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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I spent some time cycling over the weekend. I wanted to peep the new murals that went up in BK in connection with the Wooster Collective 10 Exhibit. They were all good. This Shepard Fairey piece was my favorite, though. And unfortunately, I snapped my favorite shot of it (with Trixie below) with my phone, and not a real camera. If you want to check out the work in person, Wooster posted a guide to the locations of all of the murals, here. Also, check out this.
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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Well.. I finally found a helmet that I think that I would actually wear. It is the ‘Mixino’ by Catlike. I love the murdered out flat-black. Yes, I realized that it is a less than practical way to keep one’s head cool on a hot summer day. But, for the moment we are just discussing aesthetics. Anyway, I can’t find anywhere in the US that sells this helmet. I could order from this shop in the UK, but I am a bit nervous about what the final price would be after shipping any everything.
I am actually riding again, btw. Had a lovely trek over the Wburg Bridge on Saturday morning. Thinking about firing up Trixie for commuting again, now that the days are starting to get longer again.
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).
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.
