Cool Hunting recently profiled Brooklyn based Horse Cycles in a video they made. I thought it was pretty cool. I sort of dream to have a gig like Thomas Callahan who owns Horse, and builds the bikes. I envy anyone who can make a living doing something that they are truly passionate about.
Cool Hunting Video: Horse Cycles from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.
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Rapha, one of my favorite British cycling outfitters recently released its Fall/Winter 2013 lookbook. I love the gear. Moreso, I love the decision to shoot the lookbook in grainy BW film. These images are fantastic. More looks here.
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The Detriot bicycle brand Shinola opened its new TriBeCa space last Friday on Franklin Street. I dropped by to check it out (and to say hi to my friends from the Smile running the newsstand in the front). I love bikes and watches. So, I was pretty stoked about the store. Definitely check it out, if you are into bikes.
I currently use the original iteration of the Bookman bike light. In NYC, cyclists are actually required by law to use a light while riding at night. Although the Bookman lights don’t provide a lot of illumination, they do increase your visibility to others and are easy to mount (and remove when you lock up). They have three lighting modes: solid, and two speeds of blinking.
I have been so happy with mine, that I’m already on my second set. On the current version, it is easier to replace the entire unit, than it is to replace the battery when it dies. Apparently the design folks at Bookman took this into account with their recently announced upgrade, which will be rechargeable via USB. The rechargeable model is scheduled to be available in the US around August of this year.
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In an apparent effort to get as fat as possible between now and March, I have virtually ceased all cycling activities. I seriously think that I have only ridden 3 or 4 times since the hurricane. That doesn’t stop me from perving on cool biking gear that I see online. I came across this awesome helmet by Ani Surabhi earlier this week. He calls it “Kranium.”
Surabhi developed the helmet as a student at the Royal College of Art. The guts of the helmet are made from corrugated cardboard. In addition to looking ridiculously cool, the helmet can absorb up to three times the the impact as traditional styrofoam helmets.
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) helmets are proven to protect your head only 20% of the time. The Kranium liner has proven to absorb 3 times the amount of impact energy during collision. At the same time, it is 15% lighter than Polystyrene helmets. EPS helmets are made from petroleum based products where are the Kranium liner is made from recycled paper. They have been tested at several test labs across the globe, including TUV in Germany and HPE in the UK. They have been developed for mass production and will be available in the market in December 2012.
Check out the full article on Core77 to learn about how Surabhi initially got the idea from studying woodpeckers. If you are as nerdy as me, you will find it fascinating.
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If you aren’t into the cardboard look, there is always this option.
I switched things up a bit this morning. Part of the training program that I’m using calls for hill reps. The only problem with that is there are not any hills nearby. So I decided to utilize the ones in the north end of Central Park. There is a great spot on the west side of the 125th St. Transverse where you can alternate between the hill on the transverse, and the hill on Park Drive West. Since the park is a few miles from where I live, I thought I would ride my bike to the park then run the hills. Riding in rush hour up 8th Ave. was a great way to wake up quickly and also warm up.
I didn’t wear the Nike+ SportWatch during this morning’s workout. One thing that it does not have (that I wish could be incorporated eventually) is a way to denote cycling vs. running on the dashboard. You could def wear the watch cycling, but it would throw all of your running stats off. The Garmin tool does give users the option to distinguish the type of activity that is being logged. For example the workout above I logged as cyclocross (since it was a mix of running and cycling). Even though it wasn’t truly cyclocross, when I run a report on my stats, it will be distinguished from my running, and regular cycling. I did rock the FuelBand though.
After running hills, the ride home was a bit interesting. It took a couple of downhill coasts to get my quads to recover. It also made the ride into work a bit slower than normal, which is fine (because: less sweat).
There is a bicycle film festival in NYC this coming weekend. I’m so bummed that I won’t be around to check it out. I actually didn’t even find out about it until yesterday. Anyway, checkout the trailer for this gnarly film that I poached from Gothamist.
Friday evening, I recruited my friend Casey to join me on a ride on the west side path around sunset. I brought my cam along and snapped a few shots along the way. The one above, was actually on the return trip. We stopped at the 72nd St. Pier and chilled out for a while with some refreshments. Since the camera was just sitting on the table, I decided to get a long exposure of the old cargo crane (which is in the process of being town down).
The photo below is of the space shuttle Enterprise sitting in her new perch on the deck of the USS Intrepid.
Below: Casey at the GW.
The shot below is actually from the sunset on Thursday night. But I just thought I would throw it in for good measure.
Trixie (my bike) has been in the shop since last Friday, getting shod with some new rims. I was perpetually bending the rear rim (including one pinch flat, where I had to replace the tire) anytime that I would ride over any small deviation in surface smoothness. It was getting kind of ridiculous. So, I finally broke down and ordered a set of high profile (hipster) rims. I picked her up yesterday right after leaving the office and ended up riding everywhere I went yesterday evening (which was kind of a lot of places). First I hit the latest installation at the SoHo Agnés b. That is where I snapped the photo above (on Howard St.). Not really sure why I didn’t just bust out the real cam for that shot, being that it was slung over my back. So, you getz iPhone image. Sorry.
After Agnés, I went to the WV for a Nike release party. Obama was in town yesterday, and his motorcade actually passed right in front of the spot where the event was being held. So, getting around was like a video game of weaving in and out of cars/cops. It was actually kinda fun.
Tomorrow, I’m off to MD, bright and early to shoot some moto-x with Redbull. Sunday morning I’ll be running the Portugal day race in CP. Should be a banger. Have a great weekend.
This week has flown by. I can’t even believe that tomorrow I will already be headed to Charleston for the weekend. But, I am pretty happy about it. On my way to work today, I bent the rear rim of my bike (for the 4th time). So, I have decided to get some high profile double walled rims. Possibly I will just replace the whole wheel set. I’ll put up photos as soon as it happens.
I have never really been much of a cyclist until recently, even though I have always had bikes. I’m really starting to appreciate the whole culture of it (albeit, I think that I’m kinda relegated to the hipsterish subdivision of it, since I will never wear spandex and I only have one gear). Anyway, with the weather the way it is this time of year (example photo above taken this afternoon on my way back from a lunch mtg. in midtown), it is absolutely delicious to be out riding. My friend Mike put it best recently when he said: “things go by at just the right speed on a bike. Not too fast, like in a car. But not too slow, like walking.” Also, riding on the West Side path at night might possibly be my new obsession.
It is bicycle weather. I’m pretty excited about it. I filled out all of the requisite paperwork this week to park my bike in the building where I work. Parking inside is the best way to avoid this happening again. They issued me the little blue tag in the image below to make it legit. So, Wednesday night I put some air in the tires. It is supposed to rain until Friday. But I am hoping to start pedaling to work starting next Mon.
Speaking of biking, I’m not really a helmet wearer. Ok, I’m not a helmet wearer at all. But, thanks to creative Swedish design, maybe we won’t have to wear a plastic dome to be protected while riding. I came across this amazing piece of Scandinavian innovation today on Cool Hunting.
Here is what it looks like undeployed:
It is basically a hipster’s w*t dream.
–“Dude, I like your scarf.”
“It’s not a scarf”
–“I mean I like your hood”
“It’s not a hood, it’s a Swedish airbag helmet.”
–“Well, I like your yellow suspenders, moustache and flannel, too.”
I also like how they dropped all of the blacks out of that second image. Moving on… This week I also saw the little device below on TWBE. Yeah, that’s right– bluetooth bike speakers. Finally.
Completely unrelated to bikes, this went up on Tuesday.
I came across this cool short by Edouard Sepulchre today and thought that I would pass it along. It is nothing Earth shattering. But it has some cool visuals. Plus, who doesn’t love bikes? It’s called “The Great Escape.” And no, it is not a reinterpretation of the Charlie Bronson classic. Check it out:
Speaking of videos, I saw another pretty cool one today, that my b-i-l Mike forwarded to me. I posted it over here.
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Two posts about Italian bikes in one day!? I guess so. Check out these ridiculously hot wooden handlebars made by Officine Milani Firenze. If the bars themselves weren’t cool enough, OMF also offers custom refurbished bicycles with original salvaged parts. I wonder if they have any rebuilt G. Bianchis for sale. A couple more looks at the bars–
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This is kind of a random post, that will probably only be interesting to me. But, here goes anyway. Some may recall that that one of my good friends moved to Florence fairly recently. It is the same dude that I went on the “man trip” with earlier this year. Anyway, he recently sent me some pretty interesting (if you are e nerd like us) shots from his observations in Florence. The first set is of the tricked out Hyundai pictured above (extra points if you know where the title of this post comes from). When he first sent over the images of the Fiorucci Hyundai, I thought it was a joke. I thought it was like all of those minivans that I see driving around my neighborhood with NoS stickers and fake intake ducts glued onto the hood. But, when I looked into it a little further, Fiorucci really did team up with Hyundai on a model called the i10. How funny is that? …an iconic Italian fashion label choosing a Korean built joke of an automobile to collaborate with. It’s like if Toyota released a Fendi trimmed Prius. Except, not even, because Toyota is more reputable than Hyundai. Anyway, I’m not trying to trash talk those automakers, I’m just trying to highlight the irony of the fact that a designer based in the same country that produces Lamborghini and Ferrari, chose to team up with Hyundai. Bold move. And, super entertaining (if you are a nerd).
Next, we turn to “G. Bianchi” bicycles (not be [although hard not to be] confused with Bianchi). Mike said that he has seen several of these bikes around Florence. When he and I looked into it, we discovered that G. Bianchi is a now defunct brand of bikes that was founded in the 60’s by Giuseppe Bianchi, out of Florence. I doubt that the dude even meant to have his brand confused with the Cycle giant Bianchi (or did he), since it was the guy’s name. Anyway, as most people probably know, “bianchi” just means “white.” It isn’t like the word is super uncommon in Italy (I’m assuming). But, now I kind of want to try to get one of these G. Bianchi bikes, just for novelty’s sake. I really like the quarter length chrome fenders.
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The end.
Photography: M. Cuomo