The Life-Sized City Blog

Let's just get to it, shall we. Cyclists are not random boxes of corn flakes that you store up on a shelf, out of sight - out of mind. They are urban citizens contributing as much as the next - often more - to urban life. Like pedestrians and public transport users, they are best served at street level as integral threads woven into the rich urban fabric to contribute to the beautiful complexities of city life. Anthropologically, socially, financially. For over a century we have understood the necessity of Best Practice infrastructure . We have tried and tested it with hundreds and hundreds of millions of people - and perfected it. We have measured and gauged it in order to understand it. We have regarded it as a beautiful, functional thing and designed it accordingly. For 7000 years we have lived together in cities, on equal footing. In the splendid democracy of urban space.  The streets were the most democratic spaces in the history of homo sapiens. Super Bicycle Sna...

Cyclists in Guangzhou, China. Much is said about the rise of Chinese car culture at the expense of the once proud Chinese bicycle culture. Reports from the front lines in the Far East are generally negative, despite Katie's crooning about the 9 million bicycles in Beijing. The country does have problems that need immediate attention. No doubt about it. What we don't hear as often is that many cities are, in fact, addressing the problem. To their credit, they are acutely aware of the rapid onslaught of automobile traffic and are seeking solutions. A colleague of mine, Troels Andersen, is the Danish consultant on a project in Guangzhou, in Southern China, with The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [ITDP] . Troels is one of Denmark's most experienced traffic consultants and him and I have been invited to speak at many of the same international conferences over the past couple of years. At the most recent one , we did what we usually do - drink beers...

Week in and week out I get inundated with emails from people who want to advertise either here on Copenhagenize.com or over at Cycle Chic . It's quite amazing that most of the emails are for products that have nothing to do what I write about or take pictures about. Goes to show that one pops up in a Google search and the person in question doesn't bother to do their research. Even after writing posts like this at Cycle Chic , or this one , two days later I get an email from someone wanted to pay to advertise their "cycling trousers" for urban cycling. "Avoid chafing and wear and tear!" Oh bother, as Winnie the Pooh would say. Anyway, this email arrived today, from China. Perhaps the products are of interest to some of you, out there. Seriously. Maybe Carlton can get cheaper lycra gear for his I Pay Road Tax cycling clothes or some of you out there want to get some kit for your local club. Who knows. Being multilingual and having made major embarassing faux...

Kasghar Chicken Express 1992 , originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness] . I spent a few months in China in 1990 and again in 1992 and one of the moments of clarity I remember most was riding about on a black Chinese standard bike and entering a roundabout in central Beijing. I had ridden all about the country on the bike but nothing could have prepared me for that roundabout. First of all it was the size of a small African nation, with six roads using it as a hub. Secondly, I entered a fantastic school of cycling fish. Literally hundreds of cyclists. I could see no rhyme or reason for their movement. It was a fluent, poetic swirling mass of cyclism. There were no hand signals and nary an over the shoulder glance when one of the hundreds exited the roundabout. It was timed to perfection. No collisions, no talking, no sound at all. The occasional eye contact perhaps. And there was I. Caught in an operatic maelstrom. I had no idea how to get out of the mass to exit down my street....