January 12, 2011
Crucial Jams
Mark here. Back again after a slight delay/series of hurdles/shanghai-rochambos. I'll be sorting through the thousands of letters shortly. Here are a couple of segue tracks that have been on heavy rotation lately. Good tunes to listen to with a buddy. Expect lots more from this old timer.
January 11, 2011
Ice Beards
It's winter and that means ice beards. From me in particular since I often have an ice beard and always have a camera.
Due to an unholy pact with b.ridget I have a much shorter, for this time of year, beard than typical and we haven't had any brutally cold days yet. (and by brutal I mean like double digit negs) Thus nothing spectacular this winter.
this is about 7pm this evening
not terrible, but nothing to write home about. (unless you have a blog and always need content)
No, if we're going to start talking spectacular I'd like to steer the conversation towards January 20, 2009 and the Robeast Trevor Crayton
Now that's a good one! It's like looking into the face of Poseidon himself.
If any of you out there have any good ice beard photos, please send them my way. jeff at bikejerks or better yet, don't send them but instead upload to your flickr and send me the link. that way I won't have a bunch of emails junking up the place.
Sorry that there's no ladies equivalent to ice beards, or if there is lets see it.
xoxo
Due to an unholy pact with b.ridget I have a much shorter, for this time of year, beard than typical and we haven't had any brutally cold days yet. (and by brutal I mean like double digit negs) Thus nothing spectacular this winter.
this is about 7pm this evening
not terrible, but nothing to write home about. (unless you have a blog and always need content)
No, if we're going to start talking spectacular I'd like to steer the conversation towards January 20, 2009 and the Robeast Trevor Crayton
Now that's a good one! It's like looking into the face of Poseidon himself.
If any of you out there have any good ice beard photos, please send them my way. jeff at bikejerks or better yet, don't send them but instead upload to your flickr and send me the link. that way I won't have a bunch of emails junking up the place.
Sorry that there's no ladies equivalent to ice beards, or if there is lets see it.
xoxo
Velo Veggies New Hauler
Looks like Randall over at Velo Veggies, Mpls' cargo delivery courier service, has got himself a new work bike. No details, although I'm fairly certain that this was fabbed over at Peacock Groove. I'll let you know if I hear more about it. At any rate, it's a very cool project.
January 10, 2011
2011 Dirty Benjamin Date Set
Minneapolis' own 100 mile gravel race is back for 2011. Martin and the boys have set the date and it's June, 11.
go here for full details
January 8, 2011
January 7, 2011
Favorite Things: Winter Essentials: Cat Crap
One of the things I hate about winter riding is that often when you pull up to a stop light or stop sign, your glasses will fog up on you leaving you blind going through the intersection until you get riding again and they clear up.
The solution to this problem is a product called Cat Crap.
You just smear a tiny amount on with your finger, then buff it until invisisble with an appropriate cloth.
I usually just use my t-shirt
Just like that, no more fog. A container costs $6 and lasts years. I apply it every few weeks. If you're in MPLS, I bought mine at Midwest Mountaineering.
The solution to this problem is a product called Cat Crap.
You just smear a tiny amount on with your finger, then buff it until invisisble with an appropriate cloth.
I usually just use my t-shirt
Just like that, no more fog. A container costs $6 and lasts years. I apply it every few weeks. If you're in MPLS, I bought mine at Midwest Mountaineering.
New Home for Circulus
Hair dresser to the stars and Portland Design Works honch, DPOW, has informed me that the mini velodrome known as Circulus has found a permanent home in Portland as PDW has purchased this infinite fun device.
What is Circulus?
Circulus was an installation designed and built by Sam Starr as his final project as a Fine Arts major at Pomona College in Los Angeles. The project took roughly two months to build and was on display for the first two weeks of May, 2010 on the Pomona campus inside Seeley Mudd Library.
here is the artist's statement:
Circulus is an installation and performance, a miniaturized bicycle track designed to fit inside the decommissioned Seeley G. Mudd Science Library. The track offers a circular trajectory for a cyclist to circulate the room once every five seconds. As a spectator and participant, I’ve often been mesmerized by the intense, aggressive movement of riders around these large, elegant ellipsoid structures. Circulus transforms the library into a velodrome, an arena that houses a bicycle track, juxtaposing the intense movement and noise of the bicycle and rider with the silent reverence implicit in the library space.
Like any athletic track, a velodrome is a strategic response to the problem of static spectatorship. As in Muybridge’s early photographic studies of equestrian gaits, the track allows a repeated cycle of movement to confront the viewer, translating the athlete’s linear, expansive trajectory into a contained cycle. The limits of spectatorship are imprinted in the track and embedded in the very shape of the sport: the cyclist must circle to fit within the building. In turn, the sport inscribes itself on the track. Velodromes distinguish themselves from other architectures by formalizing the suggestion of bodily trajectory. While the majority of our built environment is designed to withstand force along the gravitational axis, the track must also contend with the demands of the circulating body. The cyclist’s circular motion introduces a new inertial strain on the structure as an angular appendage to gravity. The ground plane is no longer enough to support the rider. Banked at 45 degrees, the track surface re-orients itself to this new bodily vector, defying classification as wall or floor.
Centrifugal: from the Latin centrum “center” and fugere “to flee”. The cyclist flees from the center like a satellite, held in orbit by the track surface. The track becomes a container for a centrifugal force-field—a radial architecture—that is fundamentally different from the gravitational architecture of the library. It also forms a bridge between the circulating rider and the static spectator, inviting the viewer to experience space through this spectacle of angular movement. By following the circulating rider, the viewer watches and feels a trajectory. Though the rider circles, it is the viewer that experiences dizziness; she is pulled into a world where lines no longer converge, where perspective is limited and fleeting, flat. Indeed, the horizon inside the track is obliterated, the floor becomes wall, the path doubles back around on itself.
Does this not evoke the habitable space of the printed word, the realm occupied by the mind as it reads, the two-dimensional reality of volumes? Even the architects of the Seeley Mudd Library assigned floorboards and carpet to vertical surfaces. I can remember leaving this library after hours of studying, dizzy from re-entering the third-dimension. Though the library encourages static quiet, it also accommodates a catatonic focus of study, where thoughts become a blur. “Movement is extensive; speed is intensive.” Though the rider rushes around the track, he goes nowhere. The viewer, the reader, standing still, move.
Sam Starr and Sara Kendall
All this hillbilly knows is that at some point in the coming year I'm going to drink beer and ride the crap out of that thing.
What is Circulus?
Circulus was an installation designed and built by Sam Starr as his final project as a Fine Arts major at Pomona College in Los Angeles. The project took roughly two months to build and was on display for the first two weeks of May, 2010 on the Pomona campus inside Seeley Mudd Library.
Circulus from machine project on Vimeo.
here is the artist's statement:
Circulus is an installation and performance, a miniaturized bicycle track designed to fit inside the decommissioned Seeley G. Mudd Science Library. The track offers a circular trajectory for a cyclist to circulate the room once every five seconds. As a spectator and participant, I’ve often been mesmerized by the intense, aggressive movement of riders around these large, elegant ellipsoid structures. Circulus transforms the library into a velodrome, an arena that houses a bicycle track, juxtaposing the intense movement and noise of the bicycle and rider with the silent reverence implicit in the library space.
Like any athletic track, a velodrome is a strategic response to the problem of static spectatorship. As in Muybridge’s early photographic studies of equestrian gaits, the track allows a repeated cycle of movement to confront the viewer, translating the athlete’s linear, expansive trajectory into a contained cycle. The limits of spectatorship are imprinted in the track and embedded in the very shape of the sport: the cyclist must circle to fit within the building. In turn, the sport inscribes itself on the track. Velodromes distinguish themselves from other architectures by formalizing the suggestion of bodily trajectory. While the majority of our built environment is designed to withstand force along the gravitational axis, the track must also contend with the demands of the circulating body. The cyclist’s circular motion introduces a new inertial strain on the structure as an angular appendage to gravity. The ground plane is no longer enough to support the rider. Banked at 45 degrees, the track surface re-orients itself to this new bodily vector, defying classification as wall or floor.
Centrifugal: from the Latin centrum “center” and fugere “to flee”. The cyclist flees from the center like a satellite, held in orbit by the track surface. The track becomes a container for a centrifugal force-field—a radial architecture—that is fundamentally different from the gravitational architecture of the library. It also forms a bridge between the circulating rider and the static spectator, inviting the viewer to experience space through this spectacle of angular movement. By following the circulating rider, the viewer watches and feels a trajectory. Though the rider circles, it is the viewer that experiences dizziness; she is pulled into a world where lines no longer converge, where perspective is limited and fleeting, flat. Indeed, the horizon inside the track is obliterated, the floor becomes wall, the path doubles back around on itself.
Does this not evoke the habitable space of the printed word, the realm occupied by the mind as it reads, the two-dimensional reality of volumes? Even the architects of the Seeley Mudd Library assigned floorboards and carpet to vertical surfaces. I can remember leaving this library after hours of studying, dizzy from re-entering the third-dimension. Though the library encourages static quiet, it also accommodates a catatonic focus of study, where thoughts become a blur. “Movement is extensive; speed is intensive.” Though the rider rushes around the track, he goes nowhere. The viewer, the reader, standing still, move.
Sam Starr and Sara Kendall
All this hillbilly knows is that at some point in the coming year I'm going to drink beer and ride the crap out of that thing.
FEEDING
Earlier this week I unveiled the new Bike Jerks shirt designed by the guys at FEEDING. What I neglected to mention is that if you'd like to stay up on what the dudes over at FEEDING are up to, you should go here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)