The Life-Sized City Blog

There was a tweet today from a gentleman named Ben Hammersley on Twitter : The bicycle pump in Copenhagen airport's baggage hall is an epic sign of civilization. Cheers me up every time. So here's a photo we found of it via azubcz on Picasa . It's one of those details in Copenhagen's bicycle culture that we just haven't gotten around to featuring. So here's the perfect opportunity. Used for bicycles, of course, but many prams have chunky tires as well and I've used it when arriving home with a pram, to top up the air for the journey home on the Metro. It's all in the details.

One of the great ideas in bicycle design that has sadly, largely, disappeared. Once standard on many bicycles, this handle helped the bicycle user lift the bike up stairs, over curbs (if laden with shopping) or any number of similar situation. It appears that it was particularly popular on Swedish bicycles. Attached to the downtube, the handle is at a perfect position for a well-balanced lift. I've tried it. While something like the hook on the back rack is still around , you don't see this simple, practical accessory anymore, not even on bicycles in mainstream bicycle culture. A fact that we lament. But here it is. Let's see which bike brand is the first to reestablish the bike lift handle on newer models. The race is on.

We blogged about The Bikeman last year on this post right here . Now here's The Bikeman - The Movie! I'm nearing completion of a photobook featuring 500 photographs of Copenhagen Cargo Bike Life and all the ways the cargo bike, trailers and trikes are used in a 21st Century city. I'll keep you posted when it's available.

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.

83 year-old woman outraced the tsunami on her bicycle. Amazing. Via @pickledtreat s on Twitter.

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 ...

At the core of everything we do here at Copenhagenize lies a simple celebration of the bicycle in every form. Of the bicycle as a liberating transport form for broken cities. Of the bicycle as the most effective form of indepedent mobility. Of the bicycle's historical role as liberator of the working classes and of women. Of the bicycle's role in impoverished nations in Africa and beyond. Everything we do here on the blog and, more specifically, at our company is geared towards bringing the celebratory, liberating qualities of the bicycle to societies that once knew them but that have lost touch with them. We love the bicycle, we love the bicycle squeaking cheerfully under the asses of Citizen Cyclists everywhere and we salute the bicycle's role in the development of our societies for the past 125 odd years. We embrace it. We celebrate it. This is a man carrying goods on a bicycle after the Americans bombed Nagasaki with an atomic bomb in 1945. As ever, the bicycle ...

Already one of the world's great bicycle nation, Japan is seeing a bicycle boom in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. Here are some photos featuring bicycles in the ravaged tsunami zone.

Couldn't help myself. I was lingering like a bad smell at the Nørreport train station last Saturday, waiting for a friend and I took some photos of more example of bike seat rain covers, as I wrote about the other day . Nørreport is the country's busiest train station and the bicycle parking around it testifies to that. I only covered a fraction of the bicycle parking and still managed to find a number of example of rain covers. Copenhagen University, a purchased rain cover, Alinea teaching material for schools. Swedish rail advert, Information/Danish newspaper Some of the seat covers are exotic. These two are from Sweden. The orange one is an example of the campaign that started this wave of bicycle seat rain cover coverage in the first place.

This is a photo from Hong Kong by the photographer Dian Karlina . It really is the textbook example of a very non -liveable city. A city for machines, not pedestrians and cyclists. It reminded me of these photos taken by Robert Doisneau in Paris in the 1960's. Pedestrians dashing like mad to cross the street as the car traffic roars towards them. Thank goodness Paris is changing for the better. Doisneau once said, “It is not easy to catch a pedestrian, it is like a pigeon. It jumps.” When they're running for their lives it certainly isn't any easier.