I’ve tweeted many times about my Australian cycling friend Paul van Bellen from Sydney & his cycling tour project ‘Cycling Dutch Style‘:

“If you want to get more people cycling in Australia, you need to make it more attractive, easy and convenient.” – Paul van Bellen.

In May 2011 Paul will lead 30 Australian cycling thinkers over a 500km, 13 day tour in The Netherlands, the world’s most cycle friendly country. Filmmakers Rowena Crowe and Paulo Alberton will follow and record van Bellen’s tour as his team studies innovations and attitudes in cycling. Rowena and Paulo will shape the material collected into web friendly stories and information for a website called www.cyclingdutchstyle.com.au, and also into a documentary, once participants of the tour return to their homes and routines in Australia. Our website will be fully functional by early March 2011, in time for us to engage with our audience.

The Impact
Major cities around the world are embracing cycling as a way to commute, in a bid to combat pollution, save petrol and avoid traffic congestion. While cycling groups in Australia are trying to promote cycling as a sustainable transport alternative through initiatives like Ride to Work Day, our major cities are lagging behind the rest of the world in infrastructure investment. The Netherlands has invested heavily in bicycle infrastructure over the last 30 years. The result is today 30% of all trips are done on a bicycle throughout the country, whilst in Australia many cities are aiming towards 5% by 2016.

These stories will not only entertain broader audiences but they will also contribute to a valuable and unique online resource that may inform policy making in Australia and inspire other city planners around the world.

The Tour
The 30 participants meet in Dieren, the Netherlands on May 10th 2011 to begin their tour. Over the next 14 days they will ride an average 50 km per day. Our cameras will follow their journey, recording the sights and sounds and seeking their views on the state of cycling in these cities.

We will meet Dutch people who use the bike infrastructure daily as they ride to work, school or to the shops. We will meet with experts who are involved in developing and maintaining this infrastructure. Together these stories will help us better understand the positive effects of investing heavily in cycling infrastructure.

Each day we will be reporting from the saddle, bringing knowledge from the road. We will invite our audience to engage with our findings and consider how these ideas could be adapted to Australian conditions and way of life.

Key moments on the tour will include a visit to: Groningen, the world’s number one cycling city with 60% of all trips done by bicycle; Utrecht where they will meet the cycling infrastructure experts from Fietsberaad, the Dutch centre for cycling policy; Houten, which is recognised as a yardstick of a liveable sustainable city, where the direct route to town is on the bike path and cars are forced to use peripheral roads. For full break down of the itinerary go here.

What We Need & What You Get
We are asking US$ 8,000 (not Australian dollar) to cover the expenses of the plane ticket and accommodation, so we (Rowena and Paulo) can participate on the tour and create content for both the website and documentary. Our professional and creative work is voluntary. Also in order to offer you these fantastic and irresistible prizes, we have accessed the support of Gazelle Bicycle Australia who is offering Gazelle products (Gazelle bikes and accessories) as prizes at cost value, only for this project. This means a great return for your contribution!!! The monetary value of your contribution is just over to the value of the prizes. Check the prizes underneath. And if you prefer another bike, Gazelle is flexible and happy to discuss this with you. Please be aware that contributions are made in US dollars. Currently A$ and US$ are nearly the same value, but please check for up to date exchange rates prior to making your contribution.

This project desperately needs to get documented, thus funded & supported, so go click!

FFFYI (Fun Facts For Your Information):
- ‘van Bellen’ is a Dutch surname
- the verb ‘bellen’ means ‘ringing’, either calling on the phone, ringing the door bell or…wait for it…ringing your bike bell :)).

AND…look at Gazelle’s famous print ad series from the early 20th century that came in the form of a cartoon called ”t AVONTUUR van PIET PELLE op zyn GAZELLE.’, which translates into ‘The adventure of Piet Pelle on his Gazelle’. Both rhyme, and so it does when you exchange ‘Piet Pelle’ for ‘Paul van Bellen’…

I rest my case, there’s only so much that can be written in the stars, I suppose ;).

Coincidently, I hooked up with Rowena Crowe late November when she was in town for the IDFA. She’d bought a crappy but lovely bike to get around. Crappy as many other beater bikes, but lovely all the same, because…it got her around ;).

We rode together, she asked the questions and filmed for prosperity. As Rowena writes: “This film gives you a sneak preview of the kind of people we will be meeting on the cycling Dutch style study tour in May 2011.”

Of course we stopped for beers as well. Like the ride, we took it slowly, as her jet lag was starting to kick in. I’m looking forward to springtime, to give that part of cultural integration another shot.

Information I wanted to share with you weeks ago, so here’s a copy-paste:

Hey, my name is Curtis, I’m a film director from Canada. In the summer I worked on a film called ‘The Bike Heist’ we shot in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The central theme of the film is bicycles and friendship. We our currently releasing promotional teasers every month or so until the release this summer (2011).

Our best marketing tool is word of mouth, telling friends, blogs etc. Then they tell more people and so on, you get the idea. We have been featured on a couple bicycle blogs so far, but would greatly appreciate your support also. The website for the film is www.thebikeheist.ca and perhaps you can make a post on your blog or even embed the teaser. I would appreciate your support and it certainly is for a greater cause.

Long live cycling.

I’m riding right with ya, Curtis, thanks for making and sharing The Bike Heist!

Dear readers, followers, subscribers: share, embed, link to, RT, syndicate away

From the source (via @VrijeFietser on Twitter): “A bicycle, dramatic music & great editing: all ingredients of the short film ‘Fiets!’. There’s no narration, but the actors’ facial expressions are sufficient. Words are not needed. The music adds drama, but at the same time it’s also cheeky. At first you probably don’t see the purpose of the film, but it all comes together in the end.”

Doesn’t it always :).

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!

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.

The video ‘Beauty and the Bike’ has been spreading like wildfire in the bike blogo/twittersphere and was well received, I don’t think anyone missed that one and neither did I. Yesterday reader Gerco pointed me to it, and instead of just acknowledging its existence, I’m now posting it too:

This is an 8 minute version of our 55 minute documentary Beauty and the Bike. The film follows two groups of young women from Darlington and Bremen. Between them, they discover what makes – and stops – teenage girls from cycling. The answer? “It’s the Infrastructure, stupid!” The full DVD is available from www.bikebeauty.org.

Up until now I had nothing to add to this excellent video. It’s all true, true to life. Just ask any Dutch girl. Or boy, woman, man, the elderly, etc.

Last Friday I was shooting pictures around town (for the upcoming post ‘Winter Cycle Wonderland’) and I think four of these pictures basically represent that ‘beauty’ and so many other values. Quite universal, wouldn’t you think?

Photographer and Amsterdamize subscriber Stefanella Orzan from Rome was so kind to send me this video today, called Pedal Power, excerpts from a bicycle documentary produced by Canada’s CBC. It aired a few months ago, unfortunately you can only watch the whole film online if you actually live in Canada, but I guess you can circumvent that by proxy :).

Bicycles and automobiles have to share the same roads – a recipe for conflict – and many potential cyclists just won’t ride in the city because they see it as too dangerous. Add in the plague of bike theft and a lot of cyclists are simply leaving their bikes at home.

In Canada, bicycles “don’t get no respect.” From the story of Igor, and the anatomy of the underground world of bike peddlers in Toronto, this film spins out to how other cities are making riding safe. Using innovative “bike-cam” techniques to convey, up-close, the sensation of bike riding, a series of character-driven mini-narratives propel the film through a study of what makes a city “bikeable”. Whether it’s the public bike program in Paris, bike mega-garages in Amsterdam, bike paths in Vancouver and Montreal, or the surprising leadership of New York City, we follow the story of this remarkable little conveyance as it wheels though the first decade of the 21st century.

This video includes samples of the everyday cycle life of a Dutch family and a very nice expose on the world’s first (attempt at a) bike share program by the Provos, the 1965 White Bicycle Plan, initiated by Luud Schimmelpennink.

Although the narrator mentions some data that are in fact not correct, it doesn’t hurt the premise of this fine piece of work. Normalcy in cycling is here, there and spreading everywhere.