photography

I’m looking through images from my last trip, as I prep to head out to Africa again in the next few weeks.

Phenomenal bicycle photographer Matt Lingo has posted a black and white photo story called “Alex’s Cuevas.” In fourteen images it conveys the story of his friend Alex while rebuilding a new Cuevas bike after a hit-and-run totaled his previous hand-built Cuevas frame.

I also love this image Matt posted earlier in January.

Beautiful, evocative work, Matt! Keep it coming!

We have photo contest winners!

First, thanks to all the amazing photographers who submitted bicycle-themed nighttime images, and thanks again to the great sponsors Planet Bike and Bikeglow who provided prizes. Ryan from GoMeansGo and I finally managed to settle on winners, after looking long and hard at all the entries.

The winner of the Planet Bike winter commuter package, which was selected by the staff at Planet Bike, is Mark Magnussun.  For his photo Düsseldorf Winter Landscape Mark wins a set of Cascadia fenders, a mini pump, a Blaze 2W or Blaze Dynamo headlight, a SuperFlash rear light, and a saddle bag with tire levers and patch kit. (Let that be a lesson to you: next year submit a photo with an umlaut in the title!)

Ryan and I chose Tim Kainu as having submitted the best overall images – we disagreed slightly on which was our favorite, but heartily agreed that he was tops overall. Tim wins a nice prize package worth over $100 – a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light.

For the best Northwest image, the prize goes to Robin, aka Ray Tracing who submitted some great shots from two Seattle nighttime photo shoots done for the contest. Robin wins a full prize package – a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light.

And for most creative image, the prize goes to this awesome long exposure that was submitted by Twin Cities Brightest very early in the contest. Twin Cities Brightest also wins a Bikeglow unit, a Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt LED headlight, and a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth rear blinkie light. If anyone will put lights to good use, it’s him!

But that’s not all! Planet Bike was kind enough to throw even more lights in the box they sent me, so Ryan and I chose a few more winners.

There were lots of “in motion on the street” shots submitted, of those we chose this ghostly commuter image from Ken Kraft as the winner of a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie.

Sweendo gets a Planet Bike Superflash Stealth for his creative Northwest submissions that were close runners up in several categories.

DPJ gets a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie for the great images submitted.

If Flickr user Carol Torres in Sao Paolo can come up with a USA address for me to mail it to, she can get a Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie for her photo from Amsterdam.

And finally, because we ran out of prizes long before we ran out of great photos, Flickr user Cosmicmotionstudios gets our last Planet Bike Spok micro blinkie.

Thanks again to everyone who participated! Your photos are all amazing.

Winners: I am trying to reach you, but if you see this first, email juju@bikejuju.com with your mailing address (US or Canada only), and if you are Tim, Ray or TCB, state your order of preference for a blue, red or white Bikeglow unit, and for a black or white Planet Bike Blaze. First folks to express a preference will get priority, and I’ll give up on contacting all winners by late January and give any leftover prizes away in future contests.

The Dark Days are ending and the days are getting longer! Happy holidays! Bikejuju will be on hiatus till 2010. (But meanwhile you can also see my photos of a pretty blue Chinese Phoenix bike in Ethiopia).

I stumbled across this Flickr set called “China: Goods By Bicycle” posted by Flickr user Brickoleurbanism, who shot them in Shanghai.

Actually most of the images are good by tricycle, and most of the tricycles seem to be this single speed model with a curvaceous frame design. Anybody know what it is?

I love this mobile bike repair shop, with the water bowl out for checking leaking inner tubes.

Many of the images have multiple cyclists in the frame–I count at least six bikes in this image. In China there is still a critical mass of cyclists even as cars grow more accessible. Nary a helmet in sight, and no lycra, yet somehow they still manage to get around!

Check out the full set here. A wonderful typology of Chinese utilitarian cycling. And while you’re at it, the Bricoleurbanism blog these were shot for has a number of interesting posts on urban bike infrastructure.

I’ve posted the details for the Bikejuju and Go Means Go Dark Days photo contest on a separate contest page. Please help get the word out about this contest, which has some awesome prizes including a full commuter package from Planet Bike, and Bikeglow safety lights from Bikeglow.

I’m looking forward to seeing what a little photo creativity, some lights, and some slow shutter speeds can bring to these long dark evenings!

So at the end of the day we’re all just monkeys riding bicycles. But, uh, some of us more than others.

(Photos borrowed from various places, including Ratrod and Flickr users bongopix, amangla007, David Wilmot, Paul Cowell, Painted Lotus, Shjaan V, N Dangthuy).

Oh but wait there’s more…

From Telegraph.co.uk last December:

When one of the monkeys refused to ride on a child’s bicycle in a street performance in Sizhou, in eastern China, their owner beat it with a stick. Although they were tied to the man with ropes attached to their collars, the monkeys appear to have decided to fight back.

The two animals came to the defence of the third monkey, grabbing the stick from the man, pulling on his ear and biting his head. When he dropped his cane, one monkey snatched it up and began beating the trainer on the head until he broke the stick, witnesses said.

The dazed trainer told his audience: “They were once wild and these performances don’t always come naturally to them. They may have built up some feelings of hatred towards me.”

This guy better watch his ass:

Well maybe “exclusive” is an overstatement. My friend Andrew David Watson’s short video, The Broad Street Bully, has been in a few festivals and also has been available on his website for a while. But I convinced him to migrate it to Vimeo, so that I could post it here (exclusive!), and the rest of the blogosphere could embed it (hint hint). It deserves to be seen!

Continuing this week’s theme of awesome stills-and-voiceover films about personal transformation through cycling, Bikejuju presents a lovely little slice-of-life character piece about the kind of everyday cyclist America needs more of. Enjoy.

The filmmaker Andrew says,

I met Fred years ago while working in a bike shop . Fred has had many nicknames over the years but “Broad Street Bully” comes from the fact Fred can usually be spotted riding up and down Broad Street, the main North/South Avenue in Philadelphia. I spent two days (and probably over 100 miles) riding around with Fred to shoot this story. This piece and my friendship with Fred exemplifies how the common bond of biking can transcend age, sex, race and pretty much any other divide.

PS: Happy birthday Fred!

A few weeks ago I came across some remarkable images on Flickr: gorgeous street scenes in Lagos, Nigeria, some of which featured a sweet-looking fixie. I had to learn more!

After a brief correspondence, the photographer, whose name is Tolu, was kind enough to write this guest post about life on and off a fixie in Lagos, which is Africa’s second largest city. I’ll be posting it in two parts. Tolu takes it from here, and all the photos are his:

I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a lot of my life in different places. I’ve been exposed to many things and have formed my interests accordingly. About two years ago, living in London, a close friend introduced me to cycling. I’d recently been retired from motorbikes (Suzuki GSXR750 was my last) by my loving wife and first child so I had a hole in my life that needed filling.

After a little investigating and deciding I needed to shed some weight, I went out and bought an off-the-shelf bike. My first few outings ended in puffing and wheezing back home soon after leaving, but soon I got much fitter and ended up ditching the car in favor of the bike. As I cycled around London I noticed some funky looking bikes. I’ve always loved getting my hands dirty and I’m guilty of being a bit of a customising freak so soon enough I was on the internet looking into ways of customising bikes. My forming addiction was further fueled by a trip to San Francisco where I witnessed, first hand, the fixed gear scene in all its glory. Suddenly my trusty of-the-shelf steed seemed inadequate.

Around the same time we were planning a long stint back home in Nigeria. As I delved deeper into the fixie (fixed gear bicycle) scene it struck me that with the lack of parts and skilled labour in Lagos a fixie would be the perfect bike to ride there.

Anyway, ride I intended to do! No way I was going to be somewhere for 6 months without being able to ride a bike! A fixie would also be ideally suited our topography as Lagos is pretty flat. So a single gear would not be a hinderance.

Got out the credit card and started ordering bits and pieces to build my first bike. Chain and handlebars from Japan, frame and hubs from the UK, wheels, saddle and saddle post from the US, crank from Italy etc. I felt like a kid in a candy store. So many options and so many different ways to put all these options together.

A lot of the parts I got were influenced by the environment I was building the bike for. I got some very good, puncture resistant tyres (Continental Ultra Gatorskins), very strong wheels built with the maximum number of spokes, again for maximum strength (Velocity Deep V). Super comfy Oury handlebar grips to soak up a lot of the road vibration. Izumi super toughness chain for…you guessed it, for super toughness! Etc.

The Israeli bike blog Bikelog has a great photo post on bicycles on the kibbutz.

I’ve spend few days in the Kibbutz Ashdot Ya’acov Ichud, located in Jordan Valley, 5 km from the Sea of Galilee. I’ve discovered a wonderful world of bicycles that is very typical to Kibbutz. Most of the bicycles are dated from 60’s and 70’s by local Israeli manufacturers (HOC, DAHAR, ICM) because kibbutz was obligated to buy only local products.

Meanwhile the Peruvian Brazilian blog Panoptico has a photo post about the utility tricycles of the city of Puno, on the shores of Lake (say it with me now) Titicaca.

I love these little slices of velo-centric life from around the world. And the fact that other travelers see the world through velo-centric eyes!

Despite the risk that I will never hear the end of jokes about this around our house, I am posting this lovely 1904 image. View it larger here.