Nope. This is still a bicycle blog.

We promise. We won't turn this blog into an unspecified ads/for sale blog, or some kind of street art blog. But the art photographed below we spotted during a bicycle tour, so there's the connection. And since we liked what we saw a lot we simply wanted to share it with you.

 (New graffiti meets old)

(Graffiti behind the fence)

 (A bird behind a fence)

(And it has started to spread outside the designated area. Those who criticise graffiti and street art often argue that if you offer the artists designated graffiti walls it will spread, outside these walls. Maybe they´re right, maybe it will. But we think that the critics should just take a moment and think. Is this so bad then? Do they really prefer unpainted, "unadorned" buildings to these fantastic pieces of art? And is it so bad to put some paper and paint on these electric installations?)

(OK, it's a crappy photo. But a link is here below)

(The art gallery who's behind all this)

When we spotted all these fantastic pieces the first time we thought that some graffiti artists simply had gone completely bonkers and decided to do whatever they wanted. Which of course put a big smile on our faces. (As long as no one gets hurt, do whatever you want.) On a second tour we discovered that it was all a part of this. That wasn't equally exciting, at least not to us, but it's still all admirable anyway. To be honest it can't have been too broadly promoted, since we were completely unaware of it. Maybe that's because it's all about a relatively small art gallery, in a boring industrial area, we dunno.

But hey! Check it out for yourselves! Gather a friend or two, take your bikes, ride out to the Ringön industrial area, along the street Järnmalmsgatan and see what all these talented artists have created.

And ride safe!

It happens every day

The only difference is that this time I had my camera ready.

The thing is, it's not a huge problem. And should it have been an uncommon phenomenon it would have been kind of OK, you know, we all have to get along and share the roads. But when it happens day after day, time after time, as a bicyclist you start to get really fed up with it.

A couple of days ago I was riding along the bicycle lane, I came to a crossing and there was this white estate car standing right across it. Now, as you can see I had red light. But I saw this car from a distance when the light was green (for bicyclists) and this guy was standing right across the crossing even then, waiting for his light to change to green. If we make a comparison: How would people, motorists, react if I should stand in the middle of the car lane, waiting for my lights to change from red to green?

At least this guy didn't flip the bird at me, like another motorist who was standing across another bicycle lane another time, did. And again, this thing happening on rare occasions wouldn't be that bad. It's the pattern.

Ride safe!

Ugly bicycle spotting, 2 ½

When we saw the latest Ugly bicycle spotting post's bicycle again yesterday, we noticed another thing: The saddle. It is really tilted. A bit too far? Perhaps. But then, perhaps not. We prefer to not have our saddles too tilted, because doing that increases pressure on hands, arms and shoulders and neck, creating future problems, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty it's just a question of personal choice.

Ride safe!

Eddy Marx

See this as our contribution to the infamous Gothenburg humour. Or not. This is just us fooling around a bit. But it doesn't always have to be serious, does it?

Ride safe!

Ugly bicycle spotting, 2

OK, so the weather here's crap, it's only about 10° (Celsius. Of course. If you live in a country that still persists on using some other archaic unit of measurement for temperature, I suggest you write to your government and complain. Celsius rules!), and it's rainy and windy. To top that, my bicycle is squeaking, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. The chain is all oiled up (twice!) and I even took apart the rear derailleur and re-greased the jockey wheels... it didn't change a thing. So next week, on Tuesday, I'll be off to the only bike shop that I let near my Heli. (The guy who owns it only keeps it open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.) And until then...I'll just be concentrating on other-not-necessarily-bicycle-related stuff. But this is a bicycle blog! So why not continue with ugly bicycle spotting?

We have stated that we think that people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone else. We're really not into all these rules, stating what you must and can't do. You have to wear your eyeglasses temples outside the helmet straps, you can't use a saddle bag, blahblahblah... That's rubbish. If you want to participate in a road bicycle race and you ride a hybrid bicycle, wear a mountain bike helmet, your eyeglasses temples outside the helmet straps (unless it's a full face helmet, of course), a 100% cotton t-shirt and your have a backpack as well, we will fully support your wish to do so. Rules are made to be broken. As long as you have fun, you are doing things right.

And we have fun looking at ugly bikes. Again: We don't mean to be mean or to hurt anyone's feelings. If you do get hurt by our posts, please tell us so and we will stop. And if your reaction is that our bikes are just as ugly as they are crappy, that's cool too. You can tell us that. We think that there's a place in this world both for really ugly as well as really good-looking bikes. And we all have different opinions about what's beautiful and not.

We think this is a really ugly bike:

 (Super-functional, though! This mudguard is homemade, cut out of grey plastic.)

(This part looks homemade too. And actually that's skilled!)

(We're not so sure about the position of the shifters. It could be a more comfortable solution than having the shifters on the down tube, but it looks really weird. And if you want a narrow handlebar, why not go for a road handlebar with drops?)

Ride safe!

Göteborgs Cykelfestival 2015

It's time for the annual Gothenburg bicycle festival again.

This year, as opposed to previous years, the festival is not held in the Frilagret youth culture centre, but in the Auktionsverket Kulturarena - a private (Frilagret is owned and run by the City of Gothenburg) "cultural scene". That's OK, we suppose. What is not OK is that... Let us put it like this:

If you're going to arrange a bicycle festival, and you name it "Göteborgs cykelfestival" ("the Gothenburg bicycle festival") you have an obligation. At least, that's what we think. When you call your bicycle festival "the Gothenburg bicycle festival" you represent Gothenburg. You should have a very including attitude, you should try to show the citizens of Gothenburg as much as possible and you should make as many citizens as possible come to your festival.

If you had a bicycle club called... oh, we dunno... maybe Komet Club Rouleur, organised a bicycle festival and called it "Komet Club Rouleur Bicycle Festival" we guess you could do pretty much what you wanted but...

Anyway. We think a bicycle festival is a great initiative. We really do. So we went to Auktionsverket Kulturarena today to check it out and listen to some of the lectures being given and a panel debate. (There were five lectures and a panel debate today and there are four lectures tomorrow.) But when we got there we were informed, by a really nice girl at the reception desk, that the entrance fee was 130 krona. € 13! We thought that was way too much, decided to skip it, thanked the girl and went out to grab a coffee instead. But we were curious, so we went back and asked her how many people were there. Maybe around 60, she thought. At least that was how many she had seen. How many people can the premises hold? 600.

The coffee was really good. But we have nothing to tell you from the bicycle festival because we didn't go. And we wonder, did many other "regular" not-hardcore-into-bikes people go, or was this mostly an affair for the initiated? And what does the city of Gothenburg think? They are not the organisers of the festival and they don't own and run the premises, but there were representatives (civil servants) from the traffic office at the festival, informing about their work. The city of Gothenburg has an explicit goal to make more people ride bikes. Regular people. Not just... bicycle club members. Well, instead of photos and a report from the festivel, here are some pictures from outside the venue:

(Art by the extremely talented Ollio.)

(None of the people on these photos are members of Ensliga Bergens cykelklubb. But the guy to the left on the last photo, with the backpack, is Kalle, who is way into old, vintage racers and sell absolutely beautiful bikes. Or, at least, he used to do that. We suspect that he might have had to clear out his workshop, to make way for big company gentrification. Thanks a lot, Peab!)

(A really cool cargo bike.)

(Some pretty cool bike stands!)

We are a little curious about how the bike second-hand market tomorrow will work. Will anyone interested in selling or buying stuff have to pay the € 13 entrance fee? (To be honest, after we had had our coffee we saw that someone had scribbled "100" on a poster outside the venue, so maybe the entrance fee was lowered to 100 krona. About € 10.) Or will the second-hand market be held outdoors? Last year it was. But then, last year, the festival was held in the Frilagret youth culture centre and was something like... 20 krona or so. That's € 2, and that's cool.

Well, check it out if you want to. Tomorrow the author Gabriella Ekström will be there.

 (We borrowed this picture from Göteborgs Cykelfestival. Hope that's OK!)

We think that Gabriella Ekström is pretty good. (Her book "Lejontämjaren" is really good, but to tell the truth we thought that the sequel "Vattenbäraren" mostly was weird.)

Ride safe!