Photo Friday

Holga eh? Sure why not.  While I whine about the thousands of pictures I still have to go through from last year, I didn’t go through any this week.  I’d love to say I was all wrapped up in some incredible new endeavour, but honestly I’d have to say it was more due to laziness.

 

Anyhow, can’t go wrong with a picture of bike now can you?  Not sure why but I love bike pictures, probably should move to Copenhagen or Amsterdam, but until then I’ll just drool over my pictures.  Taken with my Holga on some type of colour film, quite likely Kodak VC160.

52 Create – Wooden Push Bike

52 Create – my weekly creative output for 2011…  This week has flown by! Hence the reason my Tuesday post is appearing on a Friday.  Well with the wealth of cutting boards and rifle stocks as of late, I thought I should mix things up and go big.  This week’s creative output is a kids wooden push bike (also called a run bike or balance bike).  These seem to be all the rage lately and you can spend as much as $300 on a designer model.  They are basically a kids bike without pedals, so they use their feet to push themselves along, apparently it teaches the kids excellent balance and helps them to more easily progress to a real bike without training wheels.

There are suprisingly few diy wooden bikes on the net.  There is one how-to with plans out there, but that seemed far too easy for me.  So I look at a ton of pictures of these bikes on google images and sketched out my own design.  As usual, the wheels were the tricky part.  While you can buy a brand new kids bike for $30, to buy a pair of wheels/tires/tubes will run you $90!!!  I found this set at a used bike shop for $20 total, they don’t match, but my 21 month old daughter couldn’t care less…  The frame is made from my favourite – baltic birch (1/2″) with a wodden dowel for handle bars.  I’ve had many comments about the small seat and lack of padding, but my daughter is still in diapers so she has her own “built-in” padding.  I’ll cover it with some neoprene when she is older.

 

After about a week of use, she is quite comfortable on it, and can go short distances on her own.  I think she’s likely a bit young for it, but she goes nuts every time she sees a bike anywhere, so I figured I owed it to her…

 

My other 52 Create Projects

 

 

Photo of the Week

Hot off the scanner….  Still working my way through last year’s European adventure, developed another two rolls the other day and just scanned them in this evening.  This shot is from Amsterdam, a biker flying over one of the many bridges.  A nice slow shutter speed gave me a little motion blur in the biker while still enabling a sharp foreground.  The brick pattern really makes this image (in contrast with the blurred biker).

Taken with my Voigtlander Bessa R, and I think my 15mm Heliar due to the great depth of field, but I could be wrong.  Film used was Fuji Neopan 400, I took a lot of Tri-X near the end of our adventure, and looking back at the two films, I still prefer Neopan, will have to stock up before our next trip.

Put up a collection of photos on Etsy as well, will be updating my store more frequently in the coming weeks.

Of Bicycles and Amsterdam

Back from travelling and a ton of pictures to sort through.  After a couple of weeks in both Amsterdam and Berlin, I have many rolls to develop, would have been even more but there was a fair amount of rain that made picture taking a little less enjoyable.  Berlin was incredibly dark and overcast, that combined with the early sunsets meant not a lot of light in general.

Anyways, in Amsterdam everyone rides bikes, I was truly jealous not to live somewhere where this is the culture. The one thing that really stood out for me were the bikes seen above that could carry loads!  During the week I was there I saw variations of this bike carrying everything from kids, to lumber (sheets of plywood) to a couch (two seater love seat, yes I’m serious).  These seem like such a great idea as you can haul your kids as well as your groceries, and your precious cargo is right in front of you unlike in a chariot type trailer.

Check out their website.

L’Eroica Italian Retro Bike Race

Originally started in 1997 to help save Italy’s “strada blanche” roads (white gravel), the L’Eroica bike race is a return to the old days of cycling.  Riders who compete must do so on bikes from 1987 or before, woollen jerseys are a must, and of course leather caps and shoes.  There’s no support cars, and the race food is more akin to an Italian feast than a bike race.

 

Riders can compete in distances ranging from 38 to 202km.  Anyone finishing the longest distance in under 12 hours gets a prize (it’s just that tough).  Over 3000 people compete in these races each October, the majority from Italy, but interest is growing round the world each year.

 

via Guardian

Organik Motion

Well bike week it is… Just wait till you see the photo of the week tomorrow!  This bike, called Organik Motion, by OVI is a beautiful looking design.  Unfortunately the links to the designer don’t seem to work, so perhaps they have abandoned the concept, who knows!

found on Tuvie

OLC Bike: CNC Plywood bike for the masses!

Designed by Andrew Maynard Architects, this bike is primarily made from 6mm plywood using a CNC machine.  It’s claimed it can be produced for $35!!!  The idea is to strip the bike down to it’s most basic components, the simpler the better.  It has 2 gears and built in LED lights and is suggested as an almost “throw away” sort of item (not as exciting, you should never throw away a bicycle!).

What could be truly fantastic with this bike is they could be made locally so long as a CNC machine was available, so no more need to ship pre-made bikes all over the world, they could be sold in kit form or assembled for you for a small fee.  Using a CAD program and CNC you could very easily scale it bigger/smaller for different users. No idea on what the weight of this thing might be…  Heavy wheels could truly make this a beast to ride, and cross-winds could be fairly treacherous.

Unto this Last – have you seen this? Will you start making them? Please?