bikes and things

The fabulous blog about cycling riding bikes turned one year old on Tuesday. As is befitting of a birthday a party was held at Look Mum No Hands, situated neatly on the hipster highway from East to West.

I went along with a few friends and also managed to meet a few others I hadn’t seen for a while. I also managed to meet a few people I’ve been chatting with on Twitter but not met IRL (In Real Life) before. Yes the abbreviation is kind of ironic. Anyway, the beard seemed to help people recognise me which was good – that icon Meg drew for me is still working out well.

James was there doing his raffle which unfortunately I didn’t win anything from. There was a great turn out and the place was throbbing by the time I got there at 6.45. I had also offered to do some pictures so took my camera. I also brought a flash but didn’t like the look of the shots so went up to 2000 ISO and for the most part shot wide open at ƒ1.8. The problem always is trying to get enough light in for a decent shutter speed and having such a narrow depth of field. Anyway they came out ok and I’m pleased with a few of the ones below. Cycle Love ran a few of the colour ones on their site but I preferred the black and white ones.

Looking forward to the next party!

Well unfortunately not but this cartoon by Martin Rowson works with the idea of spinning the whole network around 180 degrees centred on Embankment Station. Being a South Londoner I completely agree that the balance of transport power should be shifted like this. Imagine the tube stopping at Kings Cross! Hilarious.

Via JK

I’ve already written about my love for Cycle Love. You really should have added them to your daily sites / RSS feeds / follow them Twitter etc and also bought a T-shirt from them by now!

The site is reaching its first birthday after a successful year posting some superb articles, images and videos. If you’re around on the 29th Jan and in London then you should head down to Look Mum no Hands from 6.30pm. More details on the Cycle Love site.

Not a big fan of the Met or their egos but they do capture the odd good image flying around in their helicopter over London. This one caught my eye in particular.

Having recently rejoined the commuting masses this week, I couldn’t help but notice just how bad the roads are at the moment. Normally snow and ice breaks up reasonable sized chunks each year which I’ve come to expect. This year there was no snow or ice so I’m not sure what’s caused it all, and the hole seem to be bigger than ever. Here’s a fairly typical pothole on the way to work. So big that if you hit it you’d almost certainly come off along with ruining a wheel or two as well as yourself

Hopefully they all get repaired fairly swiftly as I’ve reported it on the CTC’s Fill that hole site via their App.

Still, it’s good to be doing a bit more riding again.

There’s a new cycling blog in town and it’s not run by cycling vigilantes or nut jobs moaning about the state of two wheeled travel. This one has an overtly positive stance for those of us who enjoy cycling around for whatever reason but don’t enjoy the crap blogs that normally go with it. It also brings great photography along with it which makes me like it even more.

There’s been a couple of great articles already such as the With Associates studio interview as well as the recent interview with Lawrence.

We want to change the way our readers think about cycling in London, whether that means finding a positive slant on biking in the rain, challenging the way that we think about urban transport, or refuting common wisdom about, say, helmets or traffic lights.

Cycle Love is about the stuff that makes cycling great, and celebrating the diversity of cycle culture — bikes *and* people.

It feels like it’s a site for people who cycle but aren’t, or don’t necessarily want to be labelled as, cyclists. Maybe that’s putting words in their mouth, but I think the only way cycling is going to get better is when you don’t have to be a cyclist to do it and we embrace it as the best form of transport for the city.

You also should buy a T-shirt from them.

I’ve done this ride a few times, start at the Design Museum and pick up the Thames Path all the way to Greenwich and beyond. Once I even ended up at the Woolwich Ferry and cycled back along the North side. This time it was only to past Greenwich and back but still good to get out after a prolonged period of working late to get my project out to tender.

I also wanted to re-engage with my camera after just using it for paid work I thought I’d do some for pleasure. Just for me and see what I could find, a kind of a mini project in a day. Taking the tripod and camera on my bike way fairly hard work but well worth the effort to document some of the spaces along the South side of the Thames. Unfortunately I didn’t make very fast progress on my bike as I kept on seeing things to take pictures of.

The context of the ride is slightly strange – going from the wealthy areas surrounding the Design Museum through some rougher looking estates, past light and heavy industry, gravel pits, vents from tunnels, new cheap looking housing schemes and a few tourist attractions in between. There were reminders of industry past throughout as well as the looming presence of Canary Wharf and newer developments.

I couldn’t have picked a nicer day, misty at first but brighter later with some surreal Autumn light towards the end of the day. Some of the images were a bit off due to the swing on the lens being engaged when I grabbed it out of my bag but I’m pleased with the selection I uploaded to Flickr late last night.

One of the nicest things was getting out on my bike and being totally relaxed. I didn’t rush but cycled at my own pace, looking around and taking it all in. I also met a few interesting characters along the way including an Indian couple over here to see the sights who were fascinated by the camera and also my bike. A few of my favourite images are below. I might do this as a regular thing and just pick a different route each time and see what I come across. Maybe a lighter tripod next time though.

And to top it all off I got the Thames Clipper back from Greenwich seeing all the same sights from a completely different viewpoint. A superb day out.

Emma and I have recently discovered the joys of the South London Gallery which is 5 mins cycle from us. They do a fantastic breakfast and the coffee is top notch. They’re housed in a beautifully refurbished and extended building by 6a Architects. They have a superb bookshop and the staff are all seem to be super friendly and helpful.

We recently went and saw the “Pursuit of perfection: The politics of sport“, the most interesting bit was this installation by Aleksandra Mir named Triumph. It consisted of 2529 trophies bathed in glorious sunlight in this amazing space. Some of the trophies were completely bonkers and so over the top. Others consisted of ridiculous figurines doing all sorts of sports. The nicest thing was that when I asked to take a picture there was no problem. It kind of threw me a bit at first but was great to be able to record the space without resorting to secret snapshots with the phone.

The space in which it was presented was superb and my eye was quickly drawn to the chunky original door ironmongery on the door at the end of the room.

Hard to get a sense of scale from this but it was massive and still worked perfectly well. So many nice little features to discover in this place. Will probably be there again next weekend drinking coffee and enjoying the atmosphere.

Love the autumn light. Just caught this before the moment went last night.

Unfortunately I’d left the camera on 1600 ISO so a little bit of noise in there. I grabbed another shot a few seconds later the light had gone.

Lovely little video clip visualising the journeys taken by Boris bike users. Worth reading the full article which accompanies it over at New Scientist.

Via @RichardBattye.