The Life-Sized City Blog

Photo: Mads Odgaard Norway's Statoil is a major oil company in Scandinavia and they have many petrol stations in Denmark. My friend Mads took these photos of a Statoil station in Copenhagen that has clearly accepted - dare one say embraced - the bicycle culture here in the City of Cyclists. In no uncertain terms Statoil has reserved space for cyclists to fix, tune-up or pump their bicycles at this Bicycle Care station. The sign, above, reads: "Dear Cyclist, You can care for your bicycle here. You can pump and wash your bicycle and, inside the shop, you're welcome to borrow a free bicycle care kit with oil, tire levers, allen keys, etc.  Enjoy. Statoil" I simply don't know how to make that text any nicer. Photo: Mads Odgaard In the centre of the bicycle pictogram is a rack that folds down so you can hang your bicycle on it while repairing, caring, whatever. An air hose is on the right and, on the left, a dispenser with paper towels and plastic ...

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...

Marc, from Amsterdamize , and I both got a kick out of this. He picked up this on his stats for his website. A visitor to Amsterdamize who arrived via Copenhagenize's post about the World's Most Bicycle-Friendly Cities . Let's hope they're worried as shit because their time is running out.