Perpenduum » Bicycle

Oregon Manifest

David Goligorsky — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:20:23 +0000

Oregon Manifest is the red letter event in the capitol of the bicycling world. This event spans from October 2 all the way through November 8th, promising six weekends of celebrating of the art, craft, and community of bicycling.

Of the events, I’m most excited about the Constructor’s Design Challenge. This is a competition that invites extreme ingenuity to bicycle building that aims to smash together a Venn diagram of combined performance, utility, and aesthetics. Registration is open until July 31st and we’re already seeing a phenomenal list of legendary frame-builders rising to the occasion including Vanilla, Independent Fabrication, Richard Sachs, Ira Ryan, and other favorite builders of mine. What’s more, the event is being judged by Rob Forbes (the founder of Design Within Reach,) Sky Yaeger (cycling industry visionary and creative mind at Swobo), Ron Sutphin (president of United Bicycle Institute), and Bryant Bainbridge (product creation at Specialized Bicycles.)

The grand prize of the Constructor’s Design Challenge is an incredible bespoke suit from Timothy Everest, the tailor for Rapha.

As you can see, this is going to be a monumental event!

Hetchins

David Goligorsky — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:02:57 +0000

Needed to put this up. Beautiful English frameworks. Apparently, in the days of PRO cycling yore, frame-builders couldn’t put their marques on their race bicycles. A frame-builder eager to have their bicycles stand out from the crowd in the PRO peleton would have to have a high performance race bicycle with distinctive and unique geometry. Hetchins accomplished this with the curly chainstays as far back as 1932 and it became a trademark feature of the company that holds to this day.

The Art of the Brilliant Product Extension

David Goligorsky — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:39:17 +0000

Vanilla Bicycles, a custom hand-built bicycle framebuilder, is known for doing everything right. They have raised the bar with Vanilla-branded pit boots for the cyclocross aficionado. Well played.

Rapha in the NYT

David Goligorsky — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:00:37 +0000

My favorite cycling brand, Rapha, showed up in the NYT. That’s an awful nice Independent Fabrication commuter bike (handbuilt in Somerville, MA, my former home.)

UPDATE: I just found the bicycle in question on the Independent Fabrication website.

POST UPDATE UPDATE: The bicycle is showing up on the Roleur site at the Jack and Jimbo’s Bike Shop opening. Roleur is connected to Rapha. Rapha has some partnership with Jack and Jimbo’s. Jack and Jimbo’s is a side project from Jack Spade, which was founded by Andy Spade, who is coming to speak at Stanford University on April 15th, 2009 for a Liu Lecture! Full circle.

Tweed Run, London January 24th 2009

David Goligorsky — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:56:46 +0000

The first Tweed Run took place in London recently with about 150 cyclists wearing tweeds and the like. A veritable Gentleman’s Whiskey and Chat on two wheels. We need to bring this stateside. Any takers?

More images can be found at Yorgo Tloupas’ blog and through this Flickr member.

dear mayor, put these all over town please

David Goligorsky — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:41:38 +0000

A fantastic bicycle rack with integrated pump in Copenhagen. (via Lugged Steel)

The Look 586 Mondrian

Eric Silva — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:02:36 +0000

The Look 586 Mondrian.

Via VeloNews.

Idiom of the Moment

David Goligorsky — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:33:44 +0000

To “Cut one’s teeth”

The place where one gains early experience.

e.g. As the story goes, John Boultbee Brooks bought a bicycle in 1865. He found the wooden saddle to be fantastically uncomfortable, but fortunately he had cut his teeth in his father’s workshop of leather horse saddles and started making suitable bicycle saddles from leather. Today, Brooks England LTD still produces classic and highly sought-after leather bicycle saddles and cycling accouterments.

Matteo Ferrari - “Automotive Monogomy”

David Goligorsky — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:33:07 +0000

One of photographer Matteo Ferrari’s personal projects includes finding people who have been driving the same car for decades. He then arranges a photograph with the owner to match a photograph from when the car was purchased.

I came across this work via the blog of Yorgo Tloupas, the creative director and publisher of Intersection magazine, which I have been a fan of since I accidentally found issue #1 at a newsstand in Penn Station (NYC) back in 2001-ish. Back then, issues were imported from the UK and mine cost something like $11. Now, a subscription to this quarterly is $10, which is a great price for such a beautiful publication. [No, I don’t work for this magazine!]

A functional bicycle, made entirely of wood

Eric Silva — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:44:21 +0000

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica published photos of an all wood bicycle (everything, including a working chain with plates, pins, and rollers) created by the 16 year old American student Marco Facciola.

The photos are pretty amazing. Despite the current fixed gear trend, he made things difficult for himself and created an all wood freewheel.

The chain is a real marvel. It appears he used a few different types of wood. Note each pin has its own cotter.

Here’s what the complete machine looks like. Perhaps the Perpenduum crew will run into him at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland next week.

I wonder how it rides.