One of our favourite blog reads is Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan. What you get are super colourful, super cute photos of Taiwanese girls having fun with their fixies. Here’s just a typical sample of the kind of photos brightening up our RSS feed:
PHOTO BY 大大 via Fixed Gear Girl Taiwan
San Francisco company Cordarounds have come up with the perfect bike-to-boardroom (although probably more like coffee, a movie, a picnic) clothing option.
The Cordarounds Bike to Work pants are khakis with little hidden reflective parts – the insides of the pockets and pant cuffs.
Good for our dark, wintery nights now.
Bike to Work Pants from Cordarounds on Vimeo.
Happy Bastille Day Francophiles, and if you’re watching the Tour de France from the Southern Hemisphere, hope you’re getting enough sleep 
Thanks to Bike Blog NYC we were tickled to discover that there is a Tour de France pop up book for kids.
Created by Pamela Pease, ‘Pop-Up Tour de France: The World’s Greatest Bike Race’ presents a history, guide and celebration of the 200 cyclists in the Tour de France. With pop-up cyclists! And pop-up mountains!
The book allows kids to follow the Tour competitors through the French countryside, up into the Alps, those 13km of bone-crunching cobblestones and then Paris for the finish line. There’s a simple map of France overlaid with erasable acetate so you can plot the route and then wipe it clean in time for next year’s tour.
Along the way they can learn about cycling history, fun facts, basic rules of the race, a glossary of French terms and strategies for winning the Yellow Jersey.
You can purchase an English version from Amazon or the official French version here.
Check out Pimp Mijn Bakfiets, where you can order all sorts of prints for your cargo bike (website is in Dutch but from our experience everyone in the Netherlands speaks impeccable English so try emailing them).
If you fancy yourself a bit of an artist you can even upload your own design!
(Photos from www.pimpmijnbakfiets.nl)
Before I got my bicycle, my commute was very much the same as Mambi’s – rushed, frazzled, time-consuming and a blur.
This is why I love Samatha Boswell’s video entry which won her a LIVE 2 , Globe’s new line of ‘LIVE’ city friendly bicycles. Mambi: A Sydney Commuters Story shows her daily commute and how it would be better by bike…
Mambi: A Sydney Commuters Story from samantha boswell on Vimeo.
…and this is the bike she won! How gorgeous.
We stumbled across this fabulous Italian online store called My Old Bicycle/Spernicelli Biciclette. All the bikes are from a private collection of vintage bikes from the 30s and 40s, dusted off and given some loving care. Be inspired.
We love his Tour de France illustration by I Love Dust for Bicycling Magazine USA.
See how many little Frenchie details you can pick. And wouldn’t it be fun for a kid’s room?
In case you don’t know, Le Tour de France 2010 starts with the prologue tomorrow in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Puma make bikes. Who knew? And bright colourful ones too. We like!
The bikes are made by Danish design bicycle company Biomega Philosophy. Unfortunately, they’re not available in Australia – only US and Europe. The website‘s fun to play with though…
via Puma Bikes
If you can’t get enough cycle style inspiration on this blog, cool video site Instructables can teach you all manner of cool cycling tips. On our favourites list:
How to Ride Your Bike in Style
How to Ride Your Bike in Style – More DIY How To Projects
Bicycling Modestly in a Skirt
Bicyling Modestly in a Skirt – More DIY How To Projects
Make a Helmet Mohawk in 10 minutes
Helmet Mohawks in 10 Minutes – More DIY How To Projects
Quick & Easy Bicycle Skirt Guards – More DIY How To Projects
Just last week a new bike company opened in Melbourne and we’re very excited about them.
Papillionaire is an online shop selling customised Dutch style bikes which are designed and built right here in Melbourne. In the same way as CycleStyle, which sells clothing and accessories for the urban cyclist, Papillionaire‘s philosophy is to create bicycles for the urban lifestyle.
Papillionaire bikes come in two styles, a traditional horizontal frame (Classic) and an elegant sit-up-and-beg step-through frame (Sommer). The frames are made from powder coated lugged steel and come in cherry red, pastel blue or black. Every bicycle also features:
The customisation process in the online shop was as easy as pie and it was really fun to check out all the different combinations. If you have an idea of what you’re after then from start to finish the whole process would take only 3 minutes.
The bikes are reasonably priced from $499 and you can choose to pick up the bike for free from their South Yarra workshop, or for an extra charge have it delivered fully assembled or flat packed for self-assembly.
If you live in Melbourne you can make an appointment to test-ride their bikes at their workshop by contacting them on info@papillionaire.com or +61 468 919 552.
Papillionaire, welcome to the Australian stylish cycling scene!
We once went cycling in Tuscany and contemplated taking our own bikes on a plane with us. Wish we had, actually, as we ended up trying to climb a mountain from Pisa to Lucca with 3-gear city bikes.
The decision to take our bikes on the plane would have been much easier if we’d known about this inflatable bike bag. The Binkd Helium is an air-cushioned bike bag that’s designed to pack up your bike as small as possible. It fits a 64cm road frame or a full-suspension road bike and has places to strap all of your components in. All you have to do is zip it up and roll it right up to check in with the handy wheels!
We wonder whether you could avoid aeroplane bike cargo fees with this handy bag?
Via Wired
We have been dusting off our schoolgirl French and lusting after DOYOUVelo’s trench coats.
This French company mainly produces high-end (we’re talking up to around $350) trench-style raincoats for men and women made from waterproof, breathable, and reflective fabric. Each coat has extra pull-out armband reflectors and a roomy hood which might even fit over your helmet.
DOYOUVelo’s range also includes rain hats and messenger bags.
DOYOUVelo is currently available only in Paris and Lyon and through the DOYOUVelo’s French language store.
But us a ticket to France! Je parle francais un petit peu…
PS DOYOUVelo are also developing a light and compact helmet in a ‘honeycomb’ design. Thanks to our friend @howard61 for pointing us to this tres interessant post.
Our friend B has the awesome idea of one day powering the electricity in gyms by harnessing the energy of gymgoers as they bike, row and run on the treadmills.
E-Werk is almost something similar- it’s a charger from Germany that powers your gadgets with your bike. Basically, you strap E-Werk onto your bike, and start pedalling. Using the power of your movements, the generator produces electricity, which then transfers to the E-Werk. You can then plug in your phone or iPod into it, and voila, charged up batteries.
Nokia has also recently launched a bike-powered phone charger (presumably only for Nokia phones) which will go on sale at the end of the year.
Now you can become your personal power source!
Because CycleStyle is an online business, sometimes I can find myself spending hours in front of my laptop with a crick in my neck and stiff shoulders.
I think I’m going to print this off and stick it in my office.
via Schwinn
Wow if you got these handlebars installed on your bike you’d certainly turn some heads.
via Design Kug
We are always on the hunt for stylish cyclists but often miss the opportunity to take their photo as they zoom past while we fumble around getting our camera out.
We may have found the solution now – the Electra Camera Mount from Electra Bicycle Company. Basically, it attaches to your handlebars and allows you to take photos and shoot video while cycling. Here’s a Facebook video testing out the mount on a rugged mountain trail.
It fits any standard handlebar and costs only US$39.95. We’re putting one in our virtual shopping cart now.
I dropped my bike a little too roughly yesterday and now I have no bike bell.
Never mind. I think I might replace it with this bell instead. A declaration of love, loud and clear.
I’ve now tracked them down and a shipment will be arriving very soon at CycleStyle HQ!
Today I had a chat with Matt Hurst, the owner of bike rental service The Humble Vintage, the writer and designer of a new quarterly guide called Melbourne for Visitors and Casual Cyclists and all round nice guy. We’ve been using Humble Vintage bikes for our photoshoots and launch, and we think Matt provides a great rental service. Thanks Matt!
Matt, tell me a bit more about your background and the story behind your bike hire business The Humble Vintage?
Well, after a couple of years of full time work as a publicist for some major arts venues, I headed off for a month overseas. As with my many other trips abroad, I went hunting for bikes to rent in each major city. Getting home, it was a bit of a ‘what now’ scenario, and my idle mind wondered what bike rental options were available to the traveler who visited Melbourne.
I looked around and couldn’t see what myself or my friends would have wanted from a bike rental on offer – then realised that even when I was overseas I wasn’t finding that bike rental was being done in an interesting way.
So I thought I’d start my own. The idea felt good, and for once, I had the time.
You’ve launched a very cool map called Melbourne for Visitors and Casual Cyclists. What was your inspiration for designing and printing this map?
It was surprising how many people would ask “so what should we do today?” when renting… and while I spent a lot of time drawing on people’s maps I quickly saw how doing my own would be a great extension of The Humble Vintage offer. Melbourne for Visitors and Casual Cyclists is a hand-drawn map with three suggested riding routes for summer and on the other side it contains little snippets of places to go, things to do and some quirky reading.
People have suggested I take guided tours, but I think of the bikes as an enjoyable way to get from A to B more so than a tourist attraction. As I’m a writer more than a talker, the map and guide is my way of doing the guided tour. So the idea behind the map and guide is that you get a nice old bike, get the map, stuff it in your pocket and off you go.
Have you faced any challenges getting the map project off the ground? In general, what advice would you give to someone starting their own business?
I’m sure as anyone who has attempted would agree, drawing a map of Melbourne from scratch was a bit of a black hole time-wise! Even though it doesn’t have side streets it still took a lot of work. But once I got started, I got a bit addicted too, and likewise with writing the guide.
Funding the printing was a challenge, as the first run of 300 disappeared in a few days, and I had no money from it to print more. Melbourne for Visitors and Casual Cyclists will always be free with rentals, but I’ve done another run which are available at a few bookshops for a gold coin donation, and I’ve almost run out again.
Advice to people starting a small business is tough; if anyone saw how I was running mine they would say that I needed advice!
What are your next plans for the map and The Humble Vintage?
The main aim is to see the guide become a well followed quarterly publication, to make it an interesting read to anyone in Melbourne with a bike, or even without a bike in fact. It’s definitely not just for people who rent bikes from me.
I’m currently looking at getting a well known chef to pen a food-related ride; it might be the ‘ultimate progressive lunch’ for example. There are a lot of ideas, I could go on and on!
For the bikes, I’m currently in the process of lining up a few more pick up points, and trying to accumulate enough bikes to be able to sell a couple here and there as well. I’m always getting asked if I can sell the rentals.
Why do you like cycling, and particularly in Melbourne?
You see more, you take in more, you become more aware of your surroundings and neighbourhood. I still notice new things when riding through these streets I ride around daily. In Melbourne its more often than not the fastest way to get around too, especially if you’re going across town, not into town.
(Full interview originally published in MEL: HOT OR NOT The decisive guide to Melbourne)
As we live in a country that requires mandatory helmet wearing, we have an extra sartorial issue to grapple with compared to our northern hemisphere stylish cyclists – where do you put the pesky helmet when you’re off the bike?
These heavyweight cotton canvas totes/shoulder bags by Chester Wallace are funky, water resistant – and big enough to stuff your helmet inside.
At the moment you can buy them online from Canoe, although we’re toying with stocking them here at CycleStyle. What do you think?
