From Utility Cycling: Carrying Your Stuff: Cargo Bicycles

read more at utilitycycling.com

Utility Cycling reviews the options available for lugging serious amounts of stuff around by bicycle - nice pictures, including this capaciously basketed Pashley.

Posted via email from monkeyphoto's posterous

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."