To make pearls, you’ve got to eat dirt.

To make pearls, you’ve got to eat dirt. - Frank Chimero

Rode out to Yarra Glen and back, in October. finally got the out-of-date disposable camera developed. good times. no way i would do this in summer however, it was an extremely difficult 130kms

photo's documenting: drags

drag racing in the Flemington drains on sunday afternoon. beers, boys who look like girls, girls who look like boys, Shifter Dan trying to vomit on people, people on the bike path riding past getting confused, high fives from recumbent riders.

Apologies that all the blog posts now seem to be about bike stuff. boring eh?

photo's documenting

Fix Up-Look Sharp, an alleycat odyssey

Sunday Oct the 4th went perfectly, here's some kind of inadequate rundown.

Ryan and I had a couple of aims with the Look Sharp event.

I wanted to make the checkpoints feel like an exploration, so some of them were in quite strange places.

We wanted to make the event a friendly one, where anyone could turn up and have fun. We wanted it to be memorable and adventurous and the best we could make it.

On the Saturday we knew the weather was going to be great, and we knew that 90 people had said they would turn up on the facebook page. We did the run through on the day, set up the unmanned checkpoints with stamps tied in visible spots, were running late to get to the start. Got there, and were amazed to find a mass of riders waiting for us. About 100, and even some girls amongst em

The course we'd laid out was 22km via the shortest route, and challenging, (we didn't realise how challenging till we ran out of time to ride it all before the start!) with a great combination of straight streets and city grids, hills and difficult checks.

some of the checkpoints required

-entering a storm water drain on the banks of the yarra,

-climbing 5 storeys of stairs to an abandoned store room in the GPO

-finding a fire hydrant in the middle of the melbourne uni underground car park

-riding to the top of a 7 storey car park and having a team photo taken

-riding down a laneway so narrow people are unable to pass

I could write up who won, and how the race went, but i didn't ride it so it wouldn't be very interesting. I spent the whole time riding round the city checking the checkpoints, gathering prizes, getting beer and generally making sure everything was going ok. for once it all turned out great.

We got much positive feedback, but in particular I liked this one, it seems to indicate we succeeded in just making a fun day.

Laura said:

As this was my first allycat, actually the first time I have done a group sporting activity (if it's ok to call it that) that didn't involve one parent driving me to I'd have to say nothing has made me more happy with myself. I can't believe how much fun it was and the massive disregard to all road rules everyone had.

Thanks for organising it all and the to the guy at knog who actually convinced my housemate and I to do it. We'll be there again and again. I just need to find a friend for the halloween ride now..

Thanks to all the sponsors who supported us:

Bianchi, San Marco, Carhartt, Knog, Shifter Bikes, Brisbane Outdoor Gear, Human Powered Cycles, Genovese Coffee n' Cranky Sundays/hans dc

Also thanks to the checkpoint volunteers, photographers, people who helped out, lent advice, spread the word and most of all, just showed up!

90 more photo's including individual team shots

Cranky Sundays Fix Up post

Helmets are Hot Fix Up post

Where and Why

Sometime in mid 2006 a bike activism related uni project encouraged me to research urban cycling.

At the time 'fixie' culture hadn't hit its straps anywhere yet, but it was well on the way. The internet was my portal to this underground obsession, in particular fixed.org.au.

I was enchanted and captured by the helmet-cam videos of one NY'er Lucas Brunelle. It opened me up to a world where traffic and city streets became a sports field where incredible feats of skill and athleticism played out.

Alleycat races are traditionally the distillation of the day of a messenger/cycle courier into a fast paced race between many checkpoints simulating the pick ups of deliveries where a manifest is marked instead of a parcel.

The races generally last for 40 minutes for the fastest riders, who tend to be experienced messengers exhibiting disregard for traffic laws, manners and normal rider ethics :).

For most participants the chase is its own reward.
The pure animal thrill of entering an intersection at top speed, against the flow of traffic, and threading through moving cars with 3 other riders on your tail is not something to be lightly enjoyed, yet not easily forgotten.

If you do it right it takes till you reach the other side of the intersection for the drivers to react, an unstartled driver is a predictable one.

Brendan sums it up best with his observations.

At its very best "weaving impossible lines and creating space from nothing" is what it's about, and never has the chestnut "it's about the journey, not the destination" been more accurate, (particularly in my case seeing as I never seem to win anything..)

smith st

volvo P1800 (i spent about 4 years in love with this car) parked opposite trippy taco's , which seems to be a hub for vintage cars, and the nicest heritage listed warehouse terrace balcony I know.  

Spent sunday riding through the outer northern suburbs with the cranky crew, sitting at northcote skate bowl drinking beer and learning what a sprouter was, while avoiding High Vibes street festival. Then sitting on a chilly balcony in jean cutoffs drinking utrecht friend's 25 yr old birthday port. Bring on summer

mmm. bikes

So there's a little debate as to whether pictures of girls draped on bicycles enhance the perception of some kind of 'bicycle blokes club' but they sure are nice to look at. i love bikes.  http://www.fyxomatosis.com/

GG//Global Gutz

Global Guts is an international urban bicycle race, run simultaneously across the globe. It's a long distance event, required to measure 21km's in length, and with 5 checkpoints. I got a puncture before the start, and was unable to ride, hence the photo's.
The winner in Melbourne was Lane, with a time of around 32 minutes (do the math). That is insanely fast, and the man is a monster rider on a fixed gear. several of the roadie riders were wheel lengths behind him, but they had brakes and gears.
The Brisbane ride was shut down by a concerted police effort. Apparently "17 police, 3 motorbikes, 2 pushbikes, a car-full, an undercover car and a paddy wagon"

Riders were cautioned for not having bicycle bells and then their tyres were let down and they were left to walk home. Sounds like my race then.

schmuck

I have to admit to never having entered the RMIT gallery before, despite spending 5 years going to the University. Perhaps related to the fact that the entrance is not something you can cautiously wander into and change your mind, but instead requires a focused navigation.

The only reason I finally visited was that an old housemate Marta from my overseas jaunt, had been selected to exhibit as part of the current exhibition, a travelling display from germany.

"SCHMUCK 2009 This annual exhibition, originating in Munich and now its fiftieth year, is widely recognised as the premier exposition of international contemporary jewellery"

contemporary jewellery. what is that. Sometimes it seems a little like a trick, a test to see how far 'wearable' and 'desirable' can be pushed. Not just pushing the envelope, but also pushing the entire postal delivery system.

Suprisingly I found myself fascinated by the different forms and materials. I was expecting to find it interesting but not to this extent. I spent much longer then i would normally spend looking round (I am a person who spends more time reading the label then looking at the piece, generally speaking), and with 60 artisans works displayed there was plenty to look at. I am thinking of popping in again to have another look, as the first time was almost information overload. Even a strait-line industrial designer could find some useful inspiration here. No pictures, because you'll know straight away if this is something you want to visit.

The exhibition runs till the 18th of July.

here's another (better) review on the Melbourne Jeweller blog, with pictures in following posts

CTCV

I noticed a couple of months ago that all the 'throwups' (see i know the words)

on my local train station were written over with the tag CTCV, and there are about 30 of these pieces, each 2 to 3 metres in length, so it would take a determined effort to cover every one.

did some googling and discovered that CTCV is believed to stand for

'Cops That Catch Vandals'. Some kind of crack guerilla team of police and transport police working the morally murky depths. end justifying the means and all that. Whether there really is such a taskforce, and i find it hard to believe, the tags spread out all round the city, from moorabin out to footscray and even further.

here's my delicious links for the subject CTCV