Cyclesport for The People - The Six Day Race

I was at the Copenhagen Six Day Race last Saturday and it was brilliant For the past century the Six Day Races were a major event on the Copenhagen calendar. They live on each February in the Ballerup Super Arena but everyone laments the fact that they are no longer held in Forum, close to the city centre, where they were held between 1934-1997.

Nevertheless, the event is still festive and, most importantly, still the purest form of cyclesport for the people.

The Six Day Races [The Sixes] have a long history since their conception in 1878 in England but I'll let the Wikipedia page on Six Day Races tell you all about that.

Gone are the days when the riders rode for six days straight - with one of the pair required to be on the track at all times. At night things were quiet, as you can see in the photo. Time to read a newspaper whilst cycling around the track. His partner was catching some sleep. Gone are also the days when the nation's film stars featured in a film based on The Sixes or children and families played Six Day Race board games. Alas.

Now they race for six days but in the evenings. In the case of the Copenhagen race, from 19:30 to 00:30 ish, sometimes later. Last Saturday I was at the race with the good people from Biomega and Hans from Larry vs Harry. Beer and Bicycles were on the cards.

It was my first time at The Sixes. When I worked at Danish Broadcasting a few years back I had the chance on a project to work with old archive footage from the past 80 years. Most of it sports. So seeing a few hours of footage from the 'good old days' of The Sixes has given me the sense of being there before. Nowadays it's more sterile in a way, but still a fantastic experience.

The crowd on Saturday was mix of families, quiet older gents sipping pints, young bucks on a boys night out and couples in suits, furs and heels having dinner in the middle of the arena, surrounded by humming bicycles. I was in the VIP event area in the middle, at one end. Up close and personal on the steep bank.

A tradition in the Copenhagen race is that it's an honour to be given Pair #7 and it's usually an all-Danish partnership who get to wear the 7. This year it was Alex Rasmussen and Michael Mørkøv, defending world champions to boot. So the local crowd knew who to watch and cheer for. The pair annoyed Berliners the week before by winning the Berlin Sixes.

In the course of the evening The Sixes offer a potpourri of disciplines. It's hard to keep track, actually. Fortunately there is signature music that booms out of the speakers when the final sprint. Actually, music is a major factor and the races are not unlike being at a concert with a crazy medley of music from 50's rock to 00's pop. Punctuated by the traditional Sixes melodies.


The Six Day Races have their own trademark song which is traditionally played during each lap of honour for the winners of the day's various disciplines. The music was composed in Germany in the 1930's. In Denmark we needed lyrics because we like to sing when we're drunk. The song was/is sung at every race. The music features in the little film I whipped together, above, and here are the Danish lyrics - which rhyme in the original language - translated:

The Six Days Waltz
Now there's a party mood
Who do you think will be best?
That guy is my favourite
Even though he's let me down so often.

That guy in black is a wimp
But in a sprint he is tough
Get pedalling
Even though you'll be sore in the final
Keep your good humour and ride.

Chorus:
Show us what you've got [whistle, whistle, whistle, whistle]
Give it a bit extra [w w w w]
Pedal harder [w w w w]
and you'll win.[w w w w]

And if you're last [w w w w]
Well, that's sad [w w w w]
But get your chin up [w w w w]
And take it like a man [w w w w]

Like I said, this really is cyclesport for the people. The Tour de France, in Europe anyway, has long been released from the possessive grip of 'sport' and has been siphoned down into a broader cultural sphere. Still, in the modern era you get the sense that you're somehow separated from the riders by the glass wall of celebrity and sponsor cash.

The Sixes maintain their close contact with the crowd. Just look at the film, above. When the riders - all professional cyclists - were doing the preliminary laps of the final 60 minute pursuit discipline, they did the wave with the crowd. Three times! Before getting down to business and racing like the wind.

In the breaks I saw a Swiss rider chatting up four girls at a table nearby. Him on his bike on the track, holding onto the boards and flirting. Brilliant stuff. And he was leading the race, with his partner, on Saturday.

Another tradition is that different sponsors offer up different prizes for the various sprints/events. One rider will win a washing machine. Another will pocket 500 kroner a fancy bottle of wine. On top of their paycheques, of course. All prizes that the crowd can identify with.


The close proximity to the riders adds to the folksy feel. You spend 5 hours with them as they keep roaring past and when they have a break, you can peer down into their boxes while they relax with a massage, check their mails, whatever.


The fact that in the Derny events the pros get to ride behind cool cats like these certainly adds to the folksy aspect. The chap on the left looks like half the men in the crowd, even though he's a legendary pacer from Belgium. And on the right is Australian Danny Clarke, legendary Sixes rider with 74 wins - 8 of them in Copenhagen. He sang a couple of songs - My Way was one of them - with the band after the Derny race.


And yes, yet another sport with homoerotic undertones. Skinny men in tight pants holding hands. Admit it, if male spectators didn't secretly enjoy the homoerotic elements of so many popular sports we'd all just be fly fishermen. :-)


Anyway, here's the Flickr set of all the photos from the cracking night out last Saturday.

Nice to see that there is a pocket of sport that still keeps a close relationship with the crowd. Just like all sport used to be. And still should be.

More Bicicles

Water droplets came from the roof, one by one., originally uploaded by Hans Olind.

Action on the Streets

The double decker bike racks at the nation's busiest station, Nørreport.
There's lots of action on the streets of the city these days.

There was actually two of these bicycle lane snowploughs, the other one is up ahead. I rode keirin behind them for a ways.

Like this guy.


Removing the frozen snow drifts is now the main priority. Unless it snows again.

In Appreciation of the New Times Square

Another cracking film from Streetfilms.org. This one singing the praises of the rejuvenated Times Square in New York City. The Mayor will shortly decide if the changes on the famous square will be made permanent. Let's hope they will be.

The media in New York is hemming and hawing about speed limits for cars on 7th Ave without paying much attention to whether or not life in the big smoke is better for pedestrians and even cyclists because of the project.

Thanks to Gehl Architects, who designed the changes.

Ice Ice Baby

You never really notice where the leaky eavestroughs are until it snows and melts in Copenhagen.



Photo by Theis Mortensen.

Strict Liability

A great little infofilm about the concept of Strict Liability, which is the norm in Denmark and The Netherlands, among other European countries. It was uploaded by Carlton Reid from Quickrelease.tv and I Pay Road Tax.com

With Strict Liability, it's always the motorist at fault when they collide with vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists.

In the film, Hans Voerknecht, international coordinator of the Dutch Fietsberaad explains how this works in practice.

Basically, cars kill. Those who drive cars and kill or injure people are liable, simply because of the responsibility involved in operating a 2000 kg machine.

- The UK is only one of four Western European countries that doesnt have 'strict liability' to protect cyclists and pedestrians.
- Strict liability entitles a crash victim to compensation unless the driver can prove the cyclist or pedestrian was at fault.
- Strict liability encourages more careful driving (and cycling, because a cyclist would be deemed to be at fault for crashing into a pedestrian).
- Strict liability would be a matter of civil rather than criminal law so would not affect criminal prosecutions.

Enter The Snow Slinger of Copenhagen

Screengrab from TV2 Nyhederne.

They call it the Snow Slinger and it's the City of Copenhagen's bad boy for clearing the drifts of snow that form along the curb between the bike lanes and the streets.

As mentioned before, the bicycle infrastructure enjoys the highest priority in Copenhagen. They are salted in advance of snowfall and they are cleared first when the snow falls.

There are rules regarding snow clearance. The City takes care of the bicycle lanes and streets while home owners and businesses must keep their sidewalks clear. The latter are not allowed to shovel the snow onto the bicycle lanes/tracks. In cases of heavy snowfall they pile up the snow along the edge of the curb - as visible in the above photo, at right.

When the snowploughs dedicated to the bicycle lanes remove snow they push it to the edge of the curb towards the street or into the gutter. The snow on the street is pushed towards the curb, but not onto the bicycle lanes.

This photo, taken out of my window last week before the big dumps of snow, shows how the sidewalks, bike lanes and roads are cleared and where the snow ends up. The bike lane snowploughs carve a 1.5 metre path, which isn't the full width, but enough for overtaking.

Anyway, the drifts from all the pushing snow out of the way are high in places and frozen solid to boot. Removing this snow is the task at the moment - although another snowstorm is expected to hit Copenhagen this afternoon with another 10-15 cm to add to the 25 cm on the ground.


Here's a little film of the news report about The Snow Slinger on TV2's national news broadcast yesterday. Click on the the link for the piece about the Slinger in it's original form, in Danish. It's at 10:00 into the broadcast. I just added music to the above film.

The Snow Slinger rolls along eating up the snow drifts and spitting the snow into a truck driving next to it. It can fill that truck in 5 minutes. After it's gone the bike lanes are free of the frozen drifts on the edges, making it easier and safer to cycle as well as to get in and out of your parked car. If you have one.

Buy Bicycles to Help the Economy

Screen grab from DRs 21 Søndag news programme.

The Danish Finance Minister, Lene Espersen, was on the national news last night in another attempt to sell the tax cuts the party she leads - The Conservatives - have advocated for.

She did so in a photo op at a bicycle shop with the angle: "this is how I'm spending my extra cash... I'm buying a new bicycle."

The bottom line is that it's great she was using a bicycle purchase to illustrate her point and she repeated the Conservative mantra of 'buy, consume, repeat' in the interview to underline how the economy can be boosted. She encouraged us to buy, for example, a new bicycle and create a chain of good reactions in the economy.

Hang on.... what's that underneath the bottom line? Ah... it's the small print. It tells a different story. Firstly, the Conservatives and the Liberal Party, who both govern Denmark at the moment, are not exactly legendary bicycle advocates. Secondly, the tax cuts are frightfully uneven. In the piece on the news it was revealed that the Minister will recieve tax cuts enough to buy a new bicycle every month this year whereas a cleaning lady only gets about 100 kroner a month [$20].

As one of my friends wrote on his Facebook status; "I just got a 5% payrise without having done anything to deserve and at the expense of others. Can we please have a new government?"

A protest campaign has been launched, in Danish only, about how the Prime Minister and the wealthy get loads of cash but at the other end of the scale it's just a few coins. www.skaevt.dk

At the end of the day, however, buying a new bicycle is not a bad thing. Danes buy 500,000 of them each year. I read that last year, during the brunt of the global financial crisis, three goods were most popular and enjoyed large increases in sales.

Fish [for eating]. Pets [not for eating]. Bicycles. The latter saw an 11% increase in sales.

Salt Shortage - Priority for Bicycles

The City of Copenhagen issued a press release last Friday about how the City's stash of salt for the roads and bicycle lanes is very low due to the snowstorms of the past few weeks.

Salting: Bicycle Lanes and the main roads have the highest priority

Because of the hard winter conditions of the past several weeks there is a shortage of road salt all over Denmark, including Copenhagen. We must therefore prioritize which roads and paths we salt.

At the moment we are prioritising the bicycle lanes/cycle tracks as well as the main approach roads to the city, so that the police and ambulances can get in.


Nice to see they have their priorities right. And even with another snowstorm on it's way to Denmark - the third in a week - the bicycle lanes must be kept clear.

Maybe We Moved Your Bicycle

I spotted this around Nørreport metro station. A sign from the City of Copenhagen. The train and metro station are the busiest in the nation. This is, apparently, a rescue zone in case of an accident.

The sign reads:

Rescue Zone
Is your bicycle gone?
Maybe it's in the bike rack on Israel's Square.
We moved it to be on the safe side. [or 'for the sake of safety']

I like the gentle, helpful tone. What a nice sign. The City moves bicycles a hundred metres away to a large bike rack on the nearby square so that the rescue zone is kept clear and they let you know where you can, perhaps, find it.

Manholes for Bicycles

I noticed this tiny detail on the urban landscape the other day. Outside the new university buildings on Karen Blixens Vej. I noticed it because I was heading up onto the sidewalk to park.

Scanning the curb for the lowest point while cycling is one of those tiny bits and pieces of behavourial wayfinding that we never give much thought. On certain stretches on my regular routes I know exactly where the lowest point is so I can life the front wheel and bounce onto the sidewalk. Outside our corner shop, for example.

Anyway, my subconscious scan revealed this ramped manhole and I used it. Seconds later, still rolling towards the bike racks, I realised that it wasn't a flaw. The streets are quite new outside these rather newish buildings. Yes, we still cobblestone wherever we can. Charm, character, tradition.

I parked and went back to the manhole. It was simply designed this way in order for bicycles to get up onto the sidewalk more easily.

Once again, it's in the details. Master planning is great. Designing new initatives for bicycles is great. But this one little manhole on this one little street. It was tilted for bicycle wheels.

Left me wondering. Was this a detail that was funnelled down all the way from the planners or was it the men who laid the cobblestones and slabs and curb who made an inspired impromptu decision? The slabs had to be cut to fit and that's usually done on the spot. Urban mysteries.

Let's not omit the possibility that it was shoddy workmanship that turned into a coincedental bonus for cycling citizens.


Like this little bike ramp I spotted in a courtyard in the city centre. Some flats but mostly offices. A long line of bike racks with this little curb in the middle. Someone went to the trouble of screwing a bit of metal into the stone merely to make a fraction of time in peoples' day a little bit easier. It's only ten centimetres. Easily hoppable, but no, no. A ramp.

Splendid. And this is a private courtyard so someone - a resident? an employee? - got the idea and passed it along. Presto.

Back to manholes, when the hell am I ever going to get the chance to wangle an a propos about manholes and give my excuse to blog my manhole photos?! It ain't everyday.

Like this one. Telling the story of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. As seen out at Amager Beach.

Slip Sliding Away

I must be getting old. After laughing at the first few topples I wondered why the chap filming didn't get his ass down there with some sand or salt and remove the slippery spot or call the city and have them hurry out to solve it. Then I laughed some more.

I've been putting my foot down a great deal in the slip-sliding snow this week. The tempo has gone down on the bike lanes, especially today after 15 cm of snow last night, but everyone is taking it easy. When you've been cycling virtually every day of your life, like most Danes and Dutch, you're used to challenges like this.

Sad how so many fearmongerers use accident statistics to whip up a whirlwind. They only present the number of emergency ward visits but hardly ever report that the vast majority of injuries are minor and most of the people either cycled away from the hospital or were back on their bicycles the next day after spraining a wrist or ankle or bumping their tailbone or head.

Even here in Denmark these Number of Admissions stats are readily used by many adherants to a societal Culture of Fear development. They often state in indignant tones that the number of cycling injuries that GO UNREPORTED are massive. As though those subversive people who are injured and don't report it are somehow conspiring against them and the system.

A day later you'll hear how the emergency wards are often overrun by people who don't actually need any treatment and how these people are costing society outrageous amounts of money. Stay away from the hospital unless you're REALLY hurt! Unless you're a cyclist, of course. By staying away you are working against the Goal of Portraying Cycling as Extremely Dangerous [and subsequently affecting car sales].

A propos nothing, the emergency ward at the hospital across the street from here has bike racks for about 40 bikes.

Vaguely related: Cycling nurses help thwart hospitalisation.

Czech Republic's Premier Cycling City and an Exhibition

I can't honestly remember why I didn't blog about this last September. I gave a lecture in the Czech town of Pardubice, in conjunction with an exhibition of photographs.

Pardubice is the premier cycling city in the Czech Republic. They enjoy 18% modal share for bicycles. After sitting in a [vaguely] zero-carbon taxi from Prague Airport and seeing few bicycles on the journey to Pardubice, it was like coming home when we rolled across the city limits. Wham!... bicycles everywhere.

The lecture was at the City Hall, pictured above. The Mayor and the Danish Ambassador to the Czech Republic were present and it all went smashingly.

What I was most looking forward to was the street exhibition organised by Vojtech, a Czech who studied in Denmark. On Pardubice's main drag, posters were placed on all the streetposts, showing off the diversity of Copenhagen's bicycle culture. 30 posters in all.

I had forgotten to blog about this but there are several more similar exhibitions coming up in various other cities so I rediscovered these photos in the 'archives'. Here's three of them.




Entitled, respectively: Copenhagen Corner, Copenhagen Date, Copenhagen Dog.


Pardubice is a lovely little city. Most cities with so many bicycles are. Funny that. I love it when bicycles are parked with the pedal leaning against the curb like in the photo on the left. This is how most bicycles were parked when the cyclist was running errands for decades and decades.

When meeting the Mayor he extolled the virtues of the place and it was interesting that he highlighted that the city was famous for its gingerbread and as the birthplace of Semtex. What a contrast.

In the Czech spectrum, as well as the regional one, Pardubice is a leader in developing its bicycle culture. Which ain't a bad thing to be famous for.

Rest assured, Cycle Chic was present and accounted for, even on a whistlestop trip.

Copenhagenize Mix Update

Here's the latest Copenhagenize Mix.

SHOP AND ROLL
We've posted previously about how Cyclists Make Better Shoppers. It was over two years ago, which is totally vintage in blogland. Anyway, Sustrans in the UK has two pdf's about initiatives in the UK.
Shoppers and How They Travel, wherein they take research from Graz, Austria and replicate it in Bristol. Then there's a similar paper about experiences in Leicester and Edinburgh called Traffic Restraint and Retail Vitality. All about how retailers overestimate how many of their customers arrive by car.
Links via a reader in the UK.

TORONTO
A city councillor, Bill Saundercook, was slammed last fall for proposing lower speed limits, according to the Toronto Sun... War on Cars Continues. Thanks to James for the link.

Since the beginning of the new year, Toronto has suffered a record number of pedestrian fatalities this year. 14 in as many days.

As our reader Luke puts it: "Most of the people were using marked crosswalks and had the right of way. Don't you think that the police are "ignoring the bull"? To use your phrase? Here's the link to the article "Will Police Blitz Curb Jaywalking?" As though restricting pedestrians rather human movement through their urban setting is a noble goal. Bah.

On the other hand, here's an article about the situation from The Globe and Mail which is "naming and blaming the bull", as our reader Kevin puts it. The War on Walking - Toronto pedestrians suffer the most casualties on the city's roads, and traffic experts say it doesn't have to be that way. Thanks to Kevin for the link.

So now the Toronto City Council is pondering reduced speed limits again, apparently, writes our reader, Kate. Toronto Council to Debate Pedestrian Safety.

Oh, but then again, then there's this piece in the Toronto Sun which blames the pedestrians... Heads Up, Pedestrians. Oh bother, it's confusing. Thanks to James for this link.

LONG BEACH, CA.
"Long Beach, the most bicycle friendly city in America", it says on a metallic bicycle sculpture in Long Beach, California. The city's leaders admit that it's a bold and premature statement. But they're working on it.
Long Beach Makes Way for Bicycles
Thanks to the Flying Finn, Ville, for the link.

Astrid from Antwerp calls herself the Low Impact Girl. She's going to spend the next two years doing what she can to reduce her carbon footprint. Go girl.

NEW REPORT ON BICYCLING AND WALKING
The Alliance for Biking and Walking has issued a report entitled "Investing in Biking and Walking Could Save Lives - States with the lowest levels of biking and walking have higher traffic fatalities and chronic disease."
They could have saved themselves a couple of keyboard strokes and just written "Investing in Biking and Walking SAVES LIVES", since there is so much research out there to back up this fact. Nevertheless, it's a great report and available to read over at the People Powered Movement website.
Via a press release.

MELBOURNE
Melbourne continues its copenhagenization with this news from our reader Stuart about $25 million AUD plan to turn Swanston Street into a pedestrian and bicycle friendly thoroughfare. With hints that the plan will extend to the surrounding streets. Sweet. I used to live in Melbourne, on two occasions, so I have an affectionate relationship with the city and am thrilled by this initiative.

- Swanston Street Takes a Walk on the Mild Side
- Cars and taxis banned from Swanston St in $25.6m revamp planned by Melbourne City Council
- The Melbourne Council's website about the project.

In Australia, they're selling bicycles. Period. According to the Cycling Promotion Fund.

SEVILLE
The Spanish city of Sevilla is reclaiming the streets in favour of a more liveable city, according to Sociedad Sostenible.

NEW JERSEY
Andy discovered this old statute in New Jersey which just might be enough legal backup to take your bike on the train for free!
Gotta love it:
"The passenger shall remove any lantern from such bicycle but not any usual bicycle bell or cyclometer nor need he crate, cover or otherwise protect the bicycle."

Slow Motion Future

I was cycling home with my kids in a snowstorm the other day and my son Felix said, "It's like everything is slow motion!"

He was right. Not only are sounds muffled in snowstorms, but the cars on our street were moving much slower than normal due to the storm and the thick snow.

It actually looked quite nice. The motorists were rolling along at about 20-30 km/h for a couple of hours. It was calm, cool and collected. They were all probably staring at the road what with the ice and snow and reduced visibility, which added to the appeal.

It was a stunning display of spontaneous traffic calming and it gave me a glimpse of what it would be like if the city lowered the speed limits to 30 km/h, like in so many other European cities.

Even in the snowstorm in the film, there were bicycles overtaking cars. How wonderful and human is that? Speed limits for cars that allow bicycles to overtake them. Brilliant.

Driving Makes You Goofy

Vintage Goofy transformed into a madman behind the wheel, posted originally by Carlton over at Quickrelease.tv.

Copenhagen's Conversation Lanes

It's another tiny detail that is all-important in marketing urban cycling for the masses as opposed to the minority.

When the transformation of the now famous street Nørrebrogade [North Bridge Street] was being planned and implemented, I noticed a detail in the terminology used by the City of Copenhagen's Bicycle Office.

Nørrebrogade is not only the busiest bicyle street in the western world, it has also, over the past year or so, been a traffic planning showcase for how to recreate liveable neighbourhoods and prioritize bicycles, pedestrians and busses over cars. It was here the Green Wave for cyclists was implemented, regulating the traffic signals for bicycles so that if you cycle at 20 km/h you'll never put a foot down all the way into the city centre and home again. It was also here that cars were shunted away so that the neighbourhood would blossom once again.

In places there are now bicycle lanes that are double as wide, after another lane was reclaimed from motorised traffic. Simply to accomodate the 38,000 cyclists that use the stretch each day. The width of the lanes is now over 5 metres wide.

Here's the detail. At the beginning the new 'outside lane' - visible to the right of the two Copenhageners in the photo - was referred to as a 'fast lane'. When the lanes were completed there was no reference to the outside lane. Instead, the pre-existing inside lane was now called the "Conversation Lane". Illustrated brilliantly by the two Copenhageners, above.

Why sell speed when the vast majority of people on bicycles are content to take it easy on their way to work or the cinema or a café? Selling speed isn't exactly good for traffic safety. Nor does catering to the minority who like to go faster benefit the majority who don't.

The quicker cyclists now have a space all their own and the Conversation Lane is for the rest of us. It encourages the social aspect of urban cycling.

A little marketing/terminology detail that speaks volumes about the ongoing promotion of cycling in Copenhagen.

And even though the City has an annual bicycle budget of 75 million kroner [$15 million dollars] to maintain the existing infrastructure and build new, it's these very human, anthropological details that make so much difference.

Bicycle Poetry Installation

Found this bicycle art installation thing the other night in the Vesterbro neighbourhood. Bicycle frames accompanied by poetry. One poem on each side. Lovely.

"I have felt
and thought
and longed
on a bicycle
and I think I will continue cycling
until death rips the saddle away from under me."

and

"I often look out the window
watching for the postman
as he parks his bicycle
at door after door
until he reaches mine."

It's on the corner of Dybbølsgade and Sommerstedgade, if you're in the neighbourhood.

Advertising in a Bicycle Culture

Recently the Danish State Railways [DSB] announced that bikes are now free on all the S-Trains in the Greater Copenhagen area.

It was pretty big news here but DSB launched a comprehensive campaign to let the people know about it. On the busiest bicycle street in the western world, Nørrebrogade, they put up a mock S-train carriage on the bike lane. The morning bicycle rush hour on this street, which averages 38,000 cyclists a day, would find it hard to miss the advertising campaign. Whether people rode through the train tunnel or past it. On this stretch the bike lanes are double wide, around 5 metres.

When the cyclists stopped at the red light up ahead, they were given a brochure about the fact that bikes are now free on the trains, as well as a free ticket for the train. Rather cool.

Print adverts in a variety of themes about the new initiative feature prominently in the city these days. This advert on an outdoor ashtray, featuring beer glasses as wheels, reads:

"Invite your bicycle back to your place when you've been out on the town.
Bicycles now travel free on the S-trains."

The same spot in the top photos is quite a popular place for people to advertise or raise awareness about various issues.

There are few other place in the city where you can get face to face with so many people. When cyclists roll to a stop at the light - and they are often 50-75 cyclists at a time in the rush hour - you can easily get your message across. 10-15,000 cylists in the morning rush hour... that's a lot of citizens. They can't walk away from you because they're waiting at the red light and they're not hidden inside cars.

This spot sees all manner of activity. For example, our nurses went on strike a couple of years ago and they stood right here with banners to win popular support. They handed out bread rolls to cyclists. Other times you'll get handed fruit or what not with the brochures.


Below is the former 'bicycle mayor', Klaus Bondam, handing out bread rolls a while back at the same spot.

Google Street View Captures Toppling Cyclist in Copenhagen

Google launched their Street View service in Denmark a couple of days ago and there was one photo they enjoyed so much that they leaked it to the press in conjunction with the launch.

The Street View van caught a cyclist taking a tumble outside of Vestergade 12 in the centre of the city. Shockingly, he wasn't wearing protective gear on his hands or arms. :-)

"It's actually a funny story", explained the head of Google's Danish office, Peter Friis to DR News.

"He was riding along when he spotted the Street View car and he wanted to take a photo with his mobile phone and that's when he toppled over."

He explained that the man on the bicycle is a friend of one of the employees at Google Denmark and that he called his friend afterwards to tell him he was in the photo.

"The man himself thinks it's a funny photo", said Peter Friis.

According to Friis it's pure coincedence that the episode was captured on camera. He stresses that the photo wasn't added in order to create hype about the new service.

"The van only drove down that street once and the camera mounted on the van took the photo. Our vans have driven 32,057 km through Denmark so it's not strange that certain sequences are caught on camera."

Update: The man in question was interviewed on the national news tonight. 15 minutes of fame and all that.