesn't make much sense to build bicycle infrastructure and then not keep it clear. Roads are swept or cleared of snow, as are sidewalks. The same applies to bicycle lanes and tracks. The bicycles must roll on. In a city with such high levels of bicycle traffic, restricting their movement would be expensive. For example, thousands of people late for work means lost manhours for the economy. Plus, it's illegal to block the cycle tracks here. Maintaining the quality of the infrastructure in cities is a neccessity and, as everyone has experienced, roadworks cause traffic congestion and delays. In Copenhagen, there are rules that apply to our bicycle network during situations with roadworks or construction. We've seen how the cities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg prioritise bicycles during snowstorms in the winter so let's look at some examples of how the cities prioritise bicycle tr...

San Francisco visualisation from Connecting the City. I had an email conversation with Andy Thornley from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and he dropped me this link to Connecting the City website about the visions for making San Francisco a more liveable city. It includes interesting visualisations of what the city could/should look like regarding bicycle infrastructure and liveable streets. Great stuff. The modal share - when asking people about commuting - is at 3.9%. Which puts San Francisco at #4 in the US . However, an SFMTA report surveyed San Franciscans as part of its 2008 State of Cycling Report and estimated that about 6% of all trips take place in San Francisco by bicycle. San Francisco is, in my mind, the Great Bike Hope for the US. Lots of positive energy, political will and visionary advocacy. The Board of Supervisors declared a new goal of 20% of trips in San Francisco by bicycle in 2020 and the Mayor has signed it so let's cross our fingers for ...

It's a pleasure for Copenhagenize to publish an article by one of Denmark's great thinkers regarding bicycle culture. Thomas Krag has a Masters degree in Chemistry but for many years he has been closely involved with Danish and international bicycle culture. He was the head of the Danish Cyclists' Federation [DCF] from 1986-2000 and he now runs his own consultancy Thomas Krag Mobility Advice . Thomas' Cycling, Safety and Health article discusses risk perception and how we (often wrongly) measure risk and goes on to highlight how safe cycling is as well as showing the health benefits of having high numbers of bicycle users/Citizen Cyclists in a city or country. Thomas' work has been a great inspiration to me over the past four years. He has been a bit off the bicycle radar for a time, but his rationality and academic approach is much needed in Denmark and internationally. Thomas Krag has tremendous knowledge and experience in all aspects of bicycle culture and stati...