Tak Copenhagen x

So today around the world at precisely 8.43am my fellow Cycle Chic bloggers are out on the streets looking for the photo that epitomises cycle chic in their city.

It was this time exactly five years ago that Mikael Colville-Andersen took this iconic "photo that launched a million bicycles" and created what has now become somewhat of a cult.

The hardcore bloggers in the ever expanding family thought it might be a nice little tribute....

Mikael, we thank you.  For your passion, your idealism, your humour and your tireless pursuit of chic :-)

What a ride hey?

I was 5 minutes out but whoever you are Bondi girl on bike - I reckon you pretty much sum up Sydney Cycle Chic so thanks for crossing the street when you did!

WOOP - The Movie!

The WOOP Festival to celebrate the Bourke Street Cycle Way was a day that will stay with all who attended for a while.  It was a day that heralded a new Sydney, a safer biking Sydney and a community spirit that I heard on the day compared to Sydney during the Olympics.

So here's a little reminder thanks to the City of Sydney, cause we can never get enough of happy citizen cyclists.

Bourke Street - it's only the start of it.

Cycle Chic Kids Do WOOP!

It's been a long time coming but the kids are ready to roll again!

We're very pleased to be presenting the next Cycle Chic Kids event as part of the wonderful WOOP! Rolling Bourke Street Festival Extravaganza on Sunday May 15.

This well-overdue celebration of the Bourke Street Cycle Way is morphing in to a fabulous community festival with all sorts of things planned - live entertainment, a vintage bike exhibit, kids activities, street entertainers, bikes and MORE BIKES and a mega raffle to raise money for the Cancer Council NSW initiative "Do Your Thing."

Events will stretch the length of the Cycle Way from Waterloo to Woolloomooloo and riders are encouraged to ride the loop and show the local businesses (and Sydney!) some bicycle love.  It's time.

Cycle Chic will be situated in Wimbo Park (opposite Devonshire Street) from 11am-3pm, along with Bourke Street Public School and their sausage sizzle.

We are inviting all children (and their carers) to bring their bikes and join in the craft fun with us and our team of wonderfully creative upcyclers.  We'll provide all manner of recycled bits and bobs for you to play with (feel free to bring some bits from your craft box too) and we'll help you to turn your bikes into art!

Have a look at the last event to see what sort of fun we had and then why not finish the day with a ride along the new safe Cycle Way en famille??

We'll be posting more details over the next few weeks but please spread the word to the parents and children in your lives and hop over to like our Facebook page and the WOOP! page to keep up to date with all the details as they unfold.

Cycle Chic Kids Are Go!

Tanja - Converted!

Since I started this blog almost a year ago, I've seen changes, great changes with an increase in numbers of people, especially women, riding bicycles.  Sydney's landscape has changed and with the development of the cycle ways continues to edge closer to the liveable city we all crave.  Change and growth is a good thing.

We still have a long way to go before we are close to some of our European counterparts but we're moving forward and as Copenhagen can attest to, major changes to infrastructure and attitude don't happen overnight.  But they do happen.

So I thought I'd start a little regular post and share with you some of the many people I come across who have recently rediscovered the bicycle.  The new riders who are not weighed down by the ways of the past but instead, inspired by the potential of the new and by their sheer visibility and enthusiasm for the humble bicycle, are helping to transform this city.

Welcome to the new happy face of bicycle Sydney!

No1 is my good friend, work colleague and fellow blogger Tanja.

What/who inspired you to get back on a bike again?
I was inspired to get back on the bike again by two things - a work colleague (YOU) and the increasing number of people riding around my neighbourhood in Surry Hills. At first, I thought I would just try and score a cheap, second-hand pair of wheels, just to check that I still COULD ride (!), but then I happened upon a BEAUTIFUL Danish bike on ebay (a Velorbis) - it was a great deal + I just couldn't resist. 

Can you remember how it felt, that first time?

I think having a really delightful, upright, euro-style bike really helped make the transition back to riding a very fun one ! I fell absolutely head over heels for the bike + just couldn't get out and about ENOUGH ! What really surprised me was that all that FUN that you have as a kid on bike is still there to be had - cruising along, wind in hair, utter independence - there is nothing quite like it ! 

What do you say to anyone thinking about getting a bike?
Before I bought the bike, I had been fearful of riding on the roads, but this, too, just takes getting used to. I don't ride on 'big' roads with my lady bike, but I really get around ! I love riding down to Kings Cross, Taylor Sq or across to Eveleigh Mkts on a Sat morning, I love riding to work when I'm down at the Opera House but it is also just fun to cruise down to the bakery to pick up a baguette for the basket and to ride back home again !

How did you decide what bike to buy?
My two pieces of advice for ppl thinking of getting a bike would be: GET A BASKET ! There is so much more freedom in being able to plonk anything in the basket - makes shopping v easy + you don't have to worry about trying to balance carrying a bag. Secondly, buy a bike that you will LOVE. This extra bit of investment will definitely be worth it - I think it would spell the difference between being someone who just rides occasionally and someone seeks out new routes to anywhere and everywhere ! I just can't get enough.


Check out her cool blogs too I [Heart] My Food and I [Heart] My Hood or follow her on Twitter @iheartmyfood @iheartmyhood

PS: If you happen to be watching Masterchef tonight - you might just spot this familiar face!

What the *#@* is Cycle Chic™?

I've been getting a little feisty over at Sarah Wilson's blog today in response to the replies she received on her post What to Wear On A Bike - Part 2.

Surely we have all earned the right to wear whatever we like, on or off our bicycles without judgement?
Why is it that some women find it necessary to dismiss frocked up female riders as frivolous and silly because they sometimes like to wear dresses and heels while riding?
I wear whatever I would wear normally and get about very well thank you and yes if some days I wear f*$@ off heels, so what?

Over in Copenhagen and indeed many places in the world, women of varying ages ride in all manner of clothes as these photographs from Copenhagen Cycle Chic so beautifully illustrate.

It is in emerging bicycle cultures that we are constantly forced to explain and justify our clothing choices.

Which brings me to that question I am asked so often - "what is cycle chic™?"

When Mikael Colville-Andersen first coined the term back in 2007, he was using it as a way to describe his fellow Copenhageners as they went about their daily business on their bicycles.  Devoid of any "cycling gear", just in regular clothes, doing regular things, a concept that was and still is to some degree, thought of as a little extraordinary.

In Sydney, we do cycle chic our way, we're not Copenhagen after all, but the aim is absolutely the same.

To show how the bicycle can be "an integral, respectable and feasible transport form, free of sports clothes and gear, and how it can play a vital role in increasing the life quality in cities.

... to highlight that bike culture is an effortless pursuit. No lycra needed. No fancy gear. Just get out and ride. Style over Speed. Man or Woman."

    

  

The photograph below is not overtly glamorous. The "photograph that launched a million bicycles" as it has become known, is just a nice spontaneous shot of someone probably heading off to work one day.

As is this - the eminently majestic stylist Catherine Baba on the job in Paris. And frankly, if she can ride in those heels more power to her!!!

So when people say "I want to ride but I don't have anything to wear?", I paraphrase Mikael and say "of course you do, wear what you're wearing right now".

I like this cheeky photograph from Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

So at Sydney Cycle Chic when we get together for a ride, we come as we are.

We don't NEED to dress up to prove a point - or do we?

"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood." - Susan B. Anthony, American Suffragist, 1896.

Lawlessness in the Pursuit of Edible Delights

I often see good friend and Sydney food blogger Tanja cruising carefree through Surry Hills on her Velorbis on the hunt for some seasonal deliciousness or other.  

Even better when she brings something in to the office for tasting!

Cockatoo Island Chic

Well the ride on Cockatoo Island a few weeks ago turned into a (retrospectively amusing) exercise in logistics!
Around 20 or more of us met up at Circular Quay and took the ferry over to the heritage listed Cockatoo Island, collecting film-maker Mike Rubbo and friends at Woolwich with their own bikes PLUS an extra 6 bikes PLUS the "Sociable".... all in all about 30+ bicycles....

Sydney Ferries were fantastically helpful after they got over their shock and the poor ferry guys helped us find space for all the bikes as we headed over to the Island for our ride.
The sun shone, we rode, we picnic'ed, we filmed, I fell off my bike like a 12 year old and still have the bruised, scraped knees to prove it and a good day was had by all.

Thanks to everyone who joined the madness - couldn't have done it without you!
And BIG thanks to Dr Charlton for the vintage bikes that he kindly donated to Sydney Cycle Chic after the ride.  The "Charlton Collection" will be available for use on our future rides.....

Mike's film featuring the sociable is wonderful - not every day that one gets to ride a piece of bicycle history.  More on the ride and the "Sociable" over at Mike's blog.

How lucky we are, sunshine, boys, bikes AND Sydney Harbour.

Arriving on the island, checking we had all the bikes.

The Sociable in action - all about the balance!  And Meredith, who hadn't ridden a bike for many years but thought it might be fun to start again on this?

     

It was a bit gusty at times as Paul discovered.

Filming in the huge Turbine Hall.

     

Summer Fun

I love this picture - every time I see it I smile - I think it's possibly the dress and cardigan colour combination - that yellow and turquoise just scream Summer to me.  Or maybe it's the caption underneath which reads "Paula - making cocktails".  Huh??  It's puzzled and intrigued me, are the guys behind her blending up some margueritas?  

Thanks to Velovotee for adding it to the Sydney Cycle Chic flickr group pool.  

Got some cycle chic pics to share?  Add away - we'd love to see them.

Cycle Chic Sundays Competition - the Search for Chic

Welcome to our first fabulous Cycle Chic competition!!
We had a hilarious photoshoot the other day after our picnic - thanks to everyone for being such willing subjects :-)
So now it's over to you - who do you think sums up Cycle Chicness ?

Bear in mind if you will these points from the Cycle Chic Manifesto:
- I embrace my responsibility to contribute visually to a more aesthetically pleasing urban landscape.
- I am aware that my mere prescence in said urban landscape will inspire others without me being labelled as a 'bicycle activist'.
- I will choose a bicycle that reflects my personality and style.
- I will, however, regard my bicycle as transport and as a mere supplement to my own personal style. Allowing my bike to upstage me is unacceptable.
- I will endeavour to ensure that the total value of my clothes always exceeds that of my bicycle.
- I will refrain from wearing and owning any form of 'cycle wear'. The only exception being a bicycle helmet - if I choose to exercise my freedom of personal choice and wear one.

The winner will receive one of these gorgeous Basil panniers thanks to our new supporters Gazelle Australia.

Voting is easy - just click the box next to the name in the poll on the right hand column of this page.  You can even vote for more than one chicster and yes, even for yourself!

All a bit of fun, we really don't take ourselves TOO seriously.....
Voting is open now and closes at 8pm on Saturday 9 October.  Easy.  And in no particular order, here are the finalists.
Bonne chance a tous!

1 - Margeret

2 - Alacoque

3 - Sonja

4 - Madeleine

5 - Katie

6 - Tanja

7 - Kathi

8 - William

9 - Michael

10 - Grant

11 - Garry

Cycle Chic Sundays Sydney Does Surry Hills in Style!

Wow.  I'm still coming down from Saturday's ride and it's now Monday!
The image of everyone smiling, ringing their bike bells cycling down Bourke Street in the spring sunshine is still very much with me and this really does feel like the start of something very exciting in Sydney.  How wonderful to meet so many other like-minded riders who most definitely "get" what the cycle chic movement is all about.  Bravo to everyone for getting into the spirit and joining us, it wouldn't have been a success without you!

Special thanks, of course, to City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore for showing her support and joining us at the start of the ride.  Thanks to her vision, we are slowly getting the infrastructure we need to explore this "city of villages" - and explore we will, just try to stop us.

There's only one way forward from here - and that's straight ahead, on two wheels, slowly, stylishly and smiling.....

Here is a snapshot of the day from Tokyo Bike to the Beresford Hotel via the Bourke Street cycle way to  Remy & Lees Cafe with lunch in a park and shopping at I Ran The Wrong Way.  Rather a lot of socialising and less riding than perhaps we envisaged but so nice to just let the day unfold organically.  This is after all, what Cycle Chic Sundays is all about - catching up with friends and meeting new ones while riding bikes and looking chic.  Indeed.

  

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

Special thanks go to Mike Rubbo of Sit-up Cycle Blog for documenting the ride in his inimicable way.  He's posted his colourful take on the day here.
And the completely delightful and inspirational Sue Abbott who also posted about the ride on her Freedom Cyclist blog here.
And the lovely Feather Brigade who posted here.
There are also a zillion more photographs in the Cycle Chic Sundays Sydney flickr group.  Feel free to join and add your own pics of the ride to this group - we'd love to have you.
[apologies for not naming everyone here, I will attempt to do so in flickr]

PS: plans for the next ride are underway and will be posted here soon so please follow us or like our facebook page to keep upto date with everything!