Quality of Movement

No one loves to be in traffic jam in car, it's really waste of time and money. You cannot do anything else than just check the brake lights in front of you. You take too much space in city and polute air by burning oil, instead burning fat.  Is it really necessary to take the space of your kitchen or bath room with your car in city road or parking spots when you traveling alone?

Crystal clear it is, quality in movement is my passion. In past few days I  have realized that everything in movement has come to some kind of strange wisdom point. Life and time itself is movement. Winter swimming in frozen sea combined with hot smoked sauna and fat biking underlined this yesterday.

Efficiency in bicycling, in time measuring, in art and quality of transportation in every day life it is. I admire the micro mechanical world of watches, the quality of bicycle in traveling and potential of performance art in story telling. All done with brilliant ideas and great skills. Quality in movement.

Creative and Fat Times

Winter can been seen as off-season for bicycle things. This is not completely true, people are defining (or specsing) new complete bicycles, frames and parts for their new ideas of their cyclist career. Some propel heads and folio helmets has totally new approaches to problems in question.

In tandem, primary chain tension might be problem if you do not have eccentric bottom bracket. This solution was done with two extra chain wheels floating freely between lower and upper chain. This fixed gear tandem was build in Pyöräpaja and it was seen in Yksivaihde.net x-mas party.

Helsinki city is taking good care of the normal roads in winter but roads for bicicles are in so bad shape,  so I started to ride fat bike in last winter. Second winter, with hub motor in front, 30km daily commuting ride is pure bliss for the lazy bastard. Cargo sledge pulled to the same party by eMulkul.

Cyclotourism in Paris

Alex Singer founded his bicycle brand and workshop in 1938. The shop still exists in same place and  everything is still live and well. They still use epic Reynolds tubing to build up their custom road, cyclocross and randonneur frames. Gruppos are Dura Ace, Campagnolo Record and Sram Red. "Columbus changes everything every year, measurement, thickness, shapes etc. We do not want any hassle and that's why we don't use it". Alex Singer sells road frames separately but cyclotourist aka randonneur they do not, because the challenging build and frame adjustments. Thanks to shop people to let me see where steel work magic happens. I got nice pair of Grand Bois 650B tires to help my future projects. Rando Boutique is worth visiting too.

20 000 pieces of Velib city bikes are spreaded around the Paris to be used easily as rental transportation. As said in earlier postings, in metro you see city tunnels but with bicycle you see the city outdoors. System is cleaver and easy to use. Btw. these bikes needs to be serviced and repaired occasionally and they use very cleaver space to make bigger repair jobs possible. In Paris they use a bigger boat or barges, sailing in Seine river to do these jobs. Velib is nice and easy way to investigate Paris more deeply. I had really nice ride from Bastille via Quai de Valmy to Paris science center and Pompidou center.

Narrow streets and big traffic jams has developed Paris personal transportation systems towards two wheels. During our three night visit we saw lots of mopeds and motorcycles or motos as they say in France. Bicycle amount has growing too since last visit which is nice but comparing really bicycle friendly cities in Holland and Danmark they still love they cars in Paris.

Paris is great city for for food, wine, antiques, fashion and art.

Card

Father's day card done and given by my daughter. :)

Bicycle Repairmen

Bicycles are build, repaired and serviced. Here are some nice samples of this kind of businesses.

Anvil Bikeworks are doing great looking jigs for frame building.

Bike service is done by Velofixer in Brussels.

Monty Python's superhero is doing repairs.

Bikebulance

Some of us are by nature Florence Nightingale's or Mother Teresa's, we take care of other people life and health. Other ones, just do not care. It is a big difference in healthcare between modern western countries and countries where western world people used colonialism and imperialism to grow their prosperity by submitting locals.

Good invention to help healthcare is bicycle ambulance, a trailer pulled by normal bicycle. It is effective, cheap and really practical. Type bicycle ambulance in your favorite search engine and you get several projects in results.

BTW.   In Daniel Defoe's book Robinson Crusoe, the main character named native friend, which he just set free from cannibals hands, as Friday. It is funny detail but is it really a rough example of colonialism?

"I dont belive in your bicicles"

People are mostly nice and some street names are unbelievable short. Pikk, Aia and Uus, just to mention some.

City of Tallinn is living very interesting era.

Soviet time "environmental disasters", very modern and hip buildings and old classical, european style architectual golden nuggets. Soviet/western "hybrids" can be seen in mental attitude and architecture as well. I guess estonians want to break free some of their history by doing this.

If believed from internet, cycling is very popular in Tallinn, well, during our three day trip I did not see  much of it. Instead I saw a lot's of massive SUV's, steamy trams and buses, quite a lot of pedestrians too. Traffic planning is for sure under development, I guess safe tram stops are coming after they have managed the SUV parking problems. 

"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transport". -Mayor of Bogota

Still I found marks from cycling scene: Velonaut, Mystic BMX, City Bike Tallinn and I still believe cycling has big potential in Tallinn.

Mystic BMX

City Bike, bicycle rental shop

great quotes

"The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world."

—Susan B. Anthony 1896

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."

—Emo Philips

"Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring."

—Desmond Tutu

"Sometimes when I tell people I ride around town on a bike, they think I'm crazy. Well, once you get used to it, riding in the city gives you a nice jolt of energy."
—David Byrne

"I stay tough, I stay cool, and I leave the road rage to less experienced traveler"
—Sonny Barger

Here is exellent song about necessity of bicycle done by M.A. Numminen, finnish underground artist.

Ancient Japan

"Ancient Japan was a pretty strange place." This quote is from brilliant Jim Jarmush movie Ghost Dog. Louise says this to protagonist of the film about the book on the floor.

 TRICIA VESSEY

Forest Whitaker

After checking this following bicycle related film, Japan seems still a bit strange place.

 

Pelago Linahammar Cargo Bike

Pelago has released new Linahammar cargo bike. It is handmade in Finland by famous builder Olli Erkkilä, wooden parts are made by Tebian. It seems suitable for carrying cargo and kid(s). It is said to be "The most maneuverable cargo bike out there.", well... words, words, words.

Anyway, concept is excellent, I'm sure that it is well made. Nexus 8 speed rear hub, in front there is a disc  brake to guarantee fanatic braking. Optional wooden parts to make it suitable to your life's situation. Check out the pictures stolen from Pelago website.

Sad bike racks

What can you tell of this bike rack city? Nobody cares? No one has responsibility? Or cycling does not belong here?

Here are the some sad orphans.

Hunter S. Thompson

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow what a Ride!"

"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

more

B17

Saddle is a crusial component in the bliss of bicycle roads. Brooks England has made this B17 leather saddle since 1896, yes 1896. It just might hold the record of the oldest bicycle component still in production.

New B17's are hard and irritating to usein start but they soften in time to become molded by your own booty. Like leather shoe, B17 saddle gets better and better in time. Sometimes vintage and old fashioned is still good as new and modern.

B17 Titanium

Follow Your Bliss

Randonneur bike is the new black. Lately I've  been trying lighten up my "hidden" knowledge about them. I've always thought that they are just nice and expensive old merde from France but recently so many things have pointed me that they got something. I used to think that if I need to pick up just one bike it choose cyclocross but I'm not sure anymore, maybe it must be randonneur or even cyclotourist.

They capability to carry stuff and still be relatively performative in speed and range. They are faster than utility bikes which are build to be short distance workhorses. These are made for serious traveling.

With up to 42mm tires in size 650B, serious fenders and light weight racks, they promise the ride to be bliss.

Many pieces of art in cycling world has been done in Europe. But japanese has bee amazing great too.
This is really nice example of Japanese randonneur, Gran Bois.

Great randonneur builds has been done by legendary Alex Singer and Rene Herse.

Bicycle Chain Art

Figurative Sculptures Made From Tightly Welded Chains. Korean artist Young-Deok Seo 서영덕 creates imposing figurative sculptures using tightly knit configurations of welded bicycle chains and industrial steel chains. 

While impressive in their intricacy and the apparent skill required to create them, the artwork’s titles such as Infection – Anguish,Infection – Ego, and Addict, suggest the rippled surface created by the materials is not an arbitrary decision. These are figures of individuals in dispair, pockmarked with disease, the chains acting as a metaphor for the human condition. (rip from Trust Me, I'm a "Designer")

http://youngdeok.com/ 

Cycle parking, contemporary style

Visited Kiasma, our awesome comtemporary art museum in Helsinki and found this: bicycle parking space that no one is taking care of. Bike racks have been moved in last winter's snow maintenance maneuvers and they are still in position where they have been left since then. This is not very effective way to make bike parking spot and racks are soo bad too.

Guess the objective to double cycling in Helsinki have problems in all detailed levels. It did not succeed in years 1995-2005, hope to make it in 2020, where new deadline has released.