Ugly bicycle spotting, 3

Here's another pretty ugly bicycle:

Or actually the bike itself... No. It is ugly. The blue colour is kind of nice, but the decals, that gold colour of the decals, don't match at all. And that triathlon, fast forward seatpost... Ew!

So what can we say? It's probably a very fast bike. And it probably is less likely to be stolen, due to it's looks, which is a good thing. Interestingly, when we googled "Everest Sora Racing" all the top hits were from Norwegian sites... Is Everest a Norwegian bicycle brand?

Ride safe!

... and trendies!

So bicycles are hip now, no one has missed that, have they? They are no longer simply means of transportation or sporting equipment, they are now trendy accessories. You can walk around with a bike frame in your hand but bike frames are kind of heavy. (Unless they're carbon, but then they're really not that cool to walk around with.) You can also roll it along slowly or just stand and kind of hang over it, like posers do. Preferably wearing a bicycle cap and/or some other cycling-associated clothing... Like this 1980's Adidas sweatshirt:

(We borrowed these pictures from Donny Fung's tumblr page. Hope that's OK!)

There's no doubt that this girl totally rocks this sweater, but... let's just say that our opinions about the sweater are mixed. Oh, and we're definitely not calling her a poser.

If you take your bicycle outside at least you're kind of using it. But then there are those who simply hang a bicycle on a wall, buy some bicycle-inspired interior decoration, posters... but not because they like bicycles and bicycling, just because it's trendy right now. This Monday our local newspaper Göteborgs-Posten had a full page about bicycle-inspired home furnishing in their housing supplement. And because Göteborgs-Posten usually acts like they hate bicyclists, never miss a chance to explain how horrible bicyclists are, how bicyclists take up space on the streets, are ruthless, hate cars (and Göteborgs-Posten loves cars) and so on... Because they act like that, we simply decided to steal some of their tips and publish them here. So here goes:

1. First of all we could mention that we're working on a blog post about storing your bicycle: How to store your bike, in style, part 2. (Part 1 here.) Göteborgs-Posten mentions two bicycle storing products. One which we will take up in that future blog post and Cycloc, which we mentioned in that old blog post. "Decorative even when you don't have your bicycle hung up." Ehm... No, it's not.

2. Then they mention Bruce Doscher's posters. They're actually really cool and not too expensive either. They're not the official posters from the races, though. Do a search on the internet for some super cool posters from the 1960's and 1970's. Or try this!

3. A miniature bike from Afro Art:

(We borrowed this picture from Afro Art. Hope that's OK!)

That one is really super cute. And that's it from us now.

Take care!

Hipsters, fixies and plastic models

There won't be any real bicycles today either. Or... OK, we could tell you that we just watched Shelley Olds win La Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta, followed by Giorgia Bronzini in 2nd place and Kirsten Wild in 3rd. And we think that it's great that La Vuelta follows Le Tour, and organises a race for female bicyclists, in connection with the final stage of La Vuelta. Female bicyclist deserve big races! They work just as hard as the male bicyclists but are paid less.

And we could also tell you that lately we have become a little obsessed by mountains. Or obsessed by "mountains" - we don't have any Alps or Pyrenees up here in the North. We do have the Scandinavian Mountains, but even they are quite a bit from where we live. So we have to settle with what we can find, slopes about one or two kilometres long, with an average grade of 7,5 % (i e for every 100 metres ridden you're 7,5 metres higher up). And as we mentioned a week ago, on the hardest stage of La Vuelta the last climb was just under seven kilometres long and averaged 11,2 % grades, with slopes up to 21,67 %. Compared to that we've got nothing. But hey, we just have to make do with what we've got, and as we're not pro bicyclists we're actually OK with what we've got too.

But what we wanted to tell you today is more of a continuation of the last blog post. Check out these photos:

(We borrowed these photos from Italiaanse Racefietsen. Hope that's OK!)

Pretty cool, aren't they? Plastic (or possibly metal) model bicycles, fixies and hipster male dolls! Complete with Cinelli T-shirts, even... (But where are the fixie-riding female dolls?)

Ride safe!

This post has nothing to do at all with real bicycles

Other than that it started with a bicycle ride to a plastic model exhibition. And as amends for all this non-bicycle related stuff, we'll start with some pretty cool plastic models of bicycles. There is this:

(We borrowed this picture from Hobby Search. Hope that's OK!)

one, which is probably quite easy to find. It's not super-exciting but OK. And possibly you could modify it. Ditch the mudguards, the chain-guard, the kick-stand and the luggage carrier and you have a fixie. With some drop handlebars and a racier saddle you could even make it resemble a racing bike. Or just keep it as it is, if you're into more standard bikes. That's cool too.

Then there is this:

(We borrowed this picture from Italiaanse Racefietsen. Hope that's OK!)

which actually is a racing bike. It looks really cool and it's even made in Italy. It's probably quite hard to find. And if you find it it's probably really expensive.

And lastly there are our photos from the plastic model exhibion. There were a lot of models exhibited, but these were our favourites:

 (We think this one was called Villa Nautica, and it is made from a plastic model of a ship, paper and other assorted materials. According to the description there are some scale model figures in there but we couldn't spot them...)

 (This Vulcan bomber is cool. And huge!)

 (A WW I bus)

 (Some kind of desert truck)

 (A Finnish Hawk)

 (An F-16)

 (Another F-16)

 (A Viking!)

 (This model was really impressive. It even featured a detailed, lit hangar deck!)

(Helicopters, above and below)

 (Nautilus - the submarine from Jules Vernes' novels)

 (Yep. We get it.)

 (A Victor. Cool and huge as well.)

 (Some Star Wars models. We're not really fans of the Star Wars films, but these models are cool.)

 (Maschinen Krieger)

 (This figure needs no introduction, does it?)

 (The contrast between this minion and the monsters behind it...)

 (This guy we just couldn't figure out. He spent some time arranging some tin cans and tightly drawn strings, and then started playing and to be honest it sounded... crap. Really, we can appreciate stuff like Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, but this just sounded like some mentally deficient guy randomly beating some tin cans and tightly drawn strings. He's not mentally deficient.)

 (A WW II Finnish tank)

 (A Rocket Bunny style car, apparently)

(Tyrrell P34 race cars, above and below)

 (A gold and black T-Ford. Nice!)

That's it. Ride safe!

Etapa del día - Luarca - Ermita de Alba, Quirós (Vuelta a España)

(We borrowed this image from pacmac. Hope that's OK!)

Since we have previously written about the 2015 editions of both Il Giro d'Italia and Le Tour de France... Well, we have mentioned them at least. Anyway we thought that consequently we should also mention La Vuelta a España 2015. Especially because this year is la Vuelta's 70th edition. And because la Vuelta is a bit "the forgotten race". We're pretty sure it's big in Spain, but in the rest of the world... Here in Sweden the results of yesterday's stage are printed in the sports section of most newspapers and if you have Eurosport you can watch the race on TV. But that's really it. And if you talk to regular people, i e people who are not into bicycling they usually know that there is a bicycle race in Italy called Giro d'Italia and a bicycle race in France called Tour de France. But they usually don't know that there is bicycle race in Spain called Vuelta a España. Let's change that!

Because we like Spain and we like la Vuelta. And what better day to mention this bicycle race than today, on what might possible be the hardest stage of the race? Today's stage runs between Luarca and Ermita de Alba, Quirós, and the last mountain in the race is a real killer. It's just under seven kilometres long and averages 11,2 % grades - there are slopes up to 21,67 %! We wonder if the riders even will be able to ride up those slopes, considering that they will have ridden 177 kilometres already, over five hills... Well, they should be able to do it - it's what they're paid to do. (And if not, they still have our respect.) We'll watch it in a couple of hours.

Other than that you have to say that this year's Vuelta has been affected by bad luck and drops by big names. Vincenzo Nibali was expelled after the second stage, for having hanged on to his team car. Fabian Cancellara has withdrawn, as has Tejay van Garderen and 20 other riders. Peter Sagan was hit by a service motorcycle (we thought he was hit by a medical car...) in the eighth stage, finishing the stage with his shorts ripped to shreds and with a big graze on his leg. (And he was furious!)

(Peter Sagan finishing the eighth stage. (We borrowed this picture from La Vuelta. Hope that's OK!)

Christopher Froome did not start at stage 12, after having fractured his foot in a crash. Our favourite Jussi Veikkanen, of FDJ team, withdrew after stage 11. Our favourite team - Movistar - has so far avoided any big accidents (touche du bois!) but Nairo Quintana apparently caught a cold a couple of days ago... And there has been a lot of crashes!

Alejandro Valverde followed by Nairo Quintana, both of Movistar team. (We borrowed this picture from La Vuelta. Hope that's OK!)

Well, today's stage, a rest day, five more stages and then the riders can have a rest. Until the next race begins...

Ride safe!