Archive for the 'News & Views' Category

Get your mind out of the gutter…. And put your wheels in it. Airside design has called it quits as a firm, but they are still offering their amazing The Joy of Cycling poster, which is a visual play off the infamous The Joy of Sex book. Finely crafted in that straightforward pen and ink style of the 70’s, coupled with painfully produced halftone photos, the seedy porn-esque feel comes dripping out like your panniers on a rainy day. It’s gross and awesome all in one. Here’s the kicker though, since Airside shut down shop, their site lists them as only having 15 left. These are monochrome screen prints in “cool blue” and sell for $47 (30 pounds) before postage.

Infographics are all the rage right now. They are, if you don’t know, appealing ways to present gobs of information that are often so complex that you would think it impossible to arrange them in an artistic manner. Pop Chart Lab out of Brooklyn specializes in creating infographics posters, all of which can be found here, and they do so to amazing effect. In a more artistic-than-flowchart creation they have showcased the bike lanes of New York City in a print titled The Beauteous Bike Lanes of New York City.

The minimalism of detailing only the bike lanes creates a uniquely scattered smattering of lines and curves. The varying types of bike amenities are subtly color coded as Paths, Routes and Lanes. I’m sure all various avenues of bike travel have grown since the image was finished, which could allow you to take some creative license and update them yourselves. It’s a great concept with a quality finish.

The 18 x 24 prints can be purchased through their site for $25, of which the first 500 are signed and numbered by the artists.

Retronaut has a cool little collection of photos depicting early attempts at rocket powered bicycles.

Trash Bags is a small messenger bag manufacturer out of Minneapolis, run by local courier Andy Larson. Started in 2008, Trash Bags has a few years of bag making under their belt and many miles of testing in some of the harshest winters around. I’m in town for the Stupor Bowl alleycat, and figured a visit to the shop the created this year’s prize bags was in order. By tomorrow afternoon we’ll know who will be rolling around town with the pictured prize bags on their backs.

Trash Bags is a small shop, housed on the fourth floor of a downtown building, you enter through the first floor hardware store and make your way up to the roughly single car garage sized space housing a few sewing machines and lots of fabric and thread. Besides their messenger bags and backpacks Trash Bags has started to develop winter riding gear for the all-day, sub-zero riding that courier work in Minneapolis entails throughout the winter. Their wind and waterproof cordura Trash Picker Mittens are out there now, keeping hands warm with their removable Polartec fleece liner. Potentially too warm for anything but the coldest of days, when you need them you need them. Same with the as yet nameless winter hat—cordura outside, insulated inside, with a buckle to keep the ear flaps tight against your head. While it looks thick, the hat is remarkably thin, enough so to fit under your normal helmet. Overkill on all but the coldest of days, and potentially a recipe for a cold sweaty head if it’s not cold enough outside, but this hat should help you to continue riding even when you’d otherwise just not be able to. The mittens retail for around $70, the hat is expected to go for roughly $50. See more or inquire about ordering your own at www.trashmessengerbags.com

This article from BBC Magazine isn’t really about bikes, but it does feature a sweet photo of a 1920’s stroller bike:

You were born into the most dramatic population change in UK history. At every age throughout your life, you stood out for sheer numbers.

But you were not born in the 1960s, or the years immediately after World War II, the groups usually thought of as the “baby boom” generations.

Read more.

“Custom” is such an enticing way to describe bicycles these days, to the point that what defines “custom” is becoming watered down. Call me a curmudgeon purist, but I always associated “custom” bikes with handcrafted frames not only painted to your individual aesthetic tastes, but also built with measurements spec’ed out solely to your body. I thought a bike built around your biology is what REALLY defined a custom bike.

Enter companies like Villy Customs, who sell you bikes, cruisers to be specific, that are built to your liking by choosing color options on nearly every paintable piece of their bikes. Through a process on their website you are able to pick frame styles, racks, fenders and a couple other options, then also able to pick the colors as well. To the right of your selections you can see your selections by price adding up to a total purchase. Admittedly, there is certainly an element of customization to this process, but I can’t help but feel this paints a grey area between stock and custom. Again, I’m probably just being a self-righteous purist, but I do so in defense of my frame-building buddies.

Let’s be fair though. These are bikes for riders more likely to purchase Dwell magazine than the Rivendell reader.

So, if cruisers are your thing and you’re dying to have every piece of your bike a different color, or the same for that matter, then you have a fun way of designing such a monstrosity through Villy Customs.

From The Village Voice:

​Forced by a looming Freedom of Information Law deadline, on Friday the New York Police Department finally told the mother of Mathieu Lefevre what it knows about the cycling death of her son last fall.

The documents released directly contradict the initial version of events put out by police, and suggest an investigation so sloppy that the likelihood of getting justice for Lefevre’s death is scant.

Read more.

…Fags on Fixies has not.