Showing posts with label bicycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicycle. Show all posts

Friday, August 27, 2010

Rediscovering Simplicity: The Cyclists of Italy (a photo diary)

by citisven

Whenever I travel to different countries and cities, one of the things I'm interested in is how locals move around in their daily lives. Call me a transportation glutton, but I'm a sucker for trains, boats, rickshaws, trams, buses, gondolas, back alleys, and sidewalks.

Then, of course, there's the most sublime transit invention of them all: the bicycle. It's so simple — even a non-techie like myself understands how it works — and yet so deliciously useful, relieving traffic, getting you anywhere quickly, reducing CO2, keeping you in shape, letting you see a place and interact with its people.    

One thing I noticed on my trip to Italy a few months ago was how much bikes were part of everyday life. With David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries as my companion I strolled through the streets of cities and towns, trying to capture the mundane beauty of cycling.

Italy-bikes_03



continued at Daily Kos....

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Bikes in Istanbul?

by citisven

A while ago I wrote about a bicycle tour I took as part of the Ecocity World Summit last December in Istanbul. It was organized by Bisikletliler, the Istanbul and Turkish Cyclist Association, and afterward I got to speak to their founder and captain, Murat Suyabatmaz, about the challenges and opportunities of bringing bicycle infrastructure and culture to a rapidly growing megalopolis of currently 15 million.

Parts of the interview are integrated in a piece entitled Istanbul and Bicycling, Like Dark Bread It's Good For Everyone I just posted yesterday on sfgate.com, but I thought our talk was inspiring and educating enough to post it here in its entirety.

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continued at Daily Kos...