http://www.facebook.com/lisbonize

Recently published on major German newspaper and journals:

An image campaign supported by the association of German insurance companies. People were being interviewed on the street, what they like in their life and what they want to be taken care of… The target was, to draw a quick hand-out of the desired object. One guy draw a commuter bike.. with headlight, baggage carrier and obviously recognizable as a city bike. Then he called it “My Gazelle”  used as a synonym for a whole species of products…

Notes:

1. No, it was not “placed” by Gazelle

2. No, it was not meant as a “Guerilla-strategy”

3. No, Gazelle will not prosecute their brand´s use in foreign-to-species periphery..

Toni Aematteis (Italian) e Sabine Knoll (German) started with 2 bicycles and three dogs in Italy to pedal through Europe.

They started on 22 of August 2008 in Ostuni (BR) and are are now in Portugal (near Aveiro).

This is what “Journal de Notícias” wrote today:

Pedalada para salvar animais

And this is their Blog to follow:

http://www.tonisabine.blogspot.com/

They are now on their way to Porto. I will try to contact and meet them somewhere on the way. This seems to be a real adventure. A stolen bike. A lot of help from strangers. Lack of money. Discovering the roads. The need of taking care of the animals during the journey.. and so on!

But so far they are having a lot of feedback, as well from Portuguese TV and other media. This helps not only the animals. This makes people think about a bicycle as a serious vehicle. So it will help our idea as well alittle bit! we should support them in any way when we meet them! How will join mee to look out for them?

This is a story about an idealist

Paulo Guerra do Santos, born 1973 decided to use his bicycle.

Nothing spectacular so far?

Of course, if we would talk about Munich, Amsterdam or Berlin.

But we talk about Lisbon. Portugal.

A city and a country still made for car drivers. The natural enemy of a cyclist. And city planners. The fulfilling helpers of these car drivers. Where are these bicycle lanes, that we are used to from other countries? Where is this legislation, that gives us – at least – theoretical protection?

No my friends, nothing so far in Portugal. We have to step back in time to the early 80ies, where everything started to become a peaceful revolution in traffic spaces. OK, Portugal in the early 80ies still had to suffer from another peaceful revolution, that lead the country from dark and decent dictatorship to a democratic and progress orientated place in Europe.

But meanwhile we changed the century. Bicycles and their daily use could be the solution for collapsing cities. And therefore it is an anachronism, that we are talking about something special, when someone uses his bicycle in a European city. This should be natural nowadays. But it isn´t. Take a look of what happened to Paulo. I will visit him in Lisbon and talk about his story and his experience. Maybe we can find some points together, where we can work on a CHANGE!

BTW: he overtook the 100 days. We are counting day Nr. 225..

What hell of an idealist!