Red Harvest

First published in 1929, "Red Harvest" is my favourite Dashiell Hammett novel.  Cleverer people than I talk about it, and its influence in its wikipedia page.

I remember this cover as slightly more striking than it is here (and it's not a patch on the beautiful Knopf first edition) but I like its simplicity.

Posted via email from monkeyphoto's posterous

From Surly: It’s just me today

via surlybikes.com

This piece of artwork from Hiawatha Cycles is beautiful, and expresses a nice sentiment.

I couldn't locate it on their site, so here's the post from Surly where I found it originally.

Posted via email from monkeyphoto's posterous

From Strange Maps: 507 - Darkness and Cherry Pie: David Lynch’s Map of Twin Peaks

...Lynch’s map was more than a mere mood-setter for studio execs. It was an essential tool for writing the series.

Read More (and see the map at large size) at Strange Maps

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From Bearskinrug.co.uk: The Trouble With Chickens

A Cluck Who's Gone To The Dogs

With the advent of March, the first of the 3 books that have consumed my every waking moment for the past several years has finally appeared on store shelves. The title in question is my inaugural foray into illustrating children's books, a handsome little read called The Trouble With Chickens. I wasn't sure whether to discuss it here, since it is a children's book and I definitely don't want children following a google search back to this completely inappropriate site. But then again, a google search will probably turn up several steamy images of my bronzed doppleganger, so perhaps this is the lesser of two evils.

Read more at bearskinrug.co.uk

Illustrator and cartoonist (you might know his work on Birthday Street, and the Superest) has illustrated a children's book. Lovely art, do take a look.

Posted via email from monkeyphoto's posterous

From Strange Maps: Bodyworld: the Artography of Fernando Vicente

Spanish artist Fernando Vicente's artography (2) revisits this fusion of the descriptive and the symbolic, but expands the concept to its literal conclusion. Superimposing human and animal forms onto the countries and continents of a map, Vicente transforms familiar geographic contours into surprising new constructs. Maps become living creatures - although some ostensibly formerly living ones - and many of which have an ominous, unnerving quality. Maybe that's because of Vicente's predilection for slicing open his subjects, their exposed anatomy/geography investing them with the same morbid quality evident in Bodyworlds, the famous travelling exhibition of plastinated and dissected human bodies.

Read More at Strange Maps

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STUFFE

ANTI-MONKEY BUTT POWDER
A new product tested at Urban Velo. Clicking through to the manufacturer's site, the ad videos are really very funny.

LONDON CYCLING
Some interesting stuff from Karl on Sea on his recent visit to the capital.

He compares London's hire scheme with others.

He looks at how driver behaviour can make even a fairly straightforward route an intimidating experience.

And lastly he observes the dominance of the Brompton in multi-modal commuting.

OTHER PEOPLE'S PROJECTS
I'm really enjoying Kim Harding's account of his bike build. The build is based on a 2009 Genesis Croix de Fer frame (one of the "do it all" cross bikes that are becoming more and more popular), which was an unusual bike at the time it was introduced because of its disc brakes.

It should build up into a really nice commuter/light tourer/off roader.

CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE DEPT.
I've been irritated by Copenhagenize's occasional jabs at the "sport" cyclist, so it was nice to see him speak favourably of Robert Penn's "It's All About the Bike" here.

SHOULD IT BE CALLED THE ROULEUR'S JERSEY?
A great article on why Petacchi's disqualification from the Tour would not mean Mark Cavendish taking green, here on the Pave blog.

VELOCLUB DON LOGAN DOES LE TOUR
...and has an international incident afterwards too.

REDUCE SPEEDS, AND THEY WILL COME

Copenhagen's Car-free streets & Slow-speed zones from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

The Utility Cycling blog had this nice Streetfilms film about Copenhagen's people friendly spaces. It's good because it shoots holes in many of the reasons people give for not taming the car a little in our cities. As has been said before, if we can make the spaces between our buildings into more than the parts where motor traffic goes as fast as it can, good things happen.

ARTHUR DE PINS AT THE BEACH
Drawn.ca features the work of French artist Arthur De Pins, here. Appropriately for the time of year, if not the weather *I'm* experiencing, it's beach themed.

THEY DRAW AND COOK
Artists and illustrators write and illustrate their favourite recipes. Featured on the Lines and Colors blog.

SALSA UPDATES
Salsa have an update on the clever Wanderlust, and downright nifty minimalist racks they showed earlier in the year.

They're also making a Snowbike, the Mukluk, which looks very cool - check out the design features they've put on the frame.

STUFFE

A Velocast Jersey, in a Mirror, Yesterday.

VELOCAST AGAIN
A reminder that the Velocast's daily tour podcasts can be found at their site.

Also, those of you who are already fans, and ordered your Velocast jersey (made by Shutt Velo Rapide) should be receiving yours soon. Mine is pictured above - I'm hoping to do a proper review soon (as the jersey will be similar to Shutt's others, I imagine). The potted version is that the quality is hugely impressive, and worryingly making me wonder why all my jerseys aren't this nice. Who'd have thought that two gentlemen in Peebles, and a company based in Ilkley would be responsible for giving me a taste for the finer things in life?

A slightly better pic (arms length self portraits being challenging at the best of times).

OTHER TOUR FIXES
ITV Have started their daily podcast again for the tour, which is here.

ITV's show is presented by Matt Rendell, and is really good so far - Chris Boardman provides the insider knowledge, there are good interviews, and Jill Douglas, as something of a newcomer to the tour, gives some useful insight (and her enthusiasm for the race is quite contagious).

Cyclingnews' podcasts are here.

I've found Cyclingnews' tour show to be pretty good as well - the team they have commenting on the race is excellent, and the interviews have been good so far too.

Bizarrely both ITV and Cyclingnews seem to have gone out of their way to make the shows difficult to find from their tour homepages, it seems to me.

'ZUP DAWG
Cosmo at Cyclocosm has channelled a meme I was hitherto completely unaware of in a cycling direction.

Cosmo also has some good commentary on the events of Stage 2, here. Although Cervelo were unhappy about the neutralisation (and rightly so, as their GC contender had managed to get to the bottom of the Stockeau safely, with 3 minutes or so in hand) he wonders whether their deference to the decision has paid dividends in the following stage. As ever, thought provoking and worth reading.

TOP 50 CYCLISTS OF THE MODERN ERA
The Team Chef's ongoing project has been updated with pre-tour scores, including an adjustment for Alejandro Valverde following his suspension. The update is here, and explanations of the top 50 scoring method can be found here (link is to part 1 of the scroing system, click through for the second part).

IF IT WASN'T FOR BAD LUCK
Garmin Transitions are having a bad tour so far, sadly - Christian Vande Velde has retired, and Tyler Farrar is carrying a couple of injuries (including a fractured wrist, imagine riding pavé with that). There's a good interview with Tyler on their site here about carrying his injuries, and what happenned on the Stockeau in stage 2. Technical types can also look at the data the team's collected for their riders (including Julian Dean's second place) on the site.

COZY BEEHIVE
This site's "Cycling Shorts" is a bit like Stuffe, only good. Lots of interesting links and commentary on there, from Sky refusing to "embed" Paul Kimmage, to the revelation that Lance is now interviewed by laptop, something so laughable and demeaning to journalists that I genuinely wonder if it's an attempt to see how far they'll go to get a quote from him.

BIKEHUGGER MAKES ME JEALOUS
Of this (not the Clif bars, I just like Team Garmin, and Musettes) and these.

BIZZARRO CORNER
Urban Velo reports that in Bartonville (where?) any group of 10 or more cyclists must travelling together in the city must apply for a permit to do so 45 days in advance. At a cost of $50. No word on whether the popular "traffic jam" and "rush hour" events favoured by motorists in a lot of cities are exempt or not.

One thought occurring to me is that these tiny places I've never heard of may be trying to put themselves on the map by passing weird bylaws, on the basis that the only thing worse than being talked about...

COMICS
Drawn.ca has this look at page flow in comics from Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley.

ART
I can't say it better than this;

"Let us celebrate the wonderful cheesiness and eye-popping kid-allowance-bait futurism of these 1960’s and 70’s magazine and plastic model kit box illustrations by Japanese illustrator Shigeru Komatsuzaki."

I completely agree - the article (at Lines and Colors) is here.

GRUMPY WEEK
I'm not sure what it is about this week, but so far I've had two punishment passes on the bike, by people who felt the need to mouth stuff at me through their closed passenger windows. For the uninitiated, or those living in civilised countries, a punishment pass is a deliberately close overtake by a motorist.

Genius number one did so as I passed cars parked in the bike lane (his car being a silver, 02 reg BMW him being fat, 50 ish and bald) so he could make a left turn about 1 second ahead.

Genius number two was a youngish fellow (mid 20s, dark haired) in an old red hatchback (possibly a Polo), who passed so he could reach a set of stop lights 2 seconds before me (to add to the irony, I take a filter lane on green at these lights, which may make his manoeuvre even more pointless).

Both incidents trouble me, because, whilst I'm fairly used to indifference, inattention and impatience from some drivers, active malice is fairly rare. The thought that someone is willing to put me in hospital (or worse) because they don't know their Highway Code (I do, and I ride according to it), and are stupid enough to want to risk a crash to prove a point is a worry too.

I'm hoping these two drivers represent a statistical "blip" of some sort, especially as coping with the rain, and headwinds of recent days is quite challenge enough.

STUFFE

I'M STILL NOT BUYING AN IPAD


But this is really cool. Lines and Colors features Brooklyn artist David John Kassan painting from life using an iPad. £600 is a lot to pay for a sketchpad, but people assure me that Apple's pricey rectangle does other stuff too.

FOCUS BOOKS
I really like this little productivity idea for cartoonists & artists from Kevin M at New Construction. To get over that "good book", or "first sketch" feeling (the hesitation before sketching in a really nice book, or before doing the first sketch in a new one). As he points out, it's also an inexpensive way to get into a particular thematic vein before starting work properly.

CYCLING INQUISITION AND RAPHA
In which Lucho articulates something many of us less stylish cyclists feel in the rarefied atmosphere of the big R. He also notes some disturbing trends in new "colorways";

If this is what cycling fashion is descending into, will someone please come over to my house and simply piss on my eyeballs?

Also on the subject of Rapha is this BSNYC piece, about Rouleur.

If you thrive on the history, imagery, and lore of the sport you will certainy enjoy it. However, I can't even take the Bible seriously, much less bike racing, so when I read Rouleur I generally feel like a child sitting in a religious service and trying not to laugh.

He has a point about the reverence of some of Rouleur's contributors, but it's often a fascinating read; the issue illustrated has a great piece about the Gendarmes who escort the tour that you'd probably not see anywhere else, and Tom Southam's piece about riding in the Tour of Britain is really good. Still, at least he takes the mickey out of Assos, so it's all good.

STUFFE

Look at all those lovely bikes! Pic from Garmin's Website.

TOUR PREP
Garmin-Transitions offer a look inside their Service Course, as they prepare for the Tour De France. The thing that strikes me is the sheer amount of stuff, and work to do. As the article says;

Each rider will head to Rotterdam with 6 bicycles: their race bike, one spare for each car, a roubaix bike, and two time trial bikes.

And every bike is being built up from new frames and equipment by the mechanics. The article gives a real insight into the behnid the scenes work of mechanics and soigneurs, and is well worth a look.

INFOGRAPHICS
Examining whether sequels live up to the original film, at Flowing Data.

TOUR PREVIEW #1

Well, let's face it and be honest about it: any time trial would put the jersey on Fabian Cancellara's back.

Over at Pezcyclingnews, this preview examines the first week of Le Tour.

Also, Pez have managed to get tour fixture Didi (The Devil) to pose with their range of kit, which is quite the coup...

TENNIS, AGAIN

Therefore, in 11 hours and 5 minutes, the energy burned would be around 8500 kCal. How much is this? Well, if someone like Isner, who weighs 110kg, were to run a marathon, he would burn approximately 4600 kCal. So, his 11 hour tennis match came at the cost of almost two marathons. Sure, it was "run" over 3 days in installments, but the numbers are extra-ordinary.

The Sports Scientists blog returns to Mahut vs Isner, and some estimates of the energy expended by the players. Interestingly, their commentary has been picked up by the Washington Post - it's good to see them being recognised in this way.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
Cycling Weekly rounds up the results of the various National Championship races that took place over the weekend. I'm very pleased to see Stijn Devolder in the Belgian champion's jersey, and doomed breakaway specialist Thomas Voeckler take the French championship.

Interstingly Sky took all the podium places in the UK race, with Geraint Thomas taking the win.

THE GREATEST CYCLING PHOTO EVER

Simon Lamb offers this picture of Coppi and Bartali as the greatest cycling picture ever. I've not given this a great deal of thought, but it seems to me that the shot above (Anquetil and Poulidor on the Puy De Dome) would be my choice - a graphic illustration of their rivalry.

PEDAL TO PROPERTIES
This is a brilliant idea, a realtor that offers bike tours to prospective house purchasers. A bike is a great way to cover distance quickly, but in a way that still allows you to get the feel of an area. I met a chap last year who was house hunting by bike locally to me (and was able to tell him where the local Surly dealer was, among other things).

DISC BRAKES IN CX
The news that the UCI has embraced a post-war technology shocked many of us last week, with their allowance of disc brakes in cyclocross. Bikehugger has a good piece about this, with the following being one of the conclusions I think they're absolutely right about;

...we are perhaps now on the eve of the next big revolution in bicycle equipment. Cyclocross is the doorway through which disc brake systems integrated into dropbar shift/brake reach the consumer as well as the natural path for discs to reach UCI acceptance to road racing.

VELOCLUB DON LOGAN
...becomes an investigative journalist. No, really.

CHARLES BURCHFIELD
I'd not heard of him either, but this post and lines and colors is a great introduction, and his work is lovely.

SPACESUIT OF THE WEEK
Or, features I wish I'd thought of. From Kitsune Noir (and my eternal thanks to Gem at Bianchista for introducing me to that blog) comes the spacesuit of the week.

STUFFE

THE JOURNEY THAT SAVED CURIOUS GEORGE
I'm not sure how well known Curious George is in the UK - my daughter loves him, and had several of the books (and the dvd on repeat) when she was younger.

Urban Velo points us at "Curious George Saves the Day", an exhibition of the art of Curious George, and the history of his creators.

the authors who created him, Margaret and Hans A. Rey ... were German Jews living in Paris when they fled Nazi persecution on bicycles Hans fashioned from spare parts. Their journey is documented in Louise Borden’s 2005 picture book, The Journey That Saved Curious George.

It's odd to think of such a joyful, innocent character coming out of the horror of the second world war, something Rey mused on himself;

At such a time, Hans A. Rey wrote in a letter, “it feels ridiculous to be thinking about children’s books.” But that is what they were doing, prolifically, including a book about a monkey named Fifi, who later became known as Curious George.

To link back to cycling, anyone arriving at the exhibition (which is at the Jewish Museum in New York) will get a $2 discount on admission throughout June.

CYCLING INQUISITION
I'm surprised more people don't know about Cycling Inquisition - the writing is great, and his focus on Columbian cycling and cyclists is, as far as I know, rare in English language blogs.

Yesterday saw another good piece on Columbian Cycling culture, the race report that runs long because riders have to tell their mothers they've finished safely, the rider who works as a coal miner. It's great, and you should read it.

THE ELECTRIC TRAILER

Power assist can make a lot of sense for Cargo Bikes - but if you're not hauling stuff all the time, you end up with an e-bike whether you need the assist or not. So what about an electric trailer?

COMMUTING IN THE HEAT
Bikecommuters.com rounds up its posts on riding to work in the heat - if our hot spell continues here, this could be one to bookmark...

CLAMPDOWN
The Police in London began a crackdown on road users who disobey traffic law yesterday. Whilst I question slightly the implicit assumption that an equal risk is posed by all of them, enforcing traffic law can't be a bad thing. Cycling Weekly has more.

COMICS
Nedroid Picture Diary, and Savage Chickens both contain valuable life lessons in their latest comics.

TENNIS
Not a sport I follow, but the epic match between Mahut and Isner caught my interest. The Science of Sport blog deconstructs the match here.

WWII URBAN SKETCHER
Wonderful stuff from wartime artist William A. Smith, over at the Urban Sketchers Blog.

FARGO ADVENTURE RIDE
Great pictures of what looks like an awesome ride.

This ride is about fun, adventure, challenge and friendship. It could be argued that the routes and adventures are designed to highlight the versatile and capable Salsa Fargo, but I would argue the routes and adventures are planned to challenge folks and that the Fargo is simply the right tool for the job.

More detail, and a link to Gnat's flickr set of event photos at Salsa's Blog.

YORK CYCLE SHOW
A great piece at Velovision with lots of pictures. Look at the lugwork on the Hetchins, for one thing (third pic down).

THANKS
To those of you who made kind comments about "STUFFE" posts - it's appreciated. I'm still figuring out what the format should be (just links, some commentary) and you may have noticed it isn't daily any more. I'm playing it by ear, truth be told.

STUFFE

WHAT CAR HORNS ARE REALLY SAYING
A great comic from "The System".

MORE NAKED THAN NAKED

...although work safe, I think. Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog has these oddly disconcerting X-Ray "pin ups", created for a medical equipment manufacturer's promotional campaign. Some good may come of them, as Mr. Plait points out;

Check out what stilettos do to your metatarsophalangeal joint between the metatarsal and proximal phalangeal bones! Perhaps one outcome of these pictures is that the next time I see a woman wearing 4 inch heels, this’ll be what I think of.

CLOSE TO FLYING
Cozy Beehive blog points you towards this interview with world champion Cadel Evans, partly promoting his book, "Close to Flying". It's interesting stuff, although I can't help feeling that the Cadel Evans story has more chapters to be written yet. Cozy Beehive has an older, interesting article about Evans that you can read here.

MAJOR THE MOVIE
Marshall "Major" Taylor was American and World Cycling champion in 1899, a feat that makes him the first black world champion of any leading sport, according to the film makers.

Urban Velo has a small piece linking to the preview of the Major Taylor film here.

CARGO/TRAILER CORNER

Moving House by bicycle, from the Utility Cycling blog.

Of course, moving your entire house by bike is pretty extreme - but a weekly shop? Piece of cake...

JIM DENEVAN

Lines and Colors blog has these amazing pieces by Jim Denevan;

...an artist who makes his works in the sand and earth, but in a much more elaborate and large scale manner. He makes his marks with a stick or rake, stirring up the sand to make it darker and walking carefully while making the pattern.

Given the amount of work he must put into them, I find it amazing that they're done in such an ephmeral medium.

Also from Lines and Colors are these beautiful posters for America's national parks.

THE LAST CITY CYCLING
Can be found here.

When I started riding to work, City Cycling was one of the resources that I used a lot - once you get past the basics, sites like City Cycling provide other people's real life experiences of riding in traffic, and beyond that, food for thought about cycling's place in your life, and in society generally. I was also fortunate to have some of my writing published in it, thanks to tireless editor Anth.

Although this is the last monthly issue, City Cycling will live on, albeit in a different form, so keep your eye on the site for news.

"THE LITTLE GUYS LIVE HERE..."
From drawn.ca, Kevin Huizenga's blog about cartooning practice. I like the illustration that leads the article, it says an awful lot about the difficulty of transferring your ideas to paper.

R.I.P. FRANK SIDEBOTTOM
I'm from Timperley originally, so Frank Sidebottom has flitted in and out of my consciousness from time to time throughout my life. I remember once seeing him wave from a house on one of the Timperley bus routes (as we all waved back).

Chortle and BrokenTV both have good pieces about his life and work.

STUFFE

FIRST THINGS FIRST
Richard Mitchelson has another run of "Legends" shirts on the way. This time, the roster includes Bernard Hinault and Robert Millar, among others. I love these - Richard's talent in this limited format is evident if you look at the Hinault portrait, I think - it's recognisably Bernard, even without the more commonly portrayed "La Vie Claire" colours.

To use a phrase from the Velocast, "I'm havin' one".

THAT WORLD CUP FEELING
Comes to Monkey Photo Manchester. (Or any other website you fancy).

STIPPLE
Lines and Colors blog has this piece on Noli Novak, a staff illustrator at the Wall Street Journal.

Contrary to what you might think if you haven’t tried it, you cannot apply stipple mindlessly; the dots must be laid down carefully, with attention to the spacing between them. Get two dots too close to each other and you have a glaring error, dark enough to stand out in your otherwise smooth tone.

Given the difficulty of the technique, it’s a delight to have a bastion of modern stipple illustration in the form of the “hedcuts” (”headline cuts”) that have graced the pages of the Wall Street Journal since 1979, when the style was codified by Kevin Sprouls. The WSJ hedcut style, in which stipple is used in conjunction with engraving-like cross hatching, is employed for small portraits of well known figures, and has become an identifying characteristic of the paper.

You can see Noli's "Hedcuts" blog here, and her flickr art set here.

"I DON'T BIKE TO THINK"
The System has a great comic today - which is also going to become a t-shirt.

It reminds me of what (I think) Murakami said about distance running, that he did it to create a void in himself, where running was all there was. Of course, you are thinking when you ride, about how far you've gone, what route you're taking and about the traffic, but it's very focussed, and not about the worries of the day, in general.

THE HAND OF FRIENDSHIP
Nedroid Picture Diary shows us, once again, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. IN COLOR!


GLASSES
I've no idea of the original source of this, but it features on Flowing Data - the difference a pair of glasses can make. A great idea, executed beautifully.

FISHER, CARGO BIKE
James at bicycle design has a piece that muses on the changes to the Gary fisher line. It also features a look at a bike that first appeared in concept form as the "El Ranchero", a longtail cargo e-bike, that looks rather nice (it's also available as an all human powered bike). The name is now the "Transport", and the e-bike version is the "Transport +" more detail on those bikes at cyclelicious.

HOW THE RACE WAS WON
Cyclocosm covers the Dauphiné in this video post.

Pavé has a Dauphiné wrap up (among other things) in text form here, as the "Monday Musette".

STUFFE

BIKES, BEER, TRAILERS

Have Keg, Will Pedal from marty benson on Vimeo.

Biketrailerblog has this nice story about a group of friends transporting a beer keg from their local craft brewery. The trailer used is a Wandertec Bongo, and the film made about the trip, and the brewery is above.

WORLDS COLLIDE DEPT
Karl on Sea has a series of nice modifications (calling them hacks does them a disservice) featured on bikehacks.com today, in this article.

The modifications were all carried out on his wife's Raleigh shopper, and vary from the sort of modification I've seen up to now...

RICHARD MOORE
Podium Café has a great interview with the author of "In Search of Robert Millar" here. It also mentions Moore's next project, which sounds like a must read;

PdC: So your next book is about the 1986 Tour? When is that coming out?

RM: It’s going to come out next June for the 25th anniversary for the 1986 Tour. Couple things, some of the people who read the book about Millar said they’d love to read a book about Hinault, another fascinating character. But rather than just write a book about Hinault I thought could I structure this book around an event.

MUSIC/PHILOSOPHY/QUOTES
From the System comes this wonderful site, "Music Philosophy" which is;

"a weekly graphic/typographic interpretation of philosophical song quotes. All the posters look great as an iPhone desktop wallpaper, so feel free to download them. Hope you enjoy."

STUFFE

Locals & Tourists #32, Manchester, by Eric Fischer

LOCATION
Redbikes has found a useful tool for visualising your GPS tracks.

Flowing Data covers an interesting project based on geotagged photos. Initially, it showed where most photos are taken in a city - the author has, however, extended the project to differentiate between visitors and locals - really interesting stuff. See the picture above for local (to me) interest.

Lastly, Brendada was kind enough to point me in the direction of this interesting project, "Uncertain Eastside" again using GPS/Geotagging.

COMICS
If you follow Nedroid Picture Diary, you'll know that Beartato is the steady rock to Reginald's mercurial flightiness. What you may not know is that he had a rebellious youth...

DEALING WITH NEGATIVE PRESS
This article from Bicycling tells of a novel way for cyclists to respond to Daily Mail style attacks in the press - make your donation to cycling charities in the correspondent's name. The correspondent in question may be on his way to becoming the Bicycle Coalition's biggest supporter...

SHAVING
Karl on Sea has a guilty secret... (Don't forget, you can still sponsor Karl's Ironman triathlon, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support here).

LIGHTS
I know it's the wrong time of year, but Velo Orange covers some interesting lights from Dutch company "Spanninga".

"most interesting is their "Reverse-Beam Technology". They claim it's one of the most efficient LED systems available. The LED bulb is mounted just behind the lens and aimed rearward at a mirror that focuses and reflects the light. This minimizes light loss and gives a strong focused and lateral beam."

I think this is similar to Busch & Muller's designs (although I could be wrong).

JOCHEN GERNER
Features in this post from drawn.ca. His densely populated sketchbook pages are fascinating, as is the pared down, schematic style of his published work.

STUFFE

LANDIS
This is old, but on the off chance that you've not seen it, it's well worth a read. The Science of Sport Blog reviews reaction to Floyd Landis' allegations (as of 27th May). It's full of good stuff;

However, the point is that cycling has slowed up, and while there are numerous factors (race situation, conditions etc.) that contribute to this, the suppression (not the removal) of doping is one strong possibility.

Lots of good commentary and links for further reading, highly recommended. Personally, I really like that they take the "So what?" attitude to the oft repeated "defence" of cycling that other sports have doping problems too (on which less harsh spotlights are cast).

For those of you who cross train, there's also a good piece on the Barefoot Running movement here.

MOTORISED DOPING
Two good debunkings of the allegations against Mr. Cancellara from Cosmo, and the Cozy Beehive (here, here and here).

BIKEHACKS "BECAUSE IT'S THERE" DEPT

Using a bike wheel to store your pans, and the MONSTER BIKE (strictly speaking, isn't it a trike?)

BIKE COMMUTING ESSENTIALS?
There's a nice post on the Utility Cycling blog about clothing for bike commuting. Predictably, it's brought out the hair shirt brigade, who balk at the very notion of bike specific clothing being thought of as essential.

Here's the thing. People are different - for me, anything up to about 5 miles is doable in my regular clothes (and I run errands of that sort of distance regularly on the Brompton without bike specific gear). Past that distance, sweat starts to make cotton uncomfortable, and the benefits of bike specific kit become more apparent. As Dave Moulton points out here, people didn't wear "racing" gear in the past because it was expensive, hard to care for and uncomfortable. That's no longer the case, and you have the choice, if you want it. As Dave says;

I would not dress up in Lycra for a short trip to the post-office or store, but if I am riding for an hour or more, I love it and would not go back to wearing regular clothes for a long ride. The modern clothes are so comfortable, and the great thing is, I can throw the shorts and jersey in the washing machine, they are almost dry after the spin cycle, and air dry in a few hours.

WOODCUT
Lines and Colors blog features these wonderful woodcuts by Canadian artist Lisa Brawn. There's something about the fairly modern subjects & colouration, rendered in a medium we associate with aged prints that's undeniably appealing. The commitment required to work in this way astonishes me too.

Also from Lines and Colors is this wonderful look at the backgrounds from animated films.

COMICS
A bumper harvest of three panel strips at "Hark! A Vagrant" demands your Lols.

Also, if you know me, you'll be unsurprised to learn that I was unable to resist the lure of Hyper Monkey Force.

STUFFE

ME


I've managed to get around to sorting out some photographs (from 2007!) - if you're interested, there are four more "new" ones in my flickr stream.

THE ENVIRONMENT
Or at least, that's HIS excuse. This comic from The System also features one of the neatest ways of representing pant-lessness iconographically I've seen.


BARBIE BARBIE
I knew about Plastic Peloton People, but somehow Barbie Barbie had entirely passed me by. It's

"a photo-comic inspired by cyclist Heinrich Haussler--nicknamed "Barbie"--featuring him, other members of the pro peloton, and Barbie doll herself. I created Barbie Barbie to help get through the last cycling off-season, and continue to produce episodes, although less frequently, now that the season is back in gear."

THE RAS
There's details of the first stage results of Ireland's FBD Ras over at Cycling Weekly, there are no second stage results because of a collision between riders and a jeep pulling onto the course which resulted in the stage being neutralised. The Ras' own site is here, including galleries from the current and previous editions, and a nice section "Stories of the Ras".

I'd also highly recommend Jack Thurston's Bikeshow programme about the Ras, which is here.

PSYCH COMMUTER BAG
Reviewed by bikecommuters.com, the Psych commuter bag is a different take on the frame bag. It's interesting, but is any solution for commuting luggage more elegant that Brooks + Carradice? I'm also fairly certain that my knees would rub the Psych bag and that would drive me crazy. I'm very jealous of the organiser pockets inside though, one of the few things I'd add to my Lowsaddle longflap, given the chance.

JAMES HINDLE
Drawn.ca featured "Little Wolves" on its site recently - click through to James' site and you can read his other stories - "Unsettled" in particular is a fantastic series.

JEALOUSY

"The Dirty Kanza takes place in a few weeks down in Emporia, Kansas. It is a 200-mile gravel grinder through an area called the Flint Hills. We're sending the Dirty Six...plus Lucky Seven...to take it on.

Each of these guys has his own motivations, and his own fears, for this event. Today they introduce themselves, their goals for the DK 200."

Which is all very interesting - however, what made me green with envy was the look at the setups the "Dirty Six" are riding - lovely stuff, the article is here, and the droolmaking pics begin down the page.

STUFFE

POSTER CABARET BICYCLE PRINTS
From Urban Velo, these lovely bicycle prints, produced by the Poster Cabaret company to celebrate Bike Month (May, in the USA).

RAPHA FOR LADIES
Gem at Bianchista has reviewed some of the new range from the big R.

Whatever you think of Rapha, they do little details extremely well - this should be how women's kit works, attention to stuff that matters rather than producing pink flowery versions of mens kit.

COME AS YOU ARE
A good piece for new commuters on the Bike Commuters blog, boiling down pretty much to not worrying too much about bikes, kit &c - just ride!

So, what should a potential new commuter do to give this thing a try? Here it is in a nutshell: find a reliable bike (it doesn’t need to be anything special), take a look at some maps to find an enjoyable route and GO FOR IT.

There's links in the piece to articles about changes to make if you need to carry things, and considerations like rainwear &c too. They also tackle one of my personal bugbears, the notion of the "perfect" commuting bike as a heavy, changuarded internally geared tank.

GIRO D'ITALIA
Yesterday's stage on the Zoncolan was a fantastic day's racing for fans, and Cyclingnews has rounded up some of the rider reaction in this piece here. Cadel Evans seemed to ride so far beyond the pain barrier that I began to wonder if he might just keel over - the World Champion's jersey seems to weigh heavy on him at times, although he's ridden a champion's race every time it's asked of him in this Giro. My favourite piece of commentary came from from the Velocast's John Galloway on twitter;

[J] I don't care if he looks like he's trying to strangle his bike, @CadelOfficial is a GREAT world champion.

I was also pleased to see Sastre put in an amazing ride to recover from being distanced at the bottom of the climb.

STUFFE

One panel from "One Day in July"

ONE DAY IN JULY
This piece will be in Rouleur 18, and is the work of Richard Mitchelson (find his blog here). It's a wonderful piece, and I love the way the panel reproduced here captures the colour and motion of the race. Richard continues to make Rouleur an essential purchase every time I decide I'm going to skip an issue, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of "One Day in July".

BICYCLE PORTRAITS SOUTH AFRICA
Covered on Urban Velo, "Bicycle Portraits South Africa" is the project of photographer Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler. They've taken pictures of their fellow south African bike commuters with their rides, and hope to finance a book of the portraits via Kickstarter. As ever with this sort of work,a large part of the interest for me is in how the subjects choose to present themselves. You can see the photographs, and sign up to support the publication if you wish here.

VELO CLUB DON LOGAN
How can you not Rofl at this?

"I conjured my inner Belgian. Perhaps Filip Meirhaeghe (on or off the juice) or Bart Bretjens? (No, Bart's Dutch.) Tornado Tom on the cobbles or maybe even late-era Eddy? Alas, my inner Belgian would appear to have been standing on the first climb at Houffalize, eating frites, drinking beer and abusing other riders..."

From a race report in parts beginning with part one here.

GIRO D'ITALIA
Cosmo at Cyclocosm continues to bring it with his commentary - he looks over the momentous stage 11 in this post.

"I’ve heard riders complain about conditions before, but never in the terms that came up yesterday. The train of haggard human wreckage that trickled across the finish line on Stage 11 was enough, at least for a few hours, to inspire faith in clean bike racing."

THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE WRITTEN DOWN
From the Velo Orange Blog;

"I think white Pasela these tires look really cool, especially if you ride in a Panama hat."

FLOYD
I'm still getting my head around all this.

There's a good round up at the Cozy Beehive blog of the story so far, and the Velocast have recorded a special edition of their podcast covering the revelations so far. I'd recommend both.

STUFFE

BICYCLE DELIVERY - MATTRESS
Where else but Portland? You get a discount if you arrive by bike, and can have the mattress delivered by bicycle too. That's a hell of a trailer. (From Utility Cycling).

Also from Utility Cycling is this primer on running errands by bike.

JOSEPH ADOLPHE
Lines and Colors has a piece on this artist. At first sight, the portraiture looks fairly conventional, until you see the underlying patterns and textures. I love his pen and ink illustration in particular.

SHUTT SUMMER RANGE
There have been sneak peeks floating about of this range, but it was officially launched yesterday.

I've banged on about the benefits of sportwool previously - the jerseys are well priced, the material is sourced in the UK, and the jerseys are made here too. The red "ringer" club jersey is very smart in particular.

AIOTM! (aitom!)
It's back. Richard Herring's "As It Occurs to Me", a weekly comedy show/podcast returns for a second season this week. You can find the podcast here. (Bear in mind that it's usually *VERY* sweary & occasionally pushes the boundaries of taste - if you can handle that, its very funny though).

The show is based around what's happened to the cast over the previous week, and goes out unedited - last season was fantastic, with Richard's evident panic at writing a show's worth of new material every week becoming hilariously more evident as the season wore on. It's also probably the only outlet for Emma Kennedy's many stories about pooing in buckets (see season 1). If you're in London, you can see the show being recorded (as well as some extra material before the recording, if I remember right) at the Leicester Square Theatre, the link for tickets is here.

FUN?
Mikael at Copenhagenize set the cat among the pigeons with some of his periodic po-facedness recently. Fun? Ride your bicycle because it is EFFICIENT. Karl on Sea responds in this piece.

MOTIVATION
Doesn't everyone need a little Pascal now and then? (From cyclocosm).

MONKEY TRAIL
Nothing to do with me, but knobbly tyred types might enjoy this write up of the new trail at Cannock, from Redbikes.

STUFFE

EMMA POOLEY
Podium Café has a good interview with Cervelo Test Team's Emma Pooley

"Though they have the support of Cervélo’s resources, the women are not entirely insulated from the difficulties that women’s cycling faces. Three races Emma Pooley won last year have disappeared from the calendar."

THE LOST CYCLIST
Urban Velo reviews "The Lost Cyclist -The Untold Story of Frank Lenz's Ill-fated Around-the-world Journey".

"Part travelogue, part murder investigation, “The Lost Cyclist” is a clear-eyed look at bicycle travel in the days before paved roads and automobiles. Herlihy mines myriad press accounts, not only to track the trips but also to explain the sometimes testy relationships among cycling clubs, the media, government officials and the riders’ own family."

The article also includes an interview with the author, and can be read here.

CYCLING AND DOPING
With the UCI's Biological passport in the news, it's probably a good time to round up some useful information on the passport system.

First, the UCI's own page "Information on the Bio Passport".

Scientific American "Can Biological Passports Root Out Doping in Sports?"

On NYVelocity - Michael Ashenden interview #1...and "The Bio Passport: 5 Questions for Michael Ashenden".

ART
I love the "Lost Myths" website featured on Drawn.ca yesterday.

Its creators describe it as

"A playful medly of cryptomythological fiction, pantheons, bestiaries, comics, art, games, readings, performances and more by Claude Lalumiere and Rupert Bottenburg."

Whilst the best title award undoubtedly goes to "Fun and Games with the Hippatocora", the alternately whimsical and sinister "What To Do with the Dead" is superb too.

INFOGRAPHICS
Flowing Data takes an interesting look at the trend for large infographics.

Big information graphics have been around for a long time. They've come in the form of maps, visualization, art, signs, etc. That was all on paper though. In the past couple of years, humongous, gigantic, and often really long infographics have found their way onto the computer screen, through blogs and news sites. Some are great. Some really suck. The volume is booming for both.

Let's take a look at when this all got started, where the trend is headed, and how much we should really read into these things.