got it from: mens fitness

Imagine getting on a bike and not having to wear anything on your head, yet your head is protected. Immediately you are probably thinking you must be in some sort of bubble while riding the bike, but this isn’t the case. Take a moment and look at the picture above, can you figure out how this works before reading on?

I can say for myself, I didn’t always find it comfortable to wear a helmet when riding a bike, and there is some sort of freedom you lose once you are wearing one. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bike helmets are necessary for safety especially in cities where you battle for the road with other cars. I just feel that they may not always be the best and most practical solution. This is why I’m very intrigued by what this pair of daring Swedish women have come up with.

Anna Haupt and Terese Alsti have created the worlds first invisible bike helmet. It’s called the Hövding helmet. You truly have to see it it believe it.. hehe. I already know what you are still thinking since you first clicked this article and looked at the image, “..the heck is the helmet??” I said the same thing. It wasn’t until I watched the video below that I realized exactly how this works and I was very impressed by it all.

The clever pair of inventors studied bicycle accidents one after another and finally came up with a mind bending solution that uses many familiar technologies but in a very creative way. The clever thought that has gone into this project is truly unique. The Hövding helmet works in a way not many would imagine it to and although it is tempting to describe in complete detail how it works, the video truly does a great job of bringing it all together in a suspenseful manner.

This is your last chance to figure out how this thing works before watching the video, any ideas? If not, click play below and enjoy the world of creativity and innovation. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Did you figure it out before watching the video? What do you think of the design?

we got it from: Collective Evolution 

Source: http://www.hovding.com/en/

PLUMA means feather in Portuguese . PLUMA, is part of recent concepts regarding high performance track bicycles. PLUMA TRACK BIKE is made of carbon/Kevlar body panels, this way the surfaces are lighter,and more impact resistant. The overall shape will help the air flow along the bike body, and increases the athletes security by reducing the number of moving parts and tubes were they can be seriously injured – unfortunately, serious falls are usual during a velodrome track cycling race. PLUMA is a fixed-gear bike, and like all professional track bikes, don´t have brakes.

Chris Boardman’s Future Bike by Lewis Rowe

Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman’s concept for an everyday city bike of the future.
Slim, light, strong.. and smart.

A regular iPhone-type smart device at its heart, so finger print locking, street view maps, warnings, speed, statistics, and auto-inform-police with location if bike stolen is all available as apps.

Just hook your rucksack or bag over the cross bar

Shaft drive from the pedals integrated internally. Solar panels continuously assist the recharging of the default LED lights and iPhone-type device as does a dynamo that kicks in when the brakes are applied.

“hybrid” city bike by Peter Dudas

Electric Bike Concept ver2 by Yuji Fujimura

“Velorian” – folding recumbent trike by Mantas Palaima

Grasshopper Bike Concept Design by David Gonçalves & Studio Namic

Bike Concept Design by Ciprian Frunzeanu

Futuristic Bike Concept Design by Bradford Waugh

I bike Concept design by Reindy Allendra

Eco Bike Concept Design by Victor M. Aleman

The Wheel is composed by six modules, each one has a double pivot in the joints, this allows the wheel to fold and become smaller, the spokes are contained in the inner structure of the wheel, when you unfold the system, the spokes rotate to the center of the mechanism where it attach to the center of the wheel.

The double triangule structure is composed by expandable modules, each one collapses to a smaller dimension and then this modules align by the rotation of the axis in the joint of the structure, to keep in position all the structure is used an special part in a form of an X that aligns all the modules to their position.

got it from  PSD Collector

Either I need to figure out how to make the trigger less sensitive so it doesn’t keep going off when I put the kid in there, or else I just need to make it more accurate.

Once inside the Expo, I watched a typical bike pornographer at work:

Note how he takes a photo of one tube intersecting with another tube as his pants slowly tent:

Oh, the depravity.

Still, bike porn is really the only way you can get anywhere in this business, and so I took some titillating photos of a fat bike:

Though I immediately regretted it because if you look at a fat bike for more than three seconds your eye starts skipping over “normal” bikes and you only notice fat things:

(Look at that duct!)

Of course, “urban cycling” is always a staple at these things, and Bern was there giving out free head lice:

Another show staple is “retro-foppery,” and Velo Orange was there with this tweedy mountain bike:

It may look rigid, but it’s actually equipped with a suspension system called the Thoreau which remains locked out until the rider has been in the woods for two years, at which point it imparts a sense of transcendental introspection on the rider.

Speaking of introspection, one of my favorite things about bike shows is that you can tell exactly what everybody’s thinking because they’re bike dorks just like you. Take this guy, for example:

It’s pretty obvious he’s fantasizing about how much craft beer he could fit on the front rack of that porteur:

Or, consider this guy:

He’s admiring the shiny retro-inspired brakes as he dreams about not using them at stop signs:

Meanwhile, at the hat stand, a man lovingly fits a hat onto a woman’s head:

As he pictures the most romantic moment ever to grace the silver screen:

If that pottery wheel scene doesn’t make you cry then you’re a monster.

Not everybody’s happy, though. For example, Craig Calfee looked a little bit nonplussed:

Sure, it could have been because some schmuck was pointing a smartphone camera at him, but I like to think he was picturing those fucking pandas and their insatiable appetite for bamboo:

In the bamboo framebuilding industry, the hated panda is commonly referred to as the “termite of the East.”

I, however, am inscrutable, and nobody knew what I was thinking as I admired this all-terrain bicycling cycle:

I know though, and it’s something I keep close to my heart:

But bike shows aren’t just about bikes. They’re also about cheddar cheese–or at least this one was:

They had all my favorite kinds, too:

If you’re wondering what makes a cube of cheddar gravel-specific, it’s partly a function of the cube’s diameter, but mostly it’s the fact it’s filled with tiny stones.

Oh, the cheese people also had used toothpicks:

Though I prefer to think of them as “pre-owned.”

Maybe Warren Buffet can afford new, unused toothpicks, but the rest of us know they lose 98% of their value the moment they probe someone else’s teeth, and we buy accordingly.

More fat bike porn:

 

And, its polar opposite, some baronial steer tube porn:

How hot is that when the exposed part steer tube is longer than the head tube itself? (Answer: hot enough to melt a hunk of gravel-specific cheddar.)

Plus, they even had “solid bib shorts:”

I assume the “solid” part means they don’t have a fly like those stupid ones from the other day:

 

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the Expo was produced by Bilenky, and here’s a picture of someone taking a picture of their banner:

And here’s some tandem porn:

Unfortunately I couldn’t wander around the Expo while nibbling cheese all day, because I had to talk at people who would rather have been someplace else:

And if you’re wondering how I maintain my poise and composure while speaking in public, my secret is that I focus on a mental image that gives me great comfort:

Or else I just picture everyone in bib shorts, which is pretty much the same thing.During the presentation, I gave away what I thought was a large amount of free stuff, though nobody thanked me. Also, one of the audience members unleashed a small boy upon me who pestered me for the duration of the hour, though I did make the best of the situation by making him hand out the prizes for me.

Then, after waking everybody up, I went back to the Expo in case anybody wanted a book signed:

I didn’t sign any books, but I did sign three breasts, a goiter, and a cube of cheddar cheese.

Then I left the Expo, and on the way to THE CAR THAT I OWN I passed a table full of free drugs:

And it was only after consuming them that I looked up and realized I was standing in front of the Church of Scientology:

The next 24 hours were a blur, but let’s just say Tom Cruise is a lot shorter in real life.

got it from : bike snob NYC

Tens of thousands signed up to serve in dedicated cycling units during the 20th century’s conflicts. Will there ever be a place for bikes in wars again?

Canadian soldiers with their bicycles landing at Juno beach, Normandy, 1944. Photograph: STF/AFP/Getty Images

My regular bike ride takes me past a couple of village war memorials, but to the best of my knowledge, none of the names engraved in the stone was ever a member of Britain’s specialist cycling corps.

Tens of thousands of “cyclist soldiers” signed up to serve during both world wars and other conflicts. Recruitment posters in Britain on the eve of war declared: “Are you fond of cycling? If so, why not cycle for the King? Bad teeth no bar.”

Other countries – notably Italy and Germany – also had dedicated cycling units. In fact, the world’s last surviving cycling regiment was disbanded by the Swiss Army only 10 years ago.

The origins of cycling soldiers can be traced back to the second Boer war in South Africa at the end of the 19th century. Historian Colin Stevens, who curates an online museum dedicated to vintage and military bicycles, says:

“Remember that the messenger pigeon was one of the most advanced communication methods of the time so this was a logical step, especially as automobiles and motorcycles were still far and few between. And [bicycles] did not require the constant care and feeding that horses did.”

The cyclist soldiers weren’t merely confined to scouting and messenger duties. Plenty of them saw frontline action. When a Boer position was attacked, “a cyclist or two would be with the leading rank,” according to Jim Fitzpatrick, author of The Bicycle In Wartime. “By the end of the war, Lord Kitchener was asking for several more cyclist battalions,” says Fitzpatrick.

And during the early weeks of the first world war, before the fighting became trench-bound in northern France, several cycling units were involved in daring raids on German ammunition wagons, according to breathless reports in the weekly “military cyclists’ journal”, Cycling.

As an example of what the cycling corps could achieve, Fitzpatrick quotes the case of the 2nd Anzac cyclist battalion – comprised mainly of New Zealanders – that earned 72 medals despite suffering 59 fatalities during its 32 months fighting on the western front. It was also honoured by the town of Epernay for its role in repelling a German attack.

Campaigning for more cyclist battalions to be formed in 1908, Captain A. H. Trapmann tried to convince a military panel of the merits of soldiers on bikes:

“The cyclist does not suffer from sore feet, nor does his mount ever get out of condition. The longer a campaign lasts the fitter the cyclist becomes. When on the move the cyclist offers a much smaller and at the same time more difficult target to hit than even the infantryman. He can ride behind hedges with body bent low and remain invisible…It may also perhaps be of interest to note that the great majority of cyclists are practically teetotallers.”

After the first world war, Britain disbanded its specialist cycling battalions, partly because of the difficulties of riders steering and firing their rifles at the same time, and also because the bicycle had proved useless at transporting heavy loads such as machine guns. A 1932 history of the London Cyclist Battalion noted that though “it was the ambition of every hardy cyclist to get posted to the Gun Section … only the hardiest enjoyed it.”

The Germans and Italians, however, commissioned extensive studies into the effectiveness of their cyclist-soldiers. As a result, German Radfahrtruppen were involved in the blitzkriegs of world war two – “several hundred thousand, right behind the Stukas and Panzers,” according to Fitzpatrick – while units of cyclists riding folding Bianchi bicycles with optional machine gun mounts were added to Italy’s elite regiments of Bersaglieri (marksmen).

In Britain, though, soldiers on bikes were largely limited to home defence duties, until BSA designed its folding “Airborne” bike for paratroopers jumping from gliders. However, by the time of the D-day landings, much larger gliders – big enough to accommodate jeeps – had been produced, so instead the “airborne” bikes were carried by infantry soldiers arriving by sea. According to Stevens:

“Going down the ramp of a landing craft carrying a rifle or Bren Gun, a heavy ruck sack, ammunition and a bicycle was very difficult and some soldiers drowned when they fell into the water and could not get rid of their load. Even once they were on shore, cyclists quickly ran into the problem of flat tires due to the broken glass, shell fragments etc. that littered the roads.”

Despite such shortcomings, the legacy of military bikes lives on in today’s designs. A modern, US version of the BSA Airborne, the Montague Paratrooper Tactical Folding Mountain Bike, was used during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. A civilian version – still in camouflage colour but minus the gun rack – is available for $725.

A folding bike co-designed by French Army lieutenant Henry Gérard in 1893 became the first mass-produced bike of its type when Peugeot won the contract to supply it to the French, Russian and Romanian armies.

And the 1912 model designed by Bianchi for Italian troops is widely regarded as the forefather of modern mountain bikes, thanks to its slightly smaller wheels, rear suspension and front shock absorbers.

Will there ever be a place for bikes in wars again? Fitzpatrick points to one quality the humble machine has over its rivals in an age of surgical strikes and thermal detection technology:

“It gives off little or no thermal signature to belie its presence. The power source still does, however.”

got it from : the guardian

This year’s Gong Ride was a sold out event which equates to 10,000 riders trying to raise $4.5million. At the time of writing  , donations have reached the $3.3million mark. Donations are still open so go to www.msgongride.org.au if you’re feeling generous. It’s a great and worthwhile cause.

This year I did the ride on a custom built Tanto carbon bike with red and white dots. I’m a pretty heavy bloke (82kg) so I opted for something light to get me over those killer hills near wollongong. I’m happy to have conquered all those climbs without having to walk any of them, even with cramps!

The weather was pleasant – not too hot with some cloud cover for most of the journey except the last 20km where a thumping head wind was my biggest annoyance. Give me a gentle slope any day! Our deserving reward was plenty of beer at the finish – to replenish our carbs. I’m looking forward to next year’s ride already.

More info on

Look out for them this Spring and Summer around Sydney.

Good morning!

Many years ago, where my mansion now stands, there were streams that ran through the once verdant hills and dales. These streams have long since been buried by the civil engineers, yet they still run, and indeed when it is quiet I can hear one of them trickling along beneath the pavement and underneath my manse. The stream, I have begun to suspect, is teeming with river sprites, and I think they may be visiting me in my sleep, because I have lots of weird dreams about naked canoeing, and when I wake up my bed is full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups wrappers.

I’ll keep you posted.

Speaking of hallucinations, this is not one:

The reader who spotted this did so at the so-called “Orchard Cross at Applecrest Farm,” and you’ll be pleased to know that representatives of PETA were waiting at the finish line, where they lovingly tranquilized the great beast with an organic sedative, loaded it into a giant crate, and returned it to its natural habitat.

By the way, the neck on that giraffe isn’t UCI legal, as the rule book clearly states that the neck of an ungulate may be no longer than 1.8 meters.

Meanwhile, even stranger than river sprites and cyclocrossing giraffes was Assos’s announcement that they were releasing a $500 bib short which featured a sort of “cock pouch” called the “KuKu Penthouse” which allows you to hang your junk out in the wind while you ride:

Many speculated that the proprietary Assos “dick bag” was a practical joke, but indeed it is all too real, and a reader has actually forwarded me video of someone from the company presenting the “schlong satchel” with a straight face:

Not only that, but he’s flanked by internationally famous supermodel Assos Bib Shorts Guy:

(Yin Fred)

Arch-nemesis of the preternaturally vexed Nonplussed Bib Shorts Guy from Wikipedia:

Actually, I’m not sure the guy in the video is the same guy from the Assos website, but it really doesn’t matter, for once you’ve been spraypainted orange and donned the Bono glasses the Curse of the Flying Doucheman passes to you until you manage to foist it onto someone else.

In other news, they say that into each life some rain must fall, and so it goes in Portland, where the entire community has been rent asunder by the theft of a clown bike:

Last Thursday (October 24th), Portlander Aaron Brown tweeted his interaction with the suspected thief: “sketch dude just tried to sell me this freak bike for $20. When I asked him about it, he freaked + jumped on the bus.” Brown snapped a photo of the guy just before he climbed onto the #4 bus headed east on SE Division at 35th. That tweet and the bike in the photo caught the eye of Matthew Rogers, who recognized the bike from a photo I took that was featured here on the front page earlier this month.

And now I’d like to introduce a new feature here on this blog called “Great Warnings of History:”

April 18th, 1775: Paul Revere rides to Lexington shouting, “The British are coming, the British are coming!”

December 4th, 1941: A memo from the Office of Naval Intelligence warns, “In anticipation of possible open conflict with this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii.”

October 24th, 2013: Portlander Aaron Brown tweets, “Sketch dude just tried to sell me this freak bike for $20.”

By the way, they really have their own language out there, because I had to read “sketch dude just tried to sell me this freak bike” about five times before I knew what it meant. I mean, come on. “Sketch dude?” Who is that, superhero Portrait Man’s sidekick?

I think comic books are stupid, but I would read the fuck out of one called The Adventures of Portrait Man.

Anyway, the people of Portland, using the same detective skills that once led them to declare some guy a NARC because he was Asian, quickly deduced that the “freak bike” in question had once appeared in a photo of some guy called Dingo Dizmal, a.k.a. Dingo the Clown:

In that photo, the same bike that appears in the photo with the alleged thief is being ridden by well-known local entertainer Dingo Dizmal (a.k.a. Dingo the Clown)…

Holy crap! Check out the Dionysian fruit pants on Dingo! Is that guy a satyr?

Nope. But he is friends with the bike’s owner, Olive Rootbeer, with whom he frightens the shit out of entertains children at parties:

As it turns out, the bike belongs to Dingo’s friend and partner Olive Rootbeer (both of whom appear in the latest Streetfilm video about Portland’s 100th bike corral). Dingo and Olive make their living by telling stories to children’s groups and going balloons at events like Sunday Parkways (here they are in action in 2011).

Sorry, but that is fucking horrifying. The only reason the kid isn’t screaming is that she hasn’t turned around yet. What is “going balloons?” anyway? There is no way I’d scare the shit out of my kid by having Dingo and Olive Rootbeer “going balloons” at his next party. I’ll just stick with paying Banksy $1.5 million to do a kid-friendly art installation for us again, like we did last year:

The other kids all cried, but mine deemed it “a hilarious yet thought-provoking comment on corporate America.”

Anyway, hopefully Fruit Pants and Olive Garden get their freak bike back so they can get back to fucking with kids’ heads.

Lastly, speaking of the Dionysian, here’s an old Cycles Gladiator ad sent to me by another reader:

Baby got Bacchus.

got it from : bike snob NYC

Alex Paxton was fined when he stopped beyond an advanced stop line. He is challenging the fixed penalty notice in a case that could have important implications for UK cyclists

A cyclist waiting within an advanced stop line for the lights to turn green. Photograph: Gianni Muratore/Alamy

When Alex Paxton was cycling down the road, he came to an advanced stop line (ASL). Even if the words don’t ring a bell, you’ll know an ASL, or cycle box, when you see it: typically an area marked by green tarmac and white lines, set aside to allow cyclists to safely position themselves at the front of a queue at traffic lights.

Paxton claims that because the ASL was already occupied by a car which had stopped illegally inside the area, he was unable to stop within it. As he was on a three-lane road and didn’t want to have to cross several lanes of moving traffic in order to turn right when the light changed to green, he positioned himself ahead of the car and in front of the ASL.

A police officer who noticed what had happened radioed ahead to a colleague further along the road in Fulham, London, who issued Paxton with a fixed penalty notice (FPN). Although Paxton argued at the time that the car that blocked the ASL meant he wouldn’t have been able to obey the law without putting himself in danger, he received an FPN regardless. Paxton claims that because the second police officer didn’t actually see what happened, he was unable to assess the greater risk that Paxton would have faced had he remained behind the ASL.

After receiving advice from the Cyclists’ Defence Fund (CDF), set up by the national cycling charity, CTC, to fight legal cases involving cycling, Paxton decided to contest the fine in court. The CDF hopes the case will set a precedent around the enforcement of ASLs. The CDF set up a fundraising page to assist him with his legal costs, which quickly exceeded its target of £2,000. The case is due to be heard at Lavender Hill magistrates court on Wednesday 16 October.

According to CDF’s Rhia Weston:

“When the first FPNs for cyclists (targeting those who cycled on footways) were first introduced, the CTC sought assurance that fines would only be given out when a cyclist’s actions were reckless and would endanger pedestrians – not, for example, when a cyclist uses an empty pavement to avoid a dangerous section of road. It’s important that the same sensible enforcement is applied to cyclists who don’t use ASLs when it’s unsafe to do so, especially given how frequently ASLs are blocked by illegally positioned vehicles.”

Transport for London (TfL) pledged to enforce rules that prohibit drivers from stopping in ASLs more strictly in April 2013, after Andrew Gilligan, London’s cycling commissioner, announced plans to use CCTV cameras to catch wayward motorists.

Weston continued:

“ASLs are there for a good reason: around 70% of cyclists’ collisions occur at or near junctions. They’re by no means perfect, but when used properly, we do believe that they have the potential to save lives. We understand that the Department for Transport is planning to update regulation around ASLs to overcome the considerable problems with their access, which does give us some hope for the future.”

If successful, the case could have important implications for UK cyclists: it would compel police officers to use their discretion when issuing FPNs to cyclists who, in order to stay safe, must occasionally act contrary to the law, and press the DfT to clarify the law governing what cyclists should do if an ASL is illegally occupied by a vehicle.

Contrary to the belief of some, ASLs are provided for cycles only, and motorcyclists are specifically prohibited from using them (Highway Code rule 178).

It’s worth noting, though, that there is some leeway for drivers: if the light turns red as the driver’s vehicle is already within the ASL, the driver must wait within the ASL until the light turns green.

Via theguardian.com