I just had a most chillin’ Sunday, joining friends at the Appelsap HipHop Festival in Oosterpark in the eastern part of Amsterdam, enjoying some good munchin’ and good…well, let’s just say at some point somebody put Stevie Wonder on, but generally just extremely relaxed, and half the city seemed to have gathered there.

Halfway dinner (mussels, yum!) I got a text message from one good friend of mine, Wiendelt, asking me whether I had checked another friend’s Facebook page yet, in this case Gabe’s. Of course I hadn’t, and couldn’t resist, so I checked…

Suffice to say, I love it when friends get together, whip out their guitar and camera, and have a good laugh. Totally jammin’, making my day truly complete!

Quoting Henry:

A little bit of bike rap Courtesy of the City of Amsterdam who is finally waking up to the fact that bicycles are one of the Netherlands greatest attractions and on e of the strongest reasons it’s just such a darn lovely, peaceful place to visit or live. The incredible cycling mode share enables very high population density without the typical urban noise, danger and stress. Much of the 17th and 18th century city remains not as a museum but as a living, breathing, charming city as the city was once defined: a place for people. We love riding our bikes here… with our kids, dogs, SO’s, to work, to the pub, to school or just for the sake of riding!

It’s still true. The world around us is experiencing a surge in bicycle advocacy, people desperate for more ‘active transportation’ in an often hostile car-dependent society, while the Dutch take their achievements mostly for granted, both nationally and in international context. Amsterdam has a strong case to push aside the aged cheese, tulip & windmill (and pot & prostitution) associations, emphasizing its livability by embracing the bicycle as main transportation. The Netherlands as a whole could also do with a little shedding on that front. Right now ‘we’ are not doing enough.

The end game of successful bicycle policies is that nobody will have to think twice about getting on a bike. Young and old, rich and poor.

It’s just the logical thing to do.

In short, feel…

How’s this for awesomeness…Kristin Tieche of Velovogue fame shot a great, great video, showing how football unites, how ‘Orange’ is not exclusively a Dutch thing and literally is to be found everywhere, mixing pleasure with biking and visa versa, on to watch the NED-BRA match:

World Cup 2010 Quarterfinals… KT roots for the SF Giants brother team – Dutch Oranje! Joined by Rob and Dan from PUBLIC Bikes, it’s an Oranje and Black attack comin’ at ya! SF love direct to Amsterdam!

Thanks for showing that and sharing, Kristin! This support will surely get us into the final, enjoy the battle with Uruguay today!

In early February of this year Antoine Sachs of ARTE TV from Paris arrived in Amsterdam on his tour around this country to document Dutch bicycle culture, infrastructure and more. He was particularly interested to talk to me about the ‘trouble in bicycle paradise’, being bike theft and parking problems. The first is huge, but on the decline, the latter is ever persistent with the rising cycle rates.

I was happy to host Antoine, show him around and highlight a few aspects on camera. This weekend he e-mailed me to tell me his video series about cycling in the Netherlands was finished and online on his blog ‘Chronicles Of My Carbon-Free Life‘.

I hope your French is good, because, as is still customary in France, it’s all dubbed. No big hurdle, as the footage will tell a clear enough story. Enjoy.

On Thursday, April 23 I pedaled off to go to Shirley Agudo’s book signing at the Waterstones store, in conjuction with Book Night. It being a beautiful day, I didn’t rush and snapped a few shots before entering. Still, I got there early enough to spot famous & fabulous Fabiola approaching the book store on his/her bike.

See, he/she wasn’t on the cover of ‘Bicycle Mania‘ for nothing :). It was great finally meeting Shirley and fellow-photographer Trevor Waldron, talk Amsterdam bike culture…well, actually, not culture, more about our own hows, whats and whys.

Perhaps because of that evening, I took my time, more than usual, when I hit the streets the next day.

On Sunday I met up with David Bernstein, host of The FredCast, ‘a weekly podcast devoted to the latest cycling news, gear, gadgets, gizmos, components, podsafe cycling music and more’, based in of Park City, Utah.

He was in town on business and seized the opportunity to go for a ride with me. No need for a rental bike, as he’d brought his own speedy Dahon folder.

We sat down in the Jordaan, had a great talk about a whole range of things-to-do-with-cycling and finally landed in Vondelpark to record a new episode: ‘Show #151: Amsterdamize!‘ (interview starts at 29:41). The rest is now ramblin’ history ;).

The rest of the day offered me some more observations, not to be ignored.

And last but not least, Queen’s Day came and went. Life is grand, never a dull moment.

The deal:

The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then tweet about your adventures with the tag #30daysofbiking. Event starts on April 1 and ends on April 30!

It’s become quite a thing on the Twitterz. No wonder, it works the same way as on the streets: more people will take up cycling when they actually see (more) people do it, the more the merrier. Low entry barrier, make it look easy and share your thoughts and experiences, inspire others. It makes a great and growing global on and offline cycling community.

I’ve been cycling every day all my life and wouldn’t know what to do without it, you already know that. But I’ll support any effort, all creative means to get people on two wheels (more often).

What, you’re not cycling yet? Then get yourself a bike, get on with it…and never look back.

In honor of #30daysofbiking I recorded this little tidbit, one of my daily rides home from the train station, on an early Tuesday evening in April.

(Shot with my Nokia phone, so low quality)

In September of last year the good people of Dublin Community TV hopped over to Amsterdam, here to film for The Pedal Project:

Rob Carr to me:
“The TV Series is 3 part documentary on cycling in Dublin. The main premise of the series will be to look at how a cycling culture can be developed in Dublin and what that might look like. To that end, one programme will be a kind of travelogue where we go on a journey from Dublin to Amsterdam via London by bike, ferry and train. We will follow Ciaran Fallon (the new Cycling Officer at Dublin City Council) on his journey as he meets various people involved in the cycling cultures of London and Amsterdam to see what is happening from a cycling perspective in those cities and what Dublin can learn from them. We are of course hoping you will be one of these people…

From DCTV:
“As Dublin has grown wealthier we have become carcooned basing our personal and city transport system on the car” said director Barra Hamilton. “We know this isn’t working – but what is the alternative and how do we get there? That’s the question we set out to answer with this documentary. We spent months talking to academics and elected officials, council planners and staff, campaigners and cyclists – and through the production process of TV we’ve constructed a convincing case and viable plan to recast Dublin as a cyclable city.”

“The Pedal Project is an ongoing debate emerging into public view in all its complexity and variety for the first time” said co-director Rob Carr. “We are inviting people to contribute to the process. From the reasons we should, and shouldn’t, insist on cycling helmets to how we design our roads to create dedicated spaces for cycling while ensuring ‘permeable’ road systems with a mix of transport forms – The Pedal Project offeres a tool for people to use in instigating wide ranging discussion on what we want from our city.”

The end result is fabulous. The Pedal Project does indeed make the case for much needed change and does so by covering all the important angles. And I think it’s safe to say that in this series Dublin is interchangeable for many other cities around the world.

Go watch and after you finish, don’t hesitate to see the other parts: One Less Car & Two Wheeled City (those are external video links, but you can instead navigate to those parts inside the embedded player). Oh, and just fyi, the Amsterdam part starts at 13:43, but don’t skip ahead, watch it in full.

Yesterday I stumbled upon another Amsterdam blogger, Sarah at muntthee.com (mint tea). In particular, her words of devotion to this city’s (bicycle) culture:

Amsterdam has often been titled the Bike Capital of the World with 40% of all traffic movements by bicycle. The ubiquity of bicycles lined up against every building and the number of cyclists on the road is probably the most unique element of this city. The bicycle is a part of the Dutch identity and Amsterdam truly embraces bike culture. When I first moved here, I was so amazed by all the different types of cyclists riding in this town. It is fascinating seeing whole families being carried on one bike or people moving their furniture on the back of their bikes. The bicycle is by far my favorite part of living in Amsterdam.

So, inspired by this bike culture along with the coolest blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic, I have decided to post weekly photos of the interesting bikers in this city. This first picture was taken when I first moved to Amsterdam. She is out of focus but this is a little girl riding alone with her teddy bear in Vondelpark. I can’t handle the cuteness of this city sometimes.

Of course I welcomed her :-p and today I looked a bit further. Turns out Sarah is a filmmaker and motion graphics designer from Japan & Texas (images of samurai westerns jumpstarted my imagination) and moved here last summer.

I don’t know what it is, but for some odd reason there’s always a connection between the simple act of cycling and artistic/creative people…wonder why that is….no, I don’t, but I was ready to find the proof in the pudding.

Sure enough, going through her show reel, I found a video called ‘(One month in) Amsterdam’. Now, things coming to conclusion, I figured ‘Amsterdam’ would be a must-watch. I was right:

Looking forward to more, Sarah, consider me a fan!

Last Sunday I played guide for the Mobile Social Group Ride, organized by Byron of Bikehugger, as a prelude to his presentation ‘Changing The World With Bikes‘ at the FITC Amsterdam 2010 (- “Design, Technology. Cool Shit”) conference at the Felix Meritis European Centre for Arts and Sciences on Keizersgracht.

‘It’s prohibited to place bicycles against this building’s facade. Bicycles will be removed. This building has permanent camera surveillance.’

We ended up with the four of us. I rode alongside Rick from Toronto and Byron and his wife Pam. We blamed the poor weather conditions, not everybody’s cup of tea. Or some were just aiming for other destinations. Byron and I joked about how the weather’s always crap when he and Pam hit Amsterdam. And when it’s not raining, snowing or frogs falling from the sky, when we start riding, it eventually will. It’s a given. ;)

FITC provided two, very artsy/colored beater bikes for the ride, put together by Champagne Valentine, one more crooked/bend than the other. Very cool. Still, we needed one more bike, so we thought we’d head over to Workcycles (where a small reception would take place later that afternoon) and see if we could borrow one. Henry hadn’t arrived yet, so we pedaled on to MacBike at the central station. And by ‘pedaled’ I mean that Byron was sitting side saddle on the back of Mr Freight. Not an opportunity to waste, of course:

We rode on to the Plantage buurt (near Artis Zoo) and forced by a downpour we fled into a nearby cafe. Cycling in the rain ain’t a biggie, but if there’s no absolute need to torture yourself, treat yourself to some nice beers instead. It was equally nice to just talk about stuff that transcends the act of cycling, aka our professional realms. I discovered that I had even more in common with my guests than just the love for bicycles/cycling. Yeah, always funny how that works.

The final stop was at Henry’s, who had provided for great finger food and more beers. A setting for lots of (real) bike geek talk and showing off stuff, as you can imagine…but with items you might not have guessed. :)

Meanwhile in the city, things transpired as usual, people going about their way.

(Yeah, I know, it’s not raining in those pictures. But for editorial purposes, this just will have to do :-p)

Last October I ventured outside with a video camera on a cold, windy and rainy Saturday afternoon. I tried several times, but I never really started editing…until this week. And right after hearing this news today, I was determined to have it done by this evening.

I already confessed my love for cycling in this great, beautiful and forgiving city with ‘Sinfonia Cyclissimo‘ well over a year ago, but here’s its successor, a new ode, if you will: ‘Free’.

Enjoy!

I just have to share this short animation film by Michael Dudok de Wit, called ‘Father & Daughter’. A father says goodbye to his young daughter and leaves. As the wide Dutch landscapes live through their seasons so the girl lives through hers. She becomes a young woman, has a family and in time she becomes old, yet within her there is always a deep longing for her father.

The bicycle plays an important integral part, of course, very much worth watching, I think.

Via BicycleFixation.