Month: August 2014

thank you for cycling – September 17, 2014 – tack för att du cyklar

On September 17, the City of Stockholm and Naturskyddsföreningen (the most influential non-profit environmental organization in Sweden) will give goodie bags to cyclists around Stockholm as a thank you for riding a bicycle (“tack för att du cyklar”).

Cycling in Stockholm

In order to get one of the 150,000 bags you will have to ride by one the following 17 check points:

  • Alvik (Alviksplan)
  • Liljeholmsbron (east side)
  • Ekelundsbron (Solna)
  • Slussen
  • Årstabron
  • Skanstull
  • Götgatan (by Katarina bangata) – bike service available
  • Hammarbyfärjan (Södermalm)
  • Roslagstull (north side) – bike service available
  • Stadshuset – bike service available
  • Norrtull
  • Lidingöbron (Ropsten side)
  • Sankt Eriksplan
  • Raoul Wallenbergs torg
  • Älvsjö station (by the bicyle pump)
  • Kista – bike service available
  • Hökarängen

Will you commute by bike on September 17 and ride by one of the check points to get a bag? What do you think the goodies will be this time?

How was your day?

It had been way too long since I last rode the heaviest piece of my velocipede collection and I really had to head back to woodland.

Wednesday 9am, I put a bunch of knives, matches and a jerrycan full of fuel on the kitchen floor to make sure my one year old girl has something to play with while I’m gone and then I’m off to meet a friend who, being his own boss, can also go for a “Tour de Hellasgården” in the middle of the week if he feels like it (and he does in a different bike each time: Kona Process 153 the other day, Kona Hei Hei Deluxe this time).

Our “Tour de Hellasgården” goes on the rather technical green track around the lake and must end with a cup of coffee at the restaurant followed by a swim in Källtorpssjön.

Mountain biking around Hellasgården
A couple of kilometers and a cup of coffee later

Crappy pictures and Instagram filters are also part of this Grand Tour and I’m quite sure people usually don’t have a full suspension mountain bike for towel and jersey rack. See.

Coilair towel and jersey rack from Kona
Coilair towel and jersey rack from Kona

Travel guides say Stockholm is one third asphalt, one third green areas and one third water and we sure stayed away from the first 33.33333333333%. Big bikes, slow riders, pines and water temperature at 25°C are all it takes to make Wednesday feel like Saturday… or Sunday.

Rien n’est simple (1962)

The least we can say when looking at these 5 drawing from 1962 is that Jean-Jacques Sempé (a French cartoonist) saw it coming. Each of the illustrations shows a “proletarian” (left) and a middle-class person (right) going to work. And as time goes by…

Rien n'est simple, 1962
walking & cycling

Rien n'est simple, 1962
walking & driving a car

Rien n'est simple, 1962
cycling & driving an even bigger car

Rien n'est simple, 1962
riding a moped & driving an even bigger bigger car

Rien n'est simple, 1962
finally “driving” a car (stuck in traffic) & cycling

After years of hard labour and social progress the “proletarian” (like a good deal of the population) could finally afford a car but the comfort and freedom the automobile cartel (manufacturers, politicians, …) promised were long gone…

What do you say? Did we end up in the situation Jean-Jacques Sempé had in mind more than half a century ago or was he completely wrong?

Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé (born 17 August 1932 in Bordeaux), is a French cartoonist. Some of his cartoons are quite striking, but retain a sentimental and often a somewhat gentle edge to them, even if the topic is a difficult one to approach. He once drew a series called Le petit Nicolas, starting it in the 1950s, but he is best known for his posterlike illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities. – Wikipedia