General Motors "Like Bikes"

In stark contrast til General Motors' "Stop pedalling, start driving" campaign, here's a film from what appears to be the 1970s that was produced by General Motors.

"I Like Bikes". It's a weird film and with its 13+ minutes, it's a bit of a snore, although strangely appealing in a zen-like way on a Saturday morning with a hangover. Like watching snooker on Eurosport.

I used to teach storytelling and screenwriting and in that talk I highlighted the evolution of the length of storytelling and the journey from the dawn of the television age to brevity in our dramaturgy. In the 70's you could spend almost 14 minutes explaining what we would, today, compress into 3 minutes or less. Watching the film is like listening to a looong story told by an inebriated, aging member of the family at a dinner party. No clear beginning, middle or end. Getting to the point, if there is one, is like pulling teeth. But hey.

I have absolutely no idea what it's about. I expected a whole bunch of ignoring the bull but it appears, suprisingly, to be rather balanced. Making drivers aware that they should watch out for bikes because they're hard to see. I'm assuming it was a film made for school classes.

Whatever the case, GM says they like bikes! They produced a film placing the responsibility on the motorists to be aware of bicycles. A film that seems to respect the bicycle's prescence on the urban landscape. It's wild! It's crazy!

I like bikes... by yoruse
Did I miss something? Suffer through the film, like I did, and let me know what you think.

7550 New Bike Parking Spots at Copenhagen Central Station

For all of Copenhagen's badassness as a bicycle city, there remains one thing that the City still completely sucks at. Bicycle parking at train stations. At Copenhagen Central Station there are only about 1000 bike parking spots. Danish State Railways can't even tell us how many spots they have. They're not sure. Even in Basel they have 800+. In Antwerp they have this . Don't even get me started on the Dutch. 12,500 bike parking spots are on the way in some place called Utrecht . Amsterdam has a multi-story bike parking facility, floating bicycle barges round the back and are planning 7000 more spots underwater . Even at the nation's busiest train station, Nørreport, the recent and fancy redesign failed miserably in providing parking that is adequate for the demand . Architects once again failing to respond to actual urban needs. It is time to remedy that. Here is my design for 7550 bike parking spots behind Copenhagen Central Station. Steve C. Montebello i...

The Race for Lithium for Electric Cars and Bicycles

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia. Photo: Ezequiel Cabrera/Wikipedia The coming boom in batteries to electric cars and Lazy Bikes (electric-assist bicycles) means a boom in batteries with which to run them. A new race for natural resources has begun. Enter Lithium, the world's lightest metal. For 150 years it's been nickel and lead that have been used in batteries but the advent of lithium technology has allowed for a revolution. Longer battery life, lighter batteries in our laptaps and mobile phones and iPods. Lithium weighs 1/20th of what nickel and lead do. Lithium is also used in anti-depressive medicine, ceramics and nuclear power. With all this talk of electric cars and bicycles, the demand for lithium is on the verge of exploding. Lithium is the new oil. Enter Boliva. This developing country sits on at least half of the world's supply of lithium, most of it in underground salt layers beneath the world's largest salt flats in Salar de Uyuni , in south-west Boliva. Betwee...

Bikes Beat Metro in Copenhagen

Originally published on April 4, 2014 Like anyone interested in city life, we like to keep our eyes on the street life of our city. Currently however, the City of Copenhagen is planning to take some away from the street, by forcing people underground, with the 'M3 Cityringen' expansion of the Metro. Instead of investing in the reestablishment of our tram network - so rudely removed by the ironically-named mayor Urban Hansen in the 1970s - Copenhagen seems keen to get people off the street. This doesn’t come cheap: €3 billion gets you an additional 17 stations added to the existing Metro network. Some of the cost can be explained by the fact that It is not easy to build a Metro in Copenhagen, a city that is on the whole scarcely above sea level, and with a dense urban fabric too. It's due for completion in 2018, but that's later than the initial estimate and with the date still some way off who knows whether it will actually be ready by then - just ask the ...

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