a selection of cycling's sunglasses and weirdness

Was there ever a more strange and ubiquitous item than the frames of eye glasses? They range from the minimal wires that hold the lenses where they need to be, to the extravagant eye-enlarging shades of the seventies and recent revivals. Fashion clearly has a lot to answer for. Some of my favourites are the sunglasses sported by cyclists since the 1980s. These are amongst the most ostentatious designs. Why would that be? Surely in the case of athletic eye wear function must take precedence over fashion?

Fortunately not. Whilst function may originally dictate the form, this becomes the fashion and from there the designers seem keen to push things to extremes, especially the Italians. Thank goodness for the Italians! Certainly there are an abundance of sleek visor-styled lenses that protect the wearer from glare and dust whilst smoothing the airflow over the eyes. But these are often so dull. The best designs make a statement that, despite (or perhaps because of) their weirdness, represent an era. These are to me the most interesting.

At the start of fast mechanised transport motorists, motorcyclists and aviators were certainly in need of eye protection. Tour de France cyclists' goggles resembled these in style. Of course when riding a bike things tend to fog up a bit. How long would it be before specialist eye wear was designed for this activity?

I guess it was somewhere in the early 80s that I first saw a pair of cycling specific sunnies — on the eyes, actually on the face, of Phil Anderson. At first glance these looked quite bizarre. But there was no discouraging a teenager mad keen to emulate Anderson. The wide field of view, the sweat band across the top, the large single lens, and the fact that Skippy himself was wearing a pair, all made these highly desirable. As far as I know, from these Oakleys springs the weird world of cycling specific sunnies.

There were various forms of these glasses and lots of imitations for the next few years. I know. I could only afford the cheap imitations :-(

As far as I am concerned it was the Italian Briko manufacturer that next defined an era... the 90s. Cipollini and Pantani, two of the most colourful members of the peloton at the time were both seen sporting Briko Stingers and Jumpers. The Stingers remain my favourite glasses of all time for both their visual appeal and functionality. Stingers transformed the clunkiness of the 80s into a very Euro-cool but equally bizarre, alienesque face for the times.

At one stage or another Pantani sported a pair of Briko Zen specs which are reminiscent of the earliest goggles, only with a much wider wrap-around lens. These were not as iconic as the Stinger but distinctive nonetheless.

And then nothing much happened for nearly 10 years. Various companies experimented with snap-in lenses, including many from Taiwan, but none was a notable or particularly distinctive design.

Maybe the last couple of years have seen the introduction of the next classic: the Oakley Jawbone. They are competing against Oakley's other popular design, the Radar which I feel lacks any innovative features over and above those offered by the myriad of other blade-style lenses. They just aren't wacky enough to make an impression.

The Jawbones also feature interchangeable lenses, but more importantly, the bizarre frame form with multiple components whose colours may be mismatched as garishly as desired might be just what is needed to define the next classic. Peripheral visibility is not nearly as good as the old Stingers. The lens quality is great though and they hug the face to keep out dust and debris. Slots around the side of some lens models allow for a little ventilation in steamy conditions, hopefully to keep the fog at bay. Will these define the era?

If the 2010 road race world champ sports the Infrared Jawbones... will they help the rest of us ride faster? No. But we can all look just as silly ^h^h^h cool!

The Grid and The String in Music

[Image of the Tenorions from synthtopia.com]
Yamaha has a pretty looking device, Tenori-On for fans of MIDI-triggering LED grids. I have been a fan of portable LED grids since I discovered Maywa-denki's Bitman in Tokyo. Tenori-On is a 16x16 grid... four times more little LEDs than Bitman ;-) OK, seriously now... The Tenori-On's LEDs act as push buttons, much like the buttons on the old Novation Nova synths, another favourite of mine. Incidentally, Novation have their own LaunchPad controller which also plays on the pixel grid idea. This has been a common theme in this area over the last few years. In the Yamaha product, the grid is used to control a sequencer in various ways. In some modes the hardware acts like a step-sequencer, in others more unusual metaphors are employed to trigger music events, for instance a bouncing ball metaphor is employed to trigger an event when the ball (a lit LED that moves across the grid) hits an edge for instance. The user then controls the distance the ball moves between bounces to shorten or lengthen the delay between triggers... in discrete steps.

And this is the thing about "the grid": Whilst beat-based, typically 4/4 music is so seductive, popular, easy to make and therefore marketable to teenagers with home studios and greying electronic music buffs alike, it would be nice if these new tools enabled the subtlety of a string on a fretboard when it came to placing notes in time. For experts maybe a fretless fingerboard is better... no need for the guidelines, place the notes in time by feel. But no, even after all these years of computer-hardware and software based music production the "new" instruments by the big manufacturers return us to our neatly discretised rhythms (and pitches). They can't afford to venture into the territory that brings us an instrument like a violin or the shakuhachi because these are just too hard to master. Even a recorder which, despite its regular finger holes offers the player a chance to over-blow, stutter, tongue, tremolo and shriek their way through a piece, merging notes, individuating notes with staccato punctuation, placing notes wherever and whenever they darn well like, is more subtle.

A drum-machine? Well, I absolutely love the new rhythms that have been moving into electronic music since Kraftwerk, through 80s synth-pop, jungle, drum'n bass, techno... right through the 90s and 00s up to the stuff so popular even on mainstream radio today. It has really transformed the way I think about rhythm. Most of it I could never have hoped to play live on a drum kit (even when I practiced). But a lot of it is just sampled old drum loops. I know this is a little tired. We have heard all this before. But every new instrument that comes out is a chance to revitalise electronic music. Every new instrument based on the grid is a chance lost. All the complexity of which music is capable is being missed by a generation of music makers.

The Tenori-On looks like fun to play. And don't get me wrong, I love a range of electronica based around the grid. But really Yamaha's sequencer/instrument is just another toy with a pretty pixel grid. Funny then that there is a pop-group (well, it is surely OK nowadays to call a group of 3 sexy girls who make music and dance around a bit on stage a pop-group right?) called the Tenerions. From what I have heard of their music it sounds pretty much like the product demos on the Yamaha website. Not particularly exciting.

Although I haven't played with my poor dusty synths for years, sometimes I am tempted to look longingly into my cupboard, dust off their cool metal surfaces and twiddle the knobs... analogue knobs. Knobs that spin smoothly and continuously. And then I remember that I waved goodbye to my last truly analogue synth well over a decade ago. Even the boxes I have with knobs are analogue emulations. The knobs might spin, but the values they represent are discrete. And so it goes. In the name of suplesse (a cycling term... grace? suppleness? elegance... on a bike) I have given up many things. Music-making was an early casualty. Who am I to complain about grids? Maybe count me as a concerned music-citizen who would like to hear the newcomers make something different, sometimes. I guess the best of them do and I should just listen harder and more widely. No disrepespect to the Tenerions. The fact that I have even heard of you means you must be doing something right!

the laser pointer and the cursor

For some years now I have wanted to comment on the "cursor". Now is the time! Having just sat through a conference almost entirely dictated by powerpoint-style slides (my own talk included) it was interesting to note the role of the laser pointer and its digital analog, the cursor. Once I noticed it, the pointer seemed to sit upon the surface of the content, hovering over slides like an invisible elephant hovers over a dinner table.

For many of the talks speakers employed the supplied green laser pointer, whether they needed to or not. This green dot-making device was brandished with abandon, sometimes on the side walls of the auditorium as speakers forgot to release the switch, once or twice into the audience, but most often, in a jumpy-skippy fashion across regions of the projector screen. It is very hard to hold such a fine point steady from a distance, a phenomenon which is made more apparent in large auditoria since here the speaker stands far from the projection screen. By and large the pointer was not needed for indicating details on the slides. Instead it was used as a crutch, perhaps giving the speaker something to focus on apart from the audience.

The worst case I saw was of a speaker using the laser pointer to hop from word to word of his bullet points as he read the text from his slide... "follow the bouncing ball and sing along". Oh dear. The talk was otherwise very interesting, but it was hard not to giggle at the invisible elephant. Was I the only one who could see it?

Of course slide presentation software typically allows the speaker to use the mouse cursor. A few speakers did take advantage of this. This technique has the advantage of allowing the speaker to position the cursor, then leave it steadily in place. However laptop trackpads can be a fiddly means of positioning this cursor under pressure. One amusing episode ensued when a speaker attempted to operate the controls of a movie player on the trackpad, whilst looking behind him at the large projection screen on which the movie was being displayed. It took him awhile to negotiate the reverse mapping and trackpad sensitivity!

The mouse cursor's continued presence onscreen after its relevance has been removed is seldom a source of frustration for speakers... although it should be! Some software has the cursor vanish after a period of inactivity. This can be helpful, or it can be problematic depending on the speaker's needs for a specific slide.

It is interesting to note people's ability to see "through" a cursor. A number of presenters had beautiful images to show, and they left the cursor positioned right in the middle of them, unnoticed. I have seen Skype sessions, artists showing their imagery, movies being viewed... all with the cursor smack bang in the middle of the screen. It is amazing how readily we are able to see past this visual obstacle. This is akin to my experience of (for instance) Melbourne's suburban and city streets — I can often see past the tangle of power lines, tram wires, advertising signage and other visual pollution to admire a "beautiful" street (see Robin Boyd - The Australian Ugliness). This experience is also the norm when viewing Japanese temples and gardens. They are typically surrounded by old rubbish, blue tarpaulins, pipes, taps, wires, fences and signs but tourists come to admire their beauty and manage to turn a blind eye to all of this.

"So smarty pants. What did you do?", I can hear you ask. Well, I just added slides with arrow markers pre-placed to highlight the sections of slide I wanted to discuss. These appeared and vanished as I hit the space bar on the keyboard — something that is easy to do in an instant, without error. It mostly worked. Except I once forgot to use the arrow and pointed with my hand. Then when I tried to progress to the next slide I of course made the arrow appear at the point I had just discussed... a glitch. But not catastrophic I think and worth the improved pointing I achieved elsewhere in my talk.

...thank goodness for selective attention. Without it we have already polluted most of the world's potentially "beautiful" views. Anyway, feel free to leave the cursor on my nose when you Skype me. I know that you can't see this invisible elephant :-)

moral sustainability and cycling - robert nelson

(Moral sustainability and cycling: an ecology of ambition for a hyperactive planet. Published by St. Andrews Sustainability Institute and Ellikon, Melbourne 2010.)

Although I was aware that the author of this text frequently commuted by bicycle and that he was an active art critic, the discovery of his new mini-book on the links between cycling and our current environmental predicament was an exciting surprise. In this essay Robert investigates the reasons many people make uncomfortable cyclists, in particular why many are unwilling to cycle-commute despite recognising its health and environmental benefits. So, why do people buy themselves a shiny new steed on which to commute to work, and then after a few days hide it in the spare room to gather dust and cobwebs?

As well as dealing with the obvious discomforts associated with vigorous activity in the outdoors, the author addresses a number of seldom considered aspects of the daily pedal to work. He reveals several reasons that have little to do with the availability of bike paths, the extra time that might be involved or the danger of mobile-phone wielding mothers in 4WDs. One reason explored was the disparaging high-speed, lycra-clad bunches of athletes and their portrayal in the media as “real” and glamourous cyclists. Cyclists outside of this context are perceived in the Australian psyche as inferior and sub-human. There are of course exceptions. For instance cycling helmetless down a country lane with a basket of bread, cheese and wine is acceptably Euro-romantic and a “simple” pleasure that even advertisers legitimise. Commuting when a car would do? Holding up peak hour traffic by occupying a lane? Never would cycling in this way be seen as desirable or marketable in our country.

It is here that I find one significant issue that the essay misses, the “fixie phenomenon”. Countless teenagers, university students and some alternative lifestylers here and in many major cities hostile to cyclists, have, in the last ten or so years, cottoned on to the New York bicycle couriers’ preference for track bikes. They carry messenger bags slung over a shoulder and hefty bike chains are worn as bodily adornment. Melbourne now has fleets of NY messenger impersonators heading brakeless into traffic. They run red lights, skid and skip their rear wheels through pedestrian crowds, before heading like bicycle salmon against the flow of one-way streets.

I have even witnessed a student at my university driving his fixie to a nearby hotel carpark, removing it from the boot and cycling the last few hundred meters to university. I can speculate on the reasons for this: (i) It is too far and too hilly for him to ride his fixie’s one gear from home to university; (ii) The fixie is cool, a geared bicycle is not. He would not consider riding geared; (iii) He saves himself the cost of the permit required to park his car at university and has the added bonus of impressing his friends with his lovely bicycle upon his arrival.

I have also seen a different student call out to another as he rolled past on his way to class, “Yeah, sweet bike. Fixie mate!” The bike was not actually fixed, it was a single-speed with a freewheel. It was not "sweet" either. It was a crappy 1980s ten-speed conversion. But these subtleties were lost in the excitement of the pedestrianian's proclaimation of his identification with the rider.

This phenomenon has made commuting by bicycle cool, even here in the motorcar’s second homeland. It contributes to providing a solution for the middle-aged commuter who understands the sense in having brakes, mudguards and panniers. I have seen cyclists aged between 14 and 80 riding fixed gear bikes, with and without mudguards, lights and panniers. The mere fact that a bike is fixed gives its rider the credibility that many crave. Maybe, just maybe, this removes a few cars from our roads. It certainly raises the visibility of cyclists on our roads. For this I am thankful.

As Nelson indicates, as soon as you can afford a car it is barely socially acceptable for you to ride. Our society is set up so that there is no prestige associated with making your appearance at the office bathed in sweat. Physical activity in this context is uncouth. Are you too poor to afford motorised transport? Nelson proposes the electric bicycle to be one machine with the potential to remedy these problems.

Unfortunately, as he notes, electric bicycles have one major drawback — they are seriously uncool. Whilst the fume-spewing 50 cc Vespa has euro-café-style and Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday sophistication, none of this washes off on the humble electric bike, despite its better environmental credentials. I agree with Nelson that these are marvellous pieces of engineering. But as he knows too well, they are not sexy artefacts. I am not sure how this might be rectified, if at all. Maybe a manufacturer could convince a supermodel to pose naked on one?

A valid engineering solution to a recognised problem may stare people in the face, yet it may be overlooked for purely social reasons. The consequences of this type of human stubbornness have often resulted in a needless struggle for survival. This has sometimes been followed by extinction of entire cultures. Colonial societies for instance have carried the ways of their homelands to new horizons. Rather than adapting their behaviour by mimicking the successful lifestyles of the locals, they have stubbornly clung to inappropriate agricultural practices, poor hunting and gathering choices, incongruous architectural styles and scarce but familiar building materials. The results include malnourishment, starvation, decimation of local ecosystems and, as Jared Diamond discusses in his book of the same name, Collapse. As a planet we are headed this way via our momentum-propelled reliance on fossil fuels and unsustainable population growth.

Nelson’s book is entertaining, slightly rambling but always insightful. This style suits me perfectly. A diversion exploring the eroticism of the bicycle saddle was amusing but, I felt, unnecessary. This tangent in particular seemed to confuse the book’s main drive to detail our relationship with the bicycle in all its engineering simplicity and marketed complexity, and to explore its socio-environmental credentials. In these latter respects the text is informative and original. It has stimulated me to think more deeply about why I ride so often and why I seldom commute.

soy-sauce fish

Declaration: I will not use any disposable soy-sauce fish with my take-away sushi if I am given the choice at the time of purchase. I have nightmares about an ocean choked with millions of these little red-nosed fish floating belly-up, empty of sauce. Wherever I sit down to eat I see the tiny little red noses peeking at me from between blades of grass, or scattered amongst the gravel beneath my feet. I will not contribute to this! We should be using packaging that is bio-degradable... or a large recyclable container of sauce at the point of purchase from which sushi-lovers can help themselves.

natalia goncharova & lill tschudi

I just stumbled on the image at left, The Cyclist (1913) by Russian futurist (amongst other things) artist, Natalia Goncharova. I love the palette, the graphic text and the subject matter but as an image, well, it is not a favourite. The cyclist isn't moving — it is more like I am looking across from a vantage point on my own bike at a fellow rider as the two of us struggle along a section of pavé – the viewer is being jiggled around.

Still, it is terrific to find such an image by a female artist. I am aware of another image by a woman on which I am more keen. It is the Tour de Suisse (1935) linocut by Swiss artist Lill Tschudi.

Whilst it contains static elements the overall effect is of dizzying, sweeping curves. Tschudi's image captures the craziness of a descent. She has forced the tight bends and insane cornering forces into a tiny space as if the riders and their machines are threatening to miss a turn and careen through the edges of the paper. This latter image is quite terrific and, I think, superior to the earlier work by Goncharova.

jack mcgowan handicap - tips for punters

[Image © Mal Sawford] I rode the Jack McGowan handicap on Saturday... what a disappointment! Last year over the same course I finished a pleasing seventh (or eighth?)... and then in my excitement forgot to claim my prize :-( Alas, what a dill! This year was a bit of a disaster... lots to learn and remember for next time:

(i) I learned my lesson about warming up in the rain at last year's 1:20 Hill Climb: don't do it! You end up wet and cold, not warmed up at all. Luckily I remembered this lesson and my warm-up, although short due to the showers, did have me ready to go at the start time.

(ii) But then the race started a half hour late and we were all left standing in the rain waiting whilst the organisers fixed a non-compliant printer in order to procure the start list and times. I know this frustration — on races I have run we have encountered similar problems. Luckily I found a dry spot under a friend's umbrella... thanks Mic (and Will)!

(iii) My mark was the same as last year... middle marker. Unfortunately, this year the group was dreadful for the first 20k's. Despite the lovely bikes, people would skip turns right from the get-go. Wheels were being dropped and huge gaps were opening up and needed continual closing as we lost valuable seconds that built into minutes to our pursuers --- all the gear and no idea! Guys... don't do this. Ride smoothly and take regular turns. Work together or you will lose.

(iv) We were caught by a pursuing bunch only 1/2 a lap into the 2 lap course. What a disaster. I darted around the front of our group in time to slide into the passing bunch. Next time I will wait at the back. I wasted too much effort (not much, but it was unnecessary all the same).

Shortly after this we were caught by yet another bunch and the hammer came down...

(v) I moved through the bunch taking a few turns then figured the bunch was so big and the workload being shared so unevenly that I would slide towards the back and sit on for a bit. MISTAKE! Gaps started opening in front of me. I closed a few... and then the guys at the front hit the gas and the speed picked up. As we turned a corner I was left in the slight breeze and dragging along in the gutter.

(vi) Next MISTAKE, don't close gaps one at a time. You will wear yourself out. What I should have done is close all the gaps at once with a big push up to the working riders at the front, then sit and do turns. What I did was close the gaps as they opened. I ended up in the gutter with no legs left and a gap open in front of me as a rider dropped off... ARGH! I couldn't close the gap. Bad, bad riding Alan.

(vii) From here I worked turns with a few stragglers until then end of lap 1. Then just one other guy and I worked turns for the next 10k's until we caught another little bunch... just in time to be caught by scratch. Somehow I did manage to sit on the back of the scratch bunch in the rain with the grit being spattered into my teeth... for a time. Until a gap opened that I couldn't close. These guys are quick.

I limped home with 5 other guys to the finish... well, at least we made it!

TIP 1: use your strength wisely and judiciously!
TIP 2: A bit of extra speed work would help for races like this too ;-)