Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Your Favorite Urbanist

• December 23, 2015

Need a final item for the urbanist you love? Here are some quickies.

A City Bike

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My wife and I have a lot of bikes from speedy road and track bikes to mountain and hybrid. Our Workcycles Opafiets (mine above) and Gr8 (Jan’s) are overwhelming our most ridden. The bakfiets in the background above would make a quite nice gift as well.

A Hembrow Study Tour

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There is no better way to understand good bicycling facilities (and pedestrian and urbanism) than spending a few days actually experiencing it along with David Hembrow on one of his study tours. Since David is from the UK and is not an engineer you get a valuable unbiased view.

A CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic.

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This is the definitive and gold standard when it comes to designing facilities for riding bicycles.

David Prochniak Artwork

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If you can’t live it you can at least enjoy the view. Amazing three dimensional scenes made from scrapes he finds all over. These are currently available at Dunn Bros. Coffee in Roseville.

A Trip To Experience Ultimate Urban Success

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Paris (above) would rank quite high for many of us. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Utrecht, or even New York City might be good.

A Good Local Urbanism Dinner

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For me there’s nothing like a enjoying a good meal at a nice sidewalk café with my wife, family, and friends.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah (a couple of weeks late), and Happy New Year!

Walker Angell

About Walker Angell

Walker Angell is a writer who focuses mostly on social and cultural comparisons of the U.S. and Europe. He occasionally blogs at localmile.org, a blog focused on everyday bicycling and local infrastructure for people who don’t have a chamois in their shorts. And on twitter @LocalMileMN

19 thoughts on “Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Your Favorite Urbanist”

  2. Eric AnondsonEric Anondson

    My Gr8 is arriving this evening. Not kidding! Ordered months ago. I’ll be assembling it on Christmas. 🙂

      1. Eric AnondsonEric Anondson

        I picked a yellow green, but after I ordered I had doubts that it may be too similar to the Nice Ride color. We’ll see!

        I also splurged and got a metal tag. My previous bike is a 30-year-old mountain bike that still has a Rev105 bumper sticker on it. A beloved radio station now gone. So I have REV 105 built into the frame of my new bike.

        2. Reilly

          So, along with one of that station’s most-prolific advertisers, you too are “Eric the Bike Man”.

          Peace, Love & Rock ‘n’ Roll!

  3. mplsjaromir

    Paris is no success. It’s a rich ghetto, not for the ordinary person.

    Fun city to be tourist or an idle rich, no way to build an equitable city.

    1. Walker AngellWalker Angell Post author

      Can you tell me more. I know a few ordinary folks in Paris who seem quite happy with things from a land-use and xportation standpoint. Their primary compliant is lack of protected bikeways along a few high traffic routes but this seems to slowly be getting corrected.

      1. mplsjaromir

        $2,700 a month on average for 900sf of living space in the 20 arrondissements. Enough space for a family, but very expensive for a region with lower average incomes than the Twin Cities. Commute to La Defense from areas where housing is more affordable are very long. I concede that there are plans in place to ameliorate this.

        Les Halles area is where the CBD should have been built.

  4. Scott

    Utrecht is an awesome little city. We spent a weekend there several years ago when we couldn’t find a hotel anywhere in Amsterdam. I had so much fun walking around a non-touristy community and just enjoying the town. It is worth a visit in its own right.

    It was the most walk-able place I’ve ever seen. And the fresh stroopwafles from the sidewalk vendors…I’m surprised I ever came home.

  5. Matty LangMatty Lang

    So Walker, what’s the best way to get a bike from Workcycles these days? Getting it shipped from them or is is possible to get one shipped from the dealer in Madison, for example?

    1. Eric AnondsonEric Anondson

      I looked around, the place in Madison looked like it specialized in WorkCycles’ cargo bikes, there is another place in Chicago though that sells the Gr8 and Fr8. I never went beyond looking at their respective websites but the dealers looked like they sold a standard variety. Since even those are imported the prices must include shipping and import duties.

      Directly ordered from WorkCycles allows fuller customization of the handmade bikes, and there are a lot of options. Henry from WorkCycles suggested I pay by wire transfer to save money over the normal significant fees via credit card or PayPal, using a wire transfer app called TransferWise, worked out pretty smooth. Currency calculation built right in, wasn’t instant, took a couple days to move from bank to bank, but it was worth it. Ordering from WorkCycles means they build it from your order, it can take a couple months. Ordering the in stock variety in a dealer you walk out with it.

  6. Walker AngellWalker

    I wrote a bit about buying here: http://localmile.org/?page_id=75

    Wire xfer and letting Workcycles ship to you is the easiest and works quite well. I’ve done that with a few. I’m a huge fan of flying over and bringing a bike back as luggage though (Delta were allowing one bike as free luggage as of last year yet). It’s a bit more of a hassle but the savings in shipping and customs duties will pay for a good chunk of your airfare.

    And you just might get to meet the mythical Henry Cutler. I’ve been in Workcycles shops numerous times and have yet to meet him. Man or Myth?

  7. fIEtser

    I already have two of the group (study tour and CROW manual), but I’d gladly take a WorkCycles machine! Also, CROW is publishing a new CROW manual very soon, but it’s apparently only in Dutch so far.

  8. Pingback: Sunday Summary – December 27, 2015 | streets.mn

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