Bicycle Freedom

Caught this shot of my son in the late afternoon winter light as we were heading off somewhere to do something. Where and what is unimportant. This is bicycle freedom. The journey. The joy. The bicycle.

Our Christmas Bicycle

So, it's the holiday season. In Danish, christmas is 'jul'. Christmas time is 'juletid', which the English language knows as Yuletide. It was orginally a winter festival celebrated from the end of December to the beginning of January.

Not being a fan of monotheistic religious symbols in my home, you'd think that yuletide was tricky to get around when you have kids. Danish tradition, however, has heaps of options. Elves and fairies are primary figures in December. My kids have four elves who show up on December 1st each year and hang out until the 24th, placing a present a day in their stockings and - as a rule - doing naughty things. Every morning the kids look forward to seeing what they got up to during the night. They'll raid the fridge and the cookie jar, turn the milk green, hide stuff in the kids' shoes, and so on.

Some years we'll get a tree, or we'll decorate in other ways. This year, however, we realised that that bicycle standing in the living room might just be perfect for decorating. If yuletide is about symbolism, surely the bicycle is a powerful symbol for all that is good for our cities and societies. If not one of the most powerful symbols. So, the beautiful, old Husqvarna bicycle from 1947 got a makeover.

Off we went. The kids decorated the Yuletide Bicycle this weekend. Adding evergreen branches, small elves, bits and pieces from the decoration box and they cut out hearts to put on the bicycle. The heart is another primary, and secular, symbol of christmas in Denmark, and it goes hand in hand with the bicycle. We actually love the heart so much, we put it on our Danish coins.


The kids did their own funky thang and went crazy decorating the bicycle.



Now all we need are presents to put under. Coming soon.

Cycle Chic Kids

Here's Felix on an old Schwinn trike that we found in the backyard of our new flat. There are loads of kids bikes, trikes and cargo bikes for communal use.

Here's Lulu-Sophia's favourite du jour. A little cargo bike. You can read about the unique cargo bikes on offer for children in Denmark over at Copenhagenize.com.

Cycle Chic kids, indeed.

Felix Made Me a Drawing

The Boy Wonder whipped together his own interpretation of Cycle Chic and gave it to me. Brilliant.

The Family Zoo

At long last, the weather is improving. Goethe's last words were allegedly "Mehr licht..." or "more light..."

The Nordic tribes can agree with THAT half the year. Now spring has sprung it seems. Here's me and the kids outside the Copenhagen Zoo last weekend. Opted for the Velorbis instead of the Bullitt and put Lulu-Sophia on the bulldog seat between my legs. Strapped on a stroller to the back rack in case she got tired walking around the animal kingdom. The Boy Wonder Felix is on his own bike, with his partisan scarf and hat. Eight years old and already opinionated about clothes and style.

The Zoo is close to the city so we just treat it as a park, really. Riding up to hang out for an hour or two, looking at animals.

Brilliant to feel springtime in the air.

Gangsta Cycle Chic

We spotted this groovy little bicycle necklace in a post down at the always cool An Affair With Fashion blog [available at The Hanging Space]

My boy Felix saw the photo of the necklace on screen and I asked him what he thought of it. He shrugged and replied with the current hip slang of boys his age, "It's not really gangsta, is it..."

Meaning that he didn't think it was cool. So I wondered what a real gangsta style bicycle necklace would look like. There was only one way to find out. Ask a real gangsta:

Snow Umbrella and Cargo Bike Children

I gave Lulu-Sophia the umbrella not to keep her dry - she has a snow suit for that - but because the wind was whipping the snow along and it was considerably more pleasant for her not to have to squint into the driving snow. It was hard for her to hold the umbrella with her big old mittens, but she managed to hold it in place.

Same thing here, but this time Felix got to act as umbrella holder for Lulu-Sophia on the family Bullitt.

Aerial view of The Lulu on her way home from daycare.

Seasons Greeting from Cycle Chic!

At the exact time that this post goes live I'll be seated at mother-in-law's amazing yule dinner table. It's a legendary spread. Roast pork and roast duck with potatoes, candied potatoes, red cabbage and gravy, among other things.

Afterwards it's rice pudding with an single almond hidden inside. Whoever gets the almond in their portion gets a present.

After dinner we decorate the tree and light the candles on it. Then we sing and dance around the tree. 'Dance' is really a funny word to use, but that's what it's called. We hold hands and walk around the tree. The songs are mostly childrens songs for the benefit of the kids. Then... finally... we sit in the living room and open our presents.

At some point, Father Christmas comes by, in the form of a friend of ours. He gives presents to the kids. Then yours truly pops down to his house to put on the costume and do the same for their kids.

We didn't fancy the idea of getting a christmas tree this year so I'll have to reblog the above, me and the kids heading home with the tree.

The seasonal celebration is called 'jul' in Denmark, from the Old Norse 'jól'. It lives on in English with 'yule'. Originally a pagan festival celebrated at this time of year, the christian influence highjacked the ceremony but the original name lives on. Kind of like the pagan symbol of fertility for the spring festivals - the hare - who still shows up at easter.

December 25 was the first day of the pagan calendar and people used to celebrate all night long to honour the 'divine mothers'.

Here's some more photos of bicycles and christmas trees.

Cycle Chic wishes you all a very happy season and thanks to all our readers!

Competition Prize Winner

Rest assured, the winner of the Cycle Chic/ Velorbis Climate Conference Gorgeousness Competition has contacted us. Lauren, from San Francisco, will be in Denmark for a while and the logistics of getting the Velorbis Studine bicycle to her were tricky, so we're going to do it after New Years.

In the meantime, Felix and I picked up the bicycle from our friends at Velorbis yesterday and the fine bicycle will be parked in one of our bicycle sheds until which time Lauren will take possession of it.

And isn't that a cool snowman we made?!

Kids and Bicycles

My mate Marc from Amsterdamize took this cracking shot and I just had to add it here, right away. Brilliant Cycle Chic.


And this one of Marc's reminded of this one I took in Paris on my last visit:


Which made me remember La Rochelle, where I had just arrived from, and one of our summer holidays on Ile de Ré a few years back where Felix sat on the kid seat on my bike and, as a rule, slept all the way home from the beach. Six kilometres each way.


Which made me think about this year's summer holiday on the island of Bornholm:


And now I miss summer.

EDIT by Lars:
Seing this subject Mikael, I just have to throw in this one from today:

I can´t help smiling when I look at the three little girls in front just having a great time.

Climate Demonstration Cycle Chic

Hot off the presses - or rather the memory card - are these Climate Demonstration Cycle Chic shots.

Earlier today Felix and I rolled out to what was expected to be a highlight of the current climate conference here in Copenhagen. A massive demonstration that walked from the parliament to the conference centre.

The photo, above, is the demonstration's finest, chic'est Copenhagen avec bicyclette.

It's worth mentioning that the temperature was just above freezing.

Here's another excellent cycle chic Copenhagener.
The news here in Copenhagen is reporting that 100,000 people took part and it really was a brilliant demonstration. It was amazingly global with different languages spoken all around you. Many people stood along the roads and watched. Felix and I walked with the crowds for a while and then pulled over to just stare in awe at the masses of peaceful demonstrators.

It was great that he could see this. You have to go back decades to find a demonstration of this size in Copenhagen.

The number of bicycles was amazing, too. Families with cargo bikes, citizens of all ages walking their bikes, you name it. This chap is the clear winner of the Cycle Chic pour hommes award today.


Here's Felix standing in the cargo bay of our Bullitt cargo bike, from where he watched the world - literally - go by.

Home from Holidays

We've returned home from a little two week holiday [little because we get 5-6 weeks of holidays in Denmark] to the Danish island of Bornholm. It's a lovely place and it often feels like Denmark's own little Mediterranean paradise. They call it the Sunshine Island and the local dialect is so unlike the other dialects in the country that you feel like you're in another country.

It's a popular holiday destination not just for Danes but for Swedes, Germans and Poles, given it's proximity in the Baltic Sea south of Sweden. In the photo above, Wifealiciousness was sneaky and caught Felix and I on our way home in the evening on the clunky old summer house bicycle. She was walking with the pram at the time.

Sneaky, too, in catching this shot earlier in the evening.

But hah... I'm sneaky too. Here's Wifealiciousness and Lulu heading through the countryside. We got to test-ride the new two-wheelers from the iconic Danish bike brand, Christiania Bikes, who are located on the island. I had Felix on my bike, while Lulu rode with Wifealiciousness on this little 30 km bike ride one day. The requisite baguette sticking up out of the bike is such a summery sight.

Mondayishness

Wifealiciousness and The Boy Wonder, Felix, on our Bullitt cargo bike by Larry vs Harry.

And if you're in Dublin this week, why do you go for a bike ride on Wednesday? Dublin City Cycle, in conjunction with National Bike Week. Read more right here.