The Life-Sized City Blog

Update: 18 Dec 2013 Lulu and I were on the spot when one of her teachers, Heidi, was buying her tree and taking it home. She borrowed one of the many bike trailers at the school to do so. Standing nice and tall in the Copenhagen evening. UPDATE. Typical. Write a blog post and then two bikes with christmas trees roll past your window. So here's an update. Above: Sorte Jernhest cargo bike , complete with tree and kid wearing an elf hat heading home in the evening. Fantastic. This lady rolled past my window pulling her tree on a trailer. Getting close to Jul here in Copenhagen. Christmas tree sellers are occupying squares all around the city. Many people use their bicycles to get the tree home. Here's a collection of the shots we have of people moving their trees home by bike. This lady had just bought a jule tree and the seller was helping her strap it to her bicycle. It took some work and discussion but they finally succeeded. She didn't have far to go, s...

Been busy lately. Running behind with articles but doing lots of great projects with Copenhagenize Consulting. I figured I'd post some of the photos I've taken recently. Citizen Cyclists carrying stuff around is the theme. Shoes and a suitcase. Suitcase and a group of friends on a stag night by bicycle. Two cargo bikes filled with beer. New frame heading home. Kids' bicycles in transit. That's me and Lulu-Sophia on the right, taking her new (used) bike home. Transporting a guitar by trailier in Copenhagen and a trailer by trailer in Strasbourg. The City of Zagreb has a respectable fleet of cargo bikes for cleaning the streets. As well as for bakery deliveries. Cool wooden crate in Copenhagen. Cool Danish Ambassador to Croatia, and his wife, on a Christiania Bike in Zagreb. Muffins on the move.

We've written before about how cargo bike culture starts early in Copenhagen . Here are a couple more examples from last week. Above, heading home from kindergarten, a Copenhagen kid gets to try and ride the family's Christiania bike along the cycle tracks. And this was spotted on my way home from picking up Lulu-Sophia from kindergarten. A mum sitting on the back rack and letting her kid get the feeling of the ride from the saddle of this Nihola . Here's a glimpse into the secret life of cargo bike compartments. This one - one of many - was parked outside the kindergarten. All the essentials for a kid's life. Including a magic wand. I use the Velorbis to pick up Lulu-Sophia at the moment. Well, Lulu and friends, of course. The classic hook on the back racks of Danish bikes comes in handy when transporting a lunchbox. Although apples are doable as well - among many other things. Here's more on these hooks on our bikes .

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 ...

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...

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 ...

Bike and Trains Study Tour, Netherlands from Quickrelease.tv on Vimeo . Carlton Reid at Quickrelease.tv featured this video of some highlights of a visit to the Netherlands by Members of Parliament and Lords of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group. Studying up on bikes and trains. Here's hoping they can influence change in the UK. Via a reader Christopher, who got it via Cyclelicio.us who got it via Quickrelease.tv . In other related "British men with fancy titles" news, here's the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, George Grubb, with a gift from Denmark - The Danish Dream on Wheels - a Christiania Bike. It was presented to him at the Dreams on Wheels Exhibition in Edinburgh a couple of months ago. At the conference in Edinburgh, his official car was outside with the motor running while the Lord Provost was inside talking environmental messages. "The bicycle is C02 neutral and I'll do my best to promote Edinburgh as a sustainable city", he promised. Des...