The Life-Sized City Blog

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. I recieved a text message from Christian (at left, above) saying that he had spotted my red stolen Bullitt in his backyard in the Nørrebro neighbourhood. I called him instantly. (I mean INSTANTLY) and we went over the details on the bike. There was no question it was The Missing Bullitt. My friend Andreas and I hopped onto our bikes and flew off from Copenhagenize Consulting's offices in the centre of Copenhagen to meet up with Christian. Sure enough, there it was. My primary means of transport. Not locked to anything, with just a cheap wire lock through the wheel and frame. Christian had locked it with his own lock to the railing, just in case. The guy who nicked it peeled a few of the stickers off - the Bike Portland ones, the Cycle Chic one, but left the main stickers on the sides intact. DUH! The little seat where my daughter sits on the crossbar was gone, as was the wheel lock, but that's about it. Almost completely as I last saw ...

Saw this photo in a Danish newspaper, Politiken, this morning. The Danish air force sent F-16 jets to Sicily today and this photo shows one of the planes being prepared for duty. I love that there are two classic Danish short john bicycles parked next to them. The bicycle used when maintaining expensive fighter jets. Six F-16s fly off this morning to take part in the global push to battle a dictator who is slaughtering civilians... No... not Yemen, silly! They only have sand and dead civilians! We mean Libya, of course. They have oil and dead civilians. So off we go to war.

I'm sure many readers will remember playing card games like this one, particularly if you live in Europe. There were variations on the theme but cars were the main one. You competed with a friend or friends to see who could win each round by trumping the others' cards with more horsepower or top speed or price, etc. The City of Copenhagen (if I recall correctly) included a set of updated cars in 2009, included in a magazine and called Climate Car Cards. The theme was winning each round with the most environmentally friendly vehicle. A Christiania Bike was featured on one of the cards. It must have the win-all card. It reads as follows: Type: Cargo bike for child transport 0-100 km/h: Unlikely Horsepower: Varies Top speed: Circa 30 km/h Range: Depends on the motor Recharging time: 6-7 hours sleep Energy source: Rye bread Motor: Rye bread motor (it's an Danish expression that a bicycle has a "rye bread motor") Launched: 1984 Price: 11,200 kroner ...

I'd forgotten about this photo from last summer. Two postmen racing down the bicycle path on their Christania bikes after finishing their rounds. Heading back to the post centre on Finsensvej. Enjoying every minute of it. Love it.

The thaw continues but the icy remants of the many snowstorms are useful on occasion.

There are very few things that can't be done by bicycle in Copenhagen. We often blog about the various cargo bike variations in this city. Meet Jacob - aka The Bikeman . He's a bike mechanic with a rolling workshop. He has everything he needs in his cargo box, including a portable stand for suspending bikes. He'll go anywhere you need him to on his Bullitt in the city centre. Jacob also has arrangements with various companies. He comes out during work hours and the employees can go down and get their bikes adjusted, tuned, de-squeaked, whatever you need. No need to sacrifice your bicycle for a day by chucking it into a bikeshop. Brilliant. The professional bikeshop comes to you. If you're in Copenhagen and need to get a hold of The Bikeman , ring 28 40 35 67.

So the Brits are ditching their bicycle postmen. Royal Mail is calling it "modernisation" and citing "safety" as the reason . Over a century of not only tradition but also role models for urban and rural mobility will soon be lost. It's just mad. Does anyone know which company will be providing the vans to replace the bicycles? Was there lobby work at play? Wouldn't surprise me. With a sigh of disgust I just figured I'd chuck a whole bunch of photos of postmen and women in Copenhagen doing what they've done for over a century. And here's a spot of Cycle Chic on the left and a stamp celebrating Danish postal workers.

Historical photo of a rolling advert for the Svajerløb - the bike messenger races - back in the 1940's. A sign attached onto that iconic cargo bike - The Long John. Here's a Long John in action the other day.

A bike thief got a shock yesterday when he stole a Christiania cargo bike from outside a shop here in Copenhagen. A man parked the bike and went into a shop. When he came out the bike was gone. A man had hopped onto it and rode off. The cargo bay had a cover on it, like in the photo above, and when the bike thief looked inside he saw three sleeping children, ages one, four and seven. Not quite what he bargained for when nicking the bike. The police were notified and all available personnel were set to the task of finding the children in the bike. When my wife and I saw this breaking news on the telly my first thought was that the thief would discover the children and then deliver them to safety. Sure enough, after he found them he hid the bike in a cellar entrance and asked the seven year old where they lived. He then followed all three of them home, notified some neighbours and delivered the kids. The police were called and he was arrested. " The bike thief followed the children...

The Copenhagen version of the White Van Man . A lot more relaxed.

Photo courtesy of and © Copenhagen City Museum / Københavns Bymuseum . This is not a photo of my dad. I wish it were. I wish I could have found a photo of him while perusing the photo archives of the Copenhagen City Museum but those odds are quite astronomical. While it's not him, it almost could be. During the Second World War my grandmother - my dad's mum - died and one of his aunts took care of him. He moved from Northern Jutland to Roskilde, near Copenhagen at the age of 15. He got a job, like many Danish boys, as a bike messenger boy in the town. Not long after, he got a job in Copenhagen, working for a green grocers on Gothersgade. Again, he was a bike messenger, riding out to the so-calle 'Vegetable Square' - where shops stocked up on wholesale greens and fruits in the morning - on a Short John like in the photo or a large three-wheeler. He also delivered goods to customers during the day and he lived with the family who owned the shop. So this photo, for me, is ...

One of life's necessary evils is a trip to Cheaptown - aka IKEA. Like everywhere else on the planet, IKEAs in Copenhagen are located in big box areas outside of the city. There are two within 10 km of our flat and I headed out to one of them to buy some boxes for my son's room. He has 15 kg of LEGO and when we redid his room we figured some stackable shoe boxes on the wall would be great for the LEGO. If we need some bigger things from IKEA, we will usually grab a car from our car share programme . But on a Saturday morning I hopped on the Bullitt cargo bike and headed off to get the boy his boxes. As you've probably gathered by now, there are separated bike lanes basically anywhere you want to go in Copenhagen. Even places you DON'T want to go, like IKEA. Here's a little photo series of my Tour de IKEA 2009. In the above photo an onramp leads to one of the main motorways into/out of Copenhagen. The bike lane I'm on continues down under the ramp, while the cars...