bikes and things

I had some time to myself yesterday so caught up on a few bits and bobs including remembering that I had a folder of images from Feb that I hadn’t done anything with. This also coincided with me thinking I should give my Vimeo account a little more love.

I offered to help Max record this event that he wanted to stage as part of his application for a place at Cooper Union Architecture School in New York. I can’t remember the whole idea but anyway we went down there and set up in an afternoon until the tide came in. Freezing for me but worse for Max. We did a load of stills and I ended up with all these extra shots which seemed ideal for a time-lapse. We drew quite a crowd from the tourists on the Southbank who seemed pretty confused if it was an installation piece or just some idiots with a camera and too much time on their hands.

And this is it – a 20 second clip of him going in for each and every shot and getting completely wet and freezing each time. Suffering for his art.

And with all those photos I also did this really bad stitch of him coming out of the water in flippers which I did share at the time. Most importantly his application was successful and he even got a scholarship too.

It’s not often you see London in a completely new light as pretty much every single angle has been covered, and then done to death. These shots via With Links* and shot by Rupert Jordan prove that this old city still has some fresh perspectives left in it yet.

*You should be following them on Twitter or signed up for their newsletter.

Last Thursday I was riding to work from Peckham to Camden. Nothing particularly unusual about the journey apart from a few people not looking where they were going. I kept a decent pace on the fixed and enjoyed the ride. As I made my way up to Mornington Crescent and heading up to Camden High Street I noticed a grey object in the right side of my peripheral vision. That object kept getting closer and knocked me up into the air and onto my side. I then slide along the tarmac for a bit and got up, which is when I realised that the grey object was a van. With adrenaline pumping through me I got up and screamed at the guy. I thought he’d done it deliberately and banged his bonnet. Some guy grabbed me, calmed me down and moved me off the road. I was furious, full of adrenaline and pretty shaken up by it. The driver seemed pretty shocked too as he didn’t get out of his van for quite some time. I had to ask him to get out and even prompt him to say sorry – I put this down to shock though not his lack of consideration.

I’ve been riding in London since 2005 and rode here before in 2001 for a while. I consider myself reasonably experienced and am always careful of undertaking vehicles at junctions and always look into their left mirror at them to see if they’re about to make a turn without indicating. I also watch the front wheel which gives a slightly later indication of their turn and allows me to stop or take evasive action if needed. But what was so annoying about this is that I was in front of the traffic, I wasn’t undertaking, I had the front position on the road so he must have come around me and across my path. I can only assume that he just wasn’t looking at all, perhaps I was in his blind spot at the front on his left column on the windscreen. Maybe he was looking at his mirror behind but I was in front? Who knows.

So I checked my bike at scene, both wheels were fine but it wasn’t until I rode off that I realised the force of the impact had bent the drive side crank arm. As I thought there wasn’t anything wrong I didn’t get his number which is my own stupid fault. My wrist was a bit sore and a nice bruise and road rash has developed on my hip but I count myself lucky that it wasn’t a faster collision or a bigger vehicle.

It’s the second time I’ve been knocked off in London, the first was a car pulling out of a side street and I went straight over the bonnet. This has shaken me up much much more due to the way it came from the side without me seeing anything or having any inclination that something was about to go wrong. Best not to dwell on it too much and get back on the bike I think.

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.