Found this print for sale on Ebay. Pretty sweet. They have multiple copies for sale and the shipping is next to nothing. Have a scroll through here and you'll find it.
They also have this print of an 11 year old bicycle messenger for Western Union from 1913. This was a photo taken for the National Child Labor Commission to highlight the explotation of children in the early 1900's. Looks like messengers had it shitty back then too.
...because the selfish git inside me wanted to keep it to myself and just come rolling up the street in a few months on this with a big dirty grin on my face. 'What's that?' I'd hear you ask. 'Oh, what, this?', I'd noncholantly reply. 'Yes Graham, that.' I can sense you getting a bit tetchy. 'Well this just happens to be the new Fuji limited edition OBEY track bike' Smugness dribbles from my chin. '*gasp*' etc. etc...
Unfortunately my utopian/dystopian(if you're not me) vision of the future may not come to pass. Excessive probing, yes probing, of the interweb has led me to believe that there were only 300 of these little beauties crafted, and they are beauties. Lugged steel, decent Miche components, gold nipples! And, of course, the fact that you're riding around on a work of art.
If I see someone riding around Dublin in the near future on one of these, and it's not me looking at my reflection, I may quite possibly turn green... with the envy.
For more specs on this see the Fuji site here, and anyone that needs to catch up on their OBEY direct your attention hereward.
Not content with infiltrating t.v. news segments and slow newspaper days, messengers now seem to have taken the burgeoning business of b-rate house music videos by storm! Actaully it's pretty well filmed, and if I was off my face I'd probably be dancing my ass off to the song...
Dedan Ireri, From street beggar to paralympic aspirant
By Ingrid Munro,
A skilled and speedy cyclist rounds the corner of Enterprise Road and Funzi Road in Nairobi's industrial area.
His style, his speed and his pride on the bike show that he is a professional cyclist.
He enters the gate to the Jamii Bora headquarters and parks his bike.
With ease he detaches his crutches from the bike.
It is only then you will realize that Dedan Ireri only has one leg as his right leg was amputated at the hip.
"How can you bike with only one leg and with such elegance and speed?" you ask him. His story is like a fairy tale.
Dedan was a street beggar as a child and teenager.
But a car ran over him when he was still a young child begging in the streets and his right leg had to be amputated.
Dedan then had to learn to survive in the streets with only one leg.
I first met him in 1994 when he was 14 years old. I talked with Dedan and his friends every time I passed them at the Kenyatta Avenue roundabout downtown where they used to beg from motorists.
Dedan finally agreed to go to an informal school to learn how to read and write. However, Dedan was a difficult student and often ran back to the streets.
It took a lot of convincing and counseling to keep him in school even for a few weeks at a time.
When Jamii Bora started as a Micro Finance institution in 1999, Dedan and his friends formed a small credit group called the Uhuru Highway Self-Help Group.
They were all young beggars in the streets of Nairobi and, like Dedan, many had severe physical handicaps.
Dedan tried to start several small businesses with loans of Ksh 1,000, Ksh 1,500 and then Ksh 2,000 (about US$12-25).
Sadly, all his business attempts failed and Dedan kept slipping back to begging.
But the Jamii Bora staff never gave up on Dedan and kept encouraging him to try again.
They feared he would be one of the few Jamii Bora members who never worked themselves out of poverty.
Then one day Dedan came to the Jamii Bora office on a bike!
He wanted to see me and show me a prize he won in a recent small bicycle competition.
We were all stunned but happy to see him so proud and even organized a little ceremony to celebrate his success.
After that day Dedan came often to get help to buy bicycle spares or just to talk about his new dreams.
Then a few weeks later Dedan returned with his bicycle and proposed that Jamii Bora employ him as a messenger.
That would help us in Jamii Bora, he would have some income and at the same time he would spend his days biking and developing his strength and skills as a cyclist.
As Dedan was already so well known and so well liked in Jamii Bora, we agreed to his surprising and innovative proposal.
So Dedan became what is likely the only one-legged bicycle messenger in Nairobi and possibly worldwide.
Dedan is now a skilled, reliable and fast messenger as well as a proud and charming member of the Jamii Bora staff.
Today is another big day for Dedan and Jamii Bora.
This evening Dedan is leaving Kenya to fly to Colombia and participate in several international cycling competitions in order to qualify for the Paralympics in China next year.
Dedan and his friend Ibrahim Wafula aim to represent Kenya in this prestigious global competition.
So yet another Jamii Bora member has proven that not even the sky - or having only one leg - is the limit for what our members can achieve.
Dedan, you are already a hero among the youth in Jamii Bora. We are really proud of you.
Go for gold and then come home to inspire thousands of other youth throughout our country to leave the streets and instead use their talents to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Thanks to Joe Hendry for that. If this got you thinking at all check out this link for a really nice interview with some paralympian track riders... they are fast.
Check out these clips from the Australian Paralymic team as well:
And then there's always Dexter, a very real inspiration to everyone who chooses to do this job: Makes you feel a bit rubbish doesn't it? :) Moaning about the rain...
Perusing the interweb, as is my wont, I stumbled upon the Kalavinka website. They are another of the many fine Japanese Keirin frame builders. They have a really nice gallery section where, rather than the de rigeur pics of 'bike leaning against wall', 'guy in tight pants trackstanding on bike', they actually show each bike come to life, from a pile of lugs to a beautiful finished piece. You really get an appreciation for the fact that these bikes are works of art. Check out more droolworthy builds here.
Well? Tell me about it! Then I can tell you back, right here.
And while I have your attention, anyone wanna start planning the mayhem for St. Patrick's Day, please get in touch. With our combined knowledge of what NOT to do from CMWC, we're going to put on a savage event. So start hitting me with ideas for races, logos, venues etc... I think we should change the format a little this year, bring to another level... well, anyway, lets talk.
From Mess magazine comes a juicy little clip straight from NYC. This is from the Conan O'Brien show. I think this guy is funny regardless, but this is great stuff. Uh... check it here, 'cos I don't know how to embed videos from Google... this is the level of computing skills I am at...
Well, I've also got one that I CAN embed! Go me! This is a clip from waaaaay back on the David Letterman show. A candid and hilarious interview with David Leopold, the founder of Cavalry Couriers, which you may remember from the clip above. Good to see them still going strong after all this time. again thanks to MessNYC for the clip.
Another promo video for Keirin racing. Check it out just before the end. The racer blesses his bike with salt just the way Sumo wrestlers do before a fight. I'm going to start doing it every day before work...
The Denver messengers have put together a kind of online zine thingy which shows some nice footage of them screwing aorund on their bikes and getting wasted... sound familiar? It's always nice to see how others do their thing, and everyone from Denver I've met has been great, so check it out here , and see their BMA website here.
Here we have 2 examples of what happens when you tangle with bikes. Video 1 shows why you should look before crossing the road (there may be a long skid contest in progress...)
You can see some nice still photos of the incident here.
Next is some instant karma. This asshole is trying to lean out a car door and slap some poor kid that's just riding his bike down the street. Well he certainly gets what he deserved, and then some... not for the faint of heart this one...
Hot of the presses come the results of Dublin's Halloween alleycat. About 30 riders set off from Tonehenge on a long course that suited the geared among the riders.
A couple of crashes and Ed and Kropa getting pulled by the cops were the only negatives to the race, but everyone seems ok and hopefully the lads won't end up with summonses.
So, results: 1st: Steve 2nd: Gyula (last years winner) 3rd: Tomas (Cyclone) 4th: Darragh 5th: Al (1st Fixie) 6th: Cliffy
And I believe that Doricea won a prize for most blood spilled, ambulance was called for her but she refused to get in, that's the spirit!
Well done to the organisers.
After this race, I do feel that questions need to be asked for future races, the main one being: why the hell do organisers continue to have race starts/finishes on the Green? It makes no sense. 30-50 messengers drinking and smoking and then barreling off to do a race, it's no wonder people are getting pulled by the cops, and it's a miracle that none of the races have been shut down, it's only a matter of time.
What's wrong with Wilton Place, Barrow Street, Grand Canal? All places out of the public eye where we can drink and hang out to our hearts content. Just a thought, but it has to be said that no matter how 'cool' it is to hang around the green like 'we don't give a fuck what you think'... the reality is that what we do is illegal and if we shove it in peoples faces for long enough there will surely be a reaction.
A group of dog-owners are petitioning to have the area where the New York guys play their polo turned into a dog run. New Yorkers love their dogs, and revel in finding new places for them to piss and shit. The polo players are getting their own petition to try and block this move, as the space is used by many in the community during the week and weekends, not only polo players. They need a lot of support, and it only takes a couple of minutes to go here and add your name to the list. You wouldn't want them to take this kind of stuff away:
Gotta love the Japanese. They've made a flash program that allows you to visualise your dream bike from a large selection of frames, wheels, stems... everything you need for that custom bike. It's a bit silly, but quite fun. Check it here.
Just had to post this cos of the title. How Irish... This is a collaboration between Colnago and 2 New York artists to make custom paintjobs for the new Colnago Master Pista steel track frame, which is being brought back into production. So Colnago are now hippety-hopping onto the hipstery bandwagon that fixed-gear riding has become. Oh well, hopefully the bikes ride nicely as well. Check the site here. Oh and Steve, did you copyright your 'Bull Run' alleycat? Cos' they're throwing one too...
From the UK's Daily Telegraph: 'A man has been placed on the sex offenders' register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. Robert Stewart was discovered in his room by two cleaners at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, south west Scotland, in October last year. On Wednesday Mr Stewart admitted to sexual breach of the peace in Ayr Sheriff Court, where depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers. She said: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply. They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down. The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex"'
Thanks to Trackstar for providing this link. Don't know what they're saying but it really makes me want to go see some Keirin racing! Check the video here.
Laek House have been on the periphery of the messenger scene for a while now designing interesting t-shirts, and more recently cycling caps, using their ELVS(Enhanced Light Visibility System), which is basically a retro-reflective ink see wiki for more info. Kinda like those relflective strips on your bag or jacket, when used with t-shirt designs the result can be quite spectacular.
Taking the idea a step further Laek House have teamed up with Velocity Rims and have produced a prototype set of Deep V's using the ELVS idea. These aren't in production yet, but as you can see from the pictures these wheels will look amazing while cruising at night-time.
Check out the Laek House website here, and Velocity's here.
Led by talented young Irish designer Eoin Murphy (a resident of Toronto since 2006) in conjunction with Jan Buco of 'High Park Cycle' fame, 'Fixated' have created a custom bicycle to mark the arrival of the Bicycle Film Festival. Based in Toronto, 'Fixated' is an international collective of designers, artists, and skilled fabricators. Drawing from both European and North American design ideologies 'Fixated' are a very exciting group who take a fresh approach to the modern aesthetic and subsequently occupy a unique position in their field. High Park Cycles have been in business in Toronto for over 35 years and is one of the most successful and celebrated independent bicycle stores in the country. In addition to the day to day business of the trade, ‘High Park’ has been actively involved in the world of competitive cycling and has produced 17 provincial and 4 national champions to date. Subsequently this collaboration combines an electrifying blend of modern design and classic engineering.
The Bike. The bicycle is a fixed gear pursuit bike which, in homage to those classic engineering principles, is built on a 1980's Colnago pursuit frame. The frame itself is an outstanding example of traditional building practices. Constructed from Columbus SLX steel tubing (no longer in production and not to be confused with modern aluminum SLX tube-sets) and is designed for flat-out pace. This total commitment to speed was mirrored in the design and build process by eliminating all but the most essential components leaving only one gear and no room for a freewheel or brakes. The bicycle demands the rider’s full concentration, controlling acceleration and deceleration using sheer force of muscle power. Although fixed gear road bikes are fast becoming a fixture of modern metropolitan society they have long held an iconic status among a number of urban sub-cultures. Appropriately the aesthetic for this project has its roots in one such social sector; the bicycle courier community. Here the philosophy is simple, "less is more”. Beyond design, engineering, aesthetics and fashion the piece is a fascinating commentary on society’s dependence on and union with modern technology. eoin.murphy@mac.com Taken from hkfixed.com
