Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1188

8 years ago the Amsterdam-based bicycle company VanMoof started shipping bicycles to its customers. And since that time, they struggled to find a quality shipping partner that wouldn’t damage the bikes in transit. 

They tried every varietal of shipping company, but the problem persisted. And since their goal was and is to sell 90% of their bikes online by 2020, they knew that they needed to solve this problem.

So here’s what they did. This is a great story .

They noticed that their bicycle boxes were about the same size as a large flatscreen TV. And since flatscreen TVs seem to always arrive in perfect condition, they decided to print a TV (along with an image of their bicycle) on the box.

Here’s what that looks like (via QZ ):

The result? They immediately saw a 70-80% drop in shipping damages . That’s all it took. I love that.

Since I know that a lot of you are cyclists, I thought you might appreciate this little hack. Their bikes are also quite stylish and reasonably priced if you happen to be in the market. (I am waiting to hear back on whether they ship to Canada.)

Last week I wrote about the value of urban lighting .

Another case study worth looking at is Lumiere London . It was a four day light festival that took place in January, which is normally a pretty quiet and dark month. This past year in London the festival saw over 1 million visitors who spent over £22 million.

Here’s a time lapse video of the festival in action:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESxG9KsaeJo&w=560&h=315]

Click here if you can’t see the embedded video.

It’s obviously a temporary festival, but it’s a great example of how lighting can transform a city. After the event, the Guardian (which gave it 4/5 stars) talked about the city itself becoming the story. They also said that it managed to “unzip and open out the city” in a way that politicians and town planners often struggle to do.

Sounds like fun.

You can have one of the best records in the league or you can be slumping right before the post-season, and none of that matters when the month of October hits. Such is baseball. And such is life.

What does help, though, is being bold. The Blue Jays got lucky on Sunday night with Odor’s throwing error . But Donaldson was also willing to take a chance and make a run for home plate. It paid off in a big way. His instincts were right.

I found the above image on social media without a source. If I’m pissing anyone off by posting it here, let me know and I’ll take it down. I just love how it captures the exact moment – with the ball still in the air – when Donaldson proclaims victory.

Baseball will always be a special sport for me. I have never been a big hockey fan and the Raptors didn’t exist until the mid-90s. So as a kid growing up in Toronto, I played baseball and watched the Jays.

So here’s to more October baseball. The playoffs are always such a fun time in the city. It has a way of cutting through our differences and uniting us all around a common dream. That doesn’t always happen.