Purple Pedals in Copenhagen

Yahoo! and their Flickr company have launched a new marketing campaign wherein they combine photography and cycling in the most simple manner. Purple Pedals is the name of the gig. Yahoo! has produced 20 specially-designed bikes equipped with a solar-powered battery that runs a mobile phone camera placed between the handlebars. The camera takes photos every 60 seconds and each photo is automatically fired off into space via the mobile net. Moments later it appears on a Flickr photostream as well as a microsite that Yahoo! has set up for the campaign.

These 20 bikes were shipped off to 20 lucky cyclists around the world and I was chosen to recieve one. It arrived last Tuesday. I join cyclists in Brighton, UK, Toronto, New York, California, Sydney, Singapore and Japan. You can follow the lives of our bikes for a few weeks and see what cycling in this different cities is like.

The battery is on the back rack and the solar panels keep the phone running. If the bike is stationary for three minutes, the system goes into standby mode. As soon as you move the bike it wakes up and starts taking photos. All so very simple.


The bike is an Electra Townie, in Yahoo's corporate colour - purple. It's a cool cruiser with gorgeous balloon tyres. There were a couple of issues with the bike which I had to iron out right away. See the above video about how I Copenhagenized it a bit. Just a bit.


Here's a video from Yahoo! about the making of the bike.

- You can see all the bikes around the world on the microsite for Purple Pedals here.
- The Flickr account for my bike also shows the photos.

Relaxing Sunday Concerto Post

A random day of the week in Copenhagen. Copenhageners heading home in the afternoon along the busiest bike lane in the nation - Nørrebrogade [North Bridge Street]. Over 30,000 bikes use this stretch each day.
Have a relaxing Sunday wherever you are.
Hej hej!

Vélocouture - Fashion, on a bicycle

We've long been a big fan - and contributor - to the very excellent Flickr group called Vélocouture.

The group guidelines make it clear what separates this group from so many other bike groups on Flickr.

"Vélocouture is not bicycle fashion. Vélocouture is fashion, on a bicycle. Smart, stylish, functional outfits worn by transportational bicyclists.

Celebrate the creative re-purposing of "normal" clothes for use as a transportational cyclist. Help popularize the innovative, functional and fashionable garments that are (finally!) being created by pedal-powered fashion-forward folks around the world.

This isn't about wearing costumes or bizarre outfits while on a bike. Plenty of places for that. This is about stylishly carrying oneself through the everyday -- on a bicycle.

Also, please note that this group is about fashionable cyclists, not fashionable bicycles. No bike-only shots. Again, plenty of groups exist for photos of your bike."


The group features photos of both women and men and, in our opinion, it's one of the beacons of hope for normalising urban cycling and removing the bane of lycra from the streets of cool cities around the world.

Vive la vélocouture!