London Calling

Trip to London recently (04.02.10-07.02.10) with Niels while he was briefly visiting europe.

(Sorry this took so long to get around to Niels)

-"Way Out" - London St. Pancras International - For some reason, we were greatly entertained with some of the British terms for things, like the fact that the train terminated at this station.



-Eurostar @ London St.G Pancras International - Gotta love High Speed trains, and the great European rail network



-Green Park - Great weather made for lots of nice walking



-Green Park - big beautiful trees and wide open spaces in the heart of London



-Canadian War Memorial - Green Park



-Canadian War Memorial - Green Park - Really nice to stumble across this, kinda humbling, or that's the way I kinda felt





-Maple Leaves - Canadian War Memorial





-Inscription on the Canadian War Memorial - Green Park



-Bobby at a cross-walk - Green Park



-Royal Guard coming down Constitution Hill



-Gates at Buckingham Palace



-Me in front of Buckingham Palace



-Queen Victoria Memorial - Buckingham Palace



-Crowds at Buckingham Palace



-Crowds at Queen Victoria Memorial



-Panorama of Buckingham Palace



-Royal Guard Practising




-Royal Guard playing Copacabana



-More royal guard, coming down The Mall



-Plant covered wall



-Horses Guards Parade



-Horses Guards Parade - Outside the Cavalry Museum (which was not worth the entry fare)



-The Sherlocke Holmes



-Golden Jubilee Bridge towards the London Eye



-Houses of Parliament from the London Eye



-The framework of the London Eye - Golden Jubilee Bridge in the background



-Looking down the Thames to Waterloo Bridge (foreground) from the Eye



-Niels and me on the Thames across from the houses of parliament



-Nice Ride - (for some reason or another, I've developed some sort of obsession it seems)



-Westminster Abbey



-All of London in one glorious shot - Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, double decker buses and black cabs



-some heavily secured/guarded fence



-Rotten Row - Hyde Park (where the people with $$$ come to ride in the city)



-The Serpentine - Hyde Park (supposedly London is the greenest city in Europe, due to all of its parks)



-And I was actually trying to use the phone, it wasn't just a gratuitous shot, since for some reason my phone wouldn't let me make outgoing calls



-St. Paul's Cathedral - Can you find Waldo? (~Niels~)



-There he is - damn, that is one really big cathedral



-The Tate Modern, Millenium Bridge - view from St. Paul's Stone Gallery



-Climbing the Dome - St. Paul's



-Those'd be some mighty tight stairways and doors - I guess they're not made to accommodate the Dutch, eh Niels?



-St. Paul's on the Thames side



-small car BIG CITY - I admit, this is kinda how I wish we got to tour around the city - classic Mini's



-Big City - the details (for anyone making a trip to London in the near future)



-Millennium Bridge - looking back across towards St. Paul's



-The Globe Theatre - home of the Bard



-London Bridge (or at least I think it is) - but it wasn't falling down while we were there

-Southwark Crown Ct



-Tower Bridge



-HMS Belfast



-Me at Tower Bridge



-Trafalgar Square



-Tim Hortons - In London?



-Lamborghini Gallardo - I <3 Soho



-Of course the Lamborghini has to be white - oh, there goes another Bentley



-the matching M6 and M5 respectively



-Pack of London cab's at the ready



-Behind that train, the filming location for platform 9 & 3/4 at Kings Cross Station- for the Harry Potter fans



-Niels packed and ready to head off to Hogwarts - see you on the other side



-London St Pancras International



-Antwerp Central Station - Trains on 3 floors, one above the next.

Bicycles that inspire

This vid I find inspiring. I think I'll continue to be happy so long as I stick with bikes in some capacity (and working at Trek sure would be pretty damn sweet!)

TREK DOCUMENT Belleville from AboutFace Media on Vimeo.

Can con pt 2

Bought some more Canadian music recenlty, (legally)



Basia Bulat - Heart of my own

Live guest on Q on Friday January 15th 2010. The new album is another good one through and through.

New Year Bike Polo Throw In Tournament

(02.01.10)

Started off the new year by heading to Amsterdam and checking out, and, taking part in a bike polo tournament. Was a good learning experience. Like for one, my bike is really set for distance and not something like this (52x16, vs the more common 46x17, or even lighter on bikes that looked like they're specially just for polo.



-The event



-Setting up the court - The venue was an old warehouse on one of the islands in Amsterdam.



-Bike Polo in action



-Pile-o-sweet rides





-Helmets mandatory

More photos by other people on flickr.

Copenhagen trip # 2

Please excuse the 2 months lateness.

I'll post date this one to 11.12.09.

It's yet another bike related post. This 2nd trip back to Copenhagen was with my boss for the Awards Ceremony for the Copenhagen Bike Share Design Competition. Didn't win, but all teams that submitted an entry were invited, so, needless to say, we were curious.
Was also a great/interesting time to go, given the COP15 conference that was going on. Lots to see and do, in a span of 1.5 days.



-Hovedbanegården (Central Station) - Yep, that's a GMG Yepp (that we, myself included, designed) that's parked at the station, coincident, random, whichever, was fun and interesting to see it "in the wild".



-Copenhagen Christmas tree at Rådhuspladsen



-Powered by people - During certain times of the day, you could hop on one of the bikes circled around the tree, and be responsible for powering a specific strand of LED lights in the tree.



-Rådhuspladsen - Siemens globe and main sponsor of the Hopenhagen Live events and pavilion.



-Hopenhagen pavilion structures - glowing green, shipping container size boxes.



-Electric cars on display - Tesla Roadster and TH!NK City respectively



-Tesla Roadster - The roadsters weren't just on display, but they also had drivers doing 5 or so minute runs with passengers who wanted to see what it was like. My boss and I got the chance a bit later, when it was rainy, and no-one was waiting in line to try them out. Very fast, very fun, but not the easiest to get in and out of. Performance of 0-100km in 3.9 seconds is not too shabby, and you definitely feel it.



-Bikes on display - a general theme in Copenhagen, and here in one of the pavillions on display some Biomega's along with some other nice Danish bikes.



-Sweet Danish done singlespeeds/fixies



-Brake cable lever - just really nicely done and minimalist brake lever on this bike, great detail.



-Wooden grips - Another nice detail on these danish bikes. It's all in the details.



-The Copenhagen Wheel - a project done by MIT



-Copenhagen Wheel film - the film explained how it worked, essentially putting the wheel on your bike, turns your bike into an e-bike hybrid, with regenerative breaking, sensors to gauge when to kick in etc, and it gathers info to interact with smart-phones. Really interesting project, curious to see how this goes.



-WWF Polar Bear - The WWF had this ice statue on display for the COP15 conference, with a metal skeleton underneath. During the period we were there, it was pretty mild, so the bear had melted a considerable amount, and you could see the next day quite visibly the difference.



-CPH Bike Share Design Competition - The awards ceremony



-Open Bike - One of the 2 first place winners (my opinion the better of the 2 that tied for the first prize)



-Hopenhagen Pavilion at night - how they projected the earth on the giant globe was pretty cool



-Glowing green boxes - The Hopenhagen pavilion looked pretty cool at night.



-Bike Boutique - Seen in the upper windows of this store in the shopping district of Copenhagen are Biomega bikes hanging on display in the windows.



-Københavns Bymuseum (Copenhagen City Museum) - Copenhagen by Bike Exhibition



-Inside the Copenhagen by Bike exhibit - nicely set up exhibit in the small museum.







-Biomega Boston









-Vintage photo of bikes in Copenhagen



-Cargo Bike Races - This was an event back in the day in Copenhagen, which, they just started up again this year (2009) in Copenhagen.





-The Long John cargo bike - some background info.



-Copenhagen Cycle Chic - (normally pics of Cycle Chic in Copenhagen are associated with girls on bikes, but here you can see guys can look pretty damn stylin on bikes too).







-Exhibition overview - View from a side balcony/mezzanine.



-Classic Danish Design - a lamp on display at another part of the museum.



-Wonderful Copenhagen - gotta love the vintage tourism poster, great graphic design, and a kinda timeless image.



-Specialized Langster Las Vegas - Singlespeeds and Fixies are more prevalent in Copenhagen then in the Netherlands, although it is picking up, and this bike is a beautiful example.