How to cycle like a Queen (or King!)
Yesterday was a whirlwind of parties all over the city and what was the best way to get there? By bike of course. How did you flaunt your flair on your bike? Here are six ways some Amsterdammers showed their orange pride.
1. With a hat
2. With a traveling party
3. Tagging along with a friend (and ‘flag’ your cheeks!)
4. Bike together and scarf your orange
5. Adorn yourself in a King’s robe
6. Proudly fly your flag!
by Meredith
White bikes and Dutch nature
‘God created the world, and the Dutch created the Netherlands’, that’s what people sometimes say about our country. And indeed, it is quite difficult to find parts of the Netherlands untouched by men. But, this weekend I enjoyed the beauty of Dutch nature in national park ‘De Hoge Veluwe’. The natural beauty was amazing. The play between rain and sun caused dramatic skies, deers and hares walked through the forests and the wide heather sometimes made me think of the African savanna. But, the Dutch couldn’t help touching also this part of nature. A family built a museum in the park with famous pieces of Van Gogh, Picasso and Mondriaan. And through the park a network of cycle lanes was created to cycle around on the free white bikes that are all around the park. The Dutch just can’t help it; they ‘have’ to touch nature to make every part of the country bicycle friendly…
The free white bikes
A bicycle friendly natural park
African images
Which way to go?
Family cycling
Joni on a white bike
Well ahead of his family
Sunshine in the forest
Groningen Cycle Chic
This weekend we went to the beautiful city of Groningen. Groningen is in the north of the Netherlands. It has an old and famous university, a cool modern art museum ‘the Groninger Museum‘ an old city centre and as every Dutch city; it is full of bikes and everybody of all ages cycles.
Bike at Groningen University
Family cycling
Cheesy cargo bike
Art by Yin Xiuzehn in Groninger Museum
Groningen University
Bicycle parking
Love bike
Bike parking in Groningen courtyard
bikes in window
Learning to cycle / statue in Groningen
Cycle Chic Conference 2012 – Budapest
This year’s Cycle Chic Conference in Budapest was legendary! The Cycle Chic Republic was united in the Hungarian capital. So it was a weekend full of bike events, chatting about cycling, photographing, tweeting and instagramming with bloggers from o.a. Vienna, Copenhagen, Berlin, Vitoria (Brazil) and Budapest.
Cycle Chic bloggers
Hungary Cycle Chic host: Áron on his Dutch bike
Hungary Cycle Chic organised the conference and found many sponsors to make our stay even more enjoyable and the cycling events even cooler. The main event for us was definitely the Bicycle fashion show, in which normal people walked the catwalk with their bikes, dressed up in their best clothes. It was so nice that we decided to dedicate a whole blogpost to it, that will follow later this week.
Budapest is working hard on improving their cycling infrastructure. The very successful Critical Mass meetings have certainly left their mark. And now organisations like Hungary Cycle Chic and the Hungarian Cyclist Club are taking bicycle activism over to make the city more bicycle friendly. But as you can see on the pictures; Budapest has bicycle infrastructure and cyclists, and was quite a comfortable city to cycle around. So let’s hope the amount of cyclists, cycle lanes and bicycle traffic lights will only improve!
Budapest bike lane
Budapest cyclists
Budapest Cyclist
Budapest Cyclists
Bikes on boat on Danube
Bicycle traffic light
Budapest bicycle infrastructure
Bike repair at Danube
Budapest in bike light
Thanks Cycle Chic Hungary
Thanks to the Hungarian Cyclist Club, the European Mobility Week and the Center for Budapest Transport for sponsoring the cycling events. Thanks Csepel Bikes for lending us our very comfortable and cool bikes! And thanks Anker’t for being such a cool bar and for sponsoring the afterparty after the fashion show.
BIKASIA
It is now a year ago that I (Aude) travelled through Asia with my husband for more than 4 months! At the time, I was already taking pictures of bicycles for the blog of our friend Philip: Dutch in Dublin.
BIKASIA is a compilation of images showing that bikes are very popular all over Asia: from India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia to China! But the best thing is that they are all cycling chic!
Bikes and windmills
We see tourists walking through the Red Light District, queuing for the Anne Frank house and sitting in ‘coffeeshops’. But what we, ‘Amsterdammers’ don’t see is that a lot of them also leave the city to discover its surroundings and see a bit more of the Netherlands. One of the places they like to visit is the Zaanse Schans. And, by accident, I was there too on one of my cycle tours on a lazy sunny Sunday. And what I saw were windmills, many windmills, and bikes!
Cycling Berlin style!
Milou, one of the Amsterdam Cycle Chic team members, moved to Berlin a few months ago. So Else and Joni of Amsterdam Cycle Chic decided to visit her there.
Joni, Milou and Else
We loved it! And in between enjoying one of the many terraces, parks and museums, we spotted cyclists, quite a lot of cyclists, and many of them in cool Berlin style!
Check out these elegant ladies on their pink bicycles…
and the many other cyclists!
Cycling Berlin style
Listen to the music!
Mum and daughter
Dutchie on his racing bike
Escapade à pAris
The cycle chic team has been travelling a lot in Europa during the summer. Lately Aude and her sister were invited by their mum to go to pAris! Of course they rented a velib’ to move around. And they met many locals on a velib’ too. Here you can see a girl on high heels…
Guys chatting on Pompidou square…
Some youngsters heading for a party…
Cycling is getting more and more popular here so many people have their own 2 wheels. Look at these:
Frenchy on a race bike…
Dude on lady’s bike…
Girl on a city bike with basket…
The trio Aude-sister-mum have been cycling through the whole of pAris. They came to see the exhibition “Panorama” from Gerhard Richter on the top floor of centre Pompidou. Dedicated to modern and contemporary art, le centre Pompidou is a place you can’t miss if you are interested in art. This painting called “le vélo” is from Alain Séchas, it is part of the permanent collection of the Museum.
Amsterdam North
Today, the weather was so beautiful that we decided to take our bikes up to the North of Amsterdam. Half an hour cycling takes you away, right into the heart of the real idyllic Dutch countryside where water is everywhere. So all kinds of solutions have been created to cross over, like for example this “floating platform”.
We were not the only ones with this idea today: we met those 2 friendly Amsterdammers while crossing the river. Thanks for posing girls!
by Aude
Greetings from Nice
As the summer in Amsterdam is more rainy than sunny, the Cycle Chic team members pack their bags and go to sunnier places. Joni went to the south of France; Nice in the Côte d’Azur, to enjoy the sun, lie on the beach and do some sightseeing. Needless to say, she took a bike to cycle through the city, testing Nice’s cycling infrastructure and checking out Nice’s cycling culture. And as you might expect from the chique Côte d’Azur, Nice is quite Cycle Chic!
From Nice with love
Cycle path with velo bleu bikes
Cycling Côte d’Azur style
by bike to the beach
Tourist bike tour
electric car and bike sharing
Chocolate gift from Zurich
My boyfriend was on a business trip to Zurich. Instead of bringing home chocolates, he brought me this picture as his gift.
Sunday shopping
by Aude
Long week-end is for some people the perfect moment to go away and for others just the perfect time to stay in town. This girl just arrived, she is looking for her bike keys, she is about to enter in her favorite shop (yes, most shops are opened in Amsterdam on sundays!)
Amsterdam Cycle Chic goes Morocco
While the citizens of Amsterdam temporarily swap their bicycles for ice-skates, part of the Amsterdam Cycle Chic team visited Morocco. In Morocco we encountered a widespread and very colourful cycling culture, which is not only limited to its cities and villages. Apparently even the desert offers a good soil for cycling. You do have to be a skilled cyclist to be able to mount the sand dunes of the Sahara.
In the medinas of Rissani and Marrakech the bicycle is, next to donkeys, a much-used vehicle for transport. Vegetables, eggs, or even groceries for the whole week are being transported by bicycle.
While a young girl is proudly showing of her red mountain bike in Ouarzazate, an old man is using his bike as a chair while chatting with friends in Rissani.
The colourful aspect of Morocco’s cycling culture manifests itself in its cheerful coloured bicycles and accessories. Check out the cool pannier bags and saddle covers. As you can see, I even had my own made!
Aude on a bike
My life on 2 wheels started 4 years ago when I decided to leave Brussels to join my boyfriend in Amsterdam. My first bike-buddy was brand new and pink one with no hand brakes, but pedal brakes: the Dutch way.
After learning to cycle in the busiest street of Amsterdam without a bell and without a foot on the ground, I could claim I didn’t belong to the tourist-community anymore!
My second buddy was old and green, a great one! He took me, or I took him 200km away.
It was my first holiday that started right outside my door. My boyfriend said: “3,2,1 … we are on holiday!” with no car, no plane, no boat, no train. In just 4 days we cycled with our everyday bike from Amsterdam to Friesland in the Northern parts of Holland. Sporty? Nope, never forget that Holland is as flat as a pancake!
This one is my husband’s bicycle, he took us to our civil wedding in Amsterdam. Seated behind my husband-to be, we cycled all the way through the city to join our families waiting for us on a boat. We couldn’t make it more romantic.
After the big day we decided to travel around Asia for 5 months. We took some bicycle pics for our friend’s cycling blog
Today, my bike-buddy is blue, I’m already curious to see what will happen with this one…
