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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Drool-Worthy Vintage French Bikes


Early Christmas present from the Velo-Orange blog today: four splendid sites featuring vintage French bikes, with a special focus on porteurs. I'm passing along all four links without comment because really what else can I say but waaaaant!

Velo-Porteur-Ancien (image credit on this post)

Velogibe

Tonton Velo

Collection de velos anciens Gilbert Fautrier

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

I'll Show You

Hilariously snarky counterpoint to this more positive early 20th c. postcard. For those times when you want to send a nasty note, but can't be bothered to compose a whole letter.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Spotted in the Wild

Evidence that I do actually ride a bike in San Diego. Me on the left riding The Frenchman and conversing with Momentum Magazine co-publisher Tania Lo. I think we had just crossed El Cajon Boulevard heading north on Park. We had a nice group ride with Tania and her colleague Mia Kohout last Thursday night to give them a glimpse of cycling in San Diego. Describing the bicycling community here really helped remind me how exciting it is to be involved in advocacy in this city. There is so much potential and we're right on the brink of some really exciting things.

Photo via Turbo Bob @ the Urban Bike and Social Club Meetup page.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Accountability & Bicycle Wheels

Note: This is a brief excerpt from a longer post I wrote a long while ago and never published. This idea has recently been brought back to mind, so I'm posting it, even though it's still largely undeveloped.

I think accountability in human interaction is a big deal. Think of it like truing a bicycle wheel: if you want to tighten one spoke, you need to loosen another. Over the life of a wheel, you have to keep tending it. The action proceeds in increments of give-and-take, fine-tuning, trial and error, and careful observation. You can't make an adjustment to one spoke without taking the other spokes into account, and each spoke bears its portion of the wheel's tension. This means spokes are accountable both to themselves and to those around them. It's what keeps the wheel running true.

Color Wheel


My wife is learning to blend acrylics, and she made a little impromptu color wheel out of a plastic lid last night while she practiced. I'm still learning our new camera, and took a bunch of photos, but this is only one that turned out even remotely interesting.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Ridiculous Subaru Car Air Fresheners

These Subaru car air fresheners have some of the best worst packaging copy I've seen recently. People who write stuff like this should read it aloud before they send it to the printer. "Get a whiff of what Subaru is all about." I checked, and they don't smell like exhaust. And, of course, you all know the smell of adventure, right? It sure smells like it feels good. I just got a kick out of these for some reason. It's good to know cheesy product copy still exists, isn't it? Maybe I'll put one on my bike so I can spread the smell of adventure wherever I go.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

More SD VeloSwap Pics

A grab-bag post of photos from the San Diego Velodrome Swap Meet last weekend. Alas, none of this stuff came home with me.