El Cyclista

08.28.09

Feed Gorilla Bicycle Posters

I don’t know much about this group of Taiwanese street riders called nabiis, but they have a great eye for design and what makes a great poster. They are doing a gorilla campaign on taking back the streets using these beautiful black and white shots of vintage bike parts. Simple one color posters delivered with scale – incredibly effective. The full set and the story behind them are over on their Flickr set. They seem like a fun bunch of guys. More Bike Less Car.

Dean Downing’s Condor Leggero

This is fast becoming one of my favorite frames, the Condor Leggero. Condor are famous for the paint jobs on their frames and the finish, so I was surprised to see such minimal paintwork on the newly crowned British Champions frame. A few small red, white and blue bands on the rear triangle and the forks, and that is it. I know Rapha are the ultra minimalists – but this is the British Champion! That aside the feedback on this frame is whilst it is not the lightest frame in the peleton, it is an all out race frame, with that very short wheel base and aero-section built for acceleration. I would imagine the curvature in the rear stays make it a little less harsh than the usual race geometry. You have to love that flattened top-tube and graphics.

08.23.09

From The Saddle, A Wet Group Ride

08.20.09

The Lost Art Of The Musette

I grew up using musettes and had forgotten how beautiful they were until I saw these on Classic Rendevouz. Heading out on my Claude Butler Colstar with my Tommy Donaldson musette over my shoulder. Ah the days before carbon, drilled chain rings and when leather shoes with lots of holes in were the way to go. (Still have those somewhere). Photos courtesy of Classic Rendevouz

08.19.09

Leandro *_* Castelao Illustrations

This guys work is pretty amazing. I don’t usually go for heavily stylized illustrations, but this is a very unique look. Incredible detail and craft have gone into creating these. Everything from T-Shirt to poster to font design. This is a very talented individual. Check out his work here.

The Drawings of Rebour

The Rapha blog put me on to Rebours work (more can be seen at http://www.blackbirdsf.org/rebour/). I remember when I was 16 taking a series of evening classes in technical drawing. I think my parents encouraged it to keep me of the streets of N.Ireland, as I had really no interest. But looking at these now I am thinking about those classes in a whole different light. In a time when photography was not very portable or easy, and printing was better without tone, this format was perfect. His studies of the various bike shows and what was new in components are beautiful. Imagine someone doing this at Interbike? The collection is a great documentation of the evolution of the components.

08.16.09

From The Saddle, River Road Ride, NYC

08.15.09

From the Saddle: Oley, Pennsylvania

Taken on the Oley loop ride, Pennsylvania. 08.08.09

Tourdeville, London

For those of you into vintage bikes and components this is a must go destination at some point in your life. Tourdeville opened their shop near London Fields at the end of December last year, after having collected a pretty impressive array of vintage frames and parts from all over Europe. The shop is run by Jos Van Veldhoven (who has the title of the fastest courier in London) and Keith James (who learnt his trade at Condor). The shop is well stocked with frames and parts from the same era to make the complete vintage build, evrything from Benotto to Colnago. You can find them at 50 Lamb Lane, London, E8 3PS. (Image by bareknuckleyellow)

08.12.09

The Pulse By Teague Design

Biking is definitely back in vogue. As more and more people turn to it as a form of commuting, industrial design firms are starting to rethink function based on the needs of that particular use. The latest exploration is from Teague Design with the Pulse Bike. It is a bike for urban commuting and has a feature list developed around riding in that environment, the best of which is the luminescent frame. They have reduced the Pulse to its absolute basics, and focused on making the main triangle the visual centerpiece of the bike. They also considered features from motorcycle design and have included blinking indicators embedded into the handlebar ends, which are triggered from a twist of the bar grip, a very nice feature. No more taking your hands off the bars to signal (like we do that anyway in NYC – but at least now when you hit a pothole both hands will be on the bars). The battery pack is embedded into the stem and is rechargeable. The nice thing about these features is that they are integrated into the design. Very few bikes in production consider this, and most components are still add on. The new Trek Madones have a built in ANT technology sensor for speed and cadence, but that is the first I have seen.

Teague Design