No not a new line of cycle-wear… short films! Two Broad Arrows is awesome and I can’t wait for the next two shorts to come out. The following from the Rapha site…

Rapha and RSA Films present three short films inspired by the people, places and stories of road racing. Johan Museeuw, Sean Kelly and Dario Pegoretti are celebrated in three cinematic portraits exploring the passion, history and drama of the sport.

Based on a trio of story-labels originally found inside the Rapha Club Jerseys, each film brings a new translation: The intense dreamscape of Nick Livesey’s ode to Johan Museeuw, Adrian Moat’s tale of discovery inspired by Sean Kelly and Ben Ingham’s intimate view of Dario Pegoretti in his workshop, all powerful representations of three distinct icons of road racing.

It has been a privilege to work with Ridley Scott Associates and such talented friends on these films.

Full-length screenings

Beginning Friday 13 August Rapha will be presenting ONE-TIME ONLY screenings of the full-length films right here on the Rapha website in HD.

From Friday 12.00am GMT to Saturday 12.00am GMT you can login and watch, starting with A Throw of the Dice by Nick Livesey on Friday 13th. Adrian Moat’s Two Broad Arrows will be screened on Friday 20th and Ben Ingham’s ‘D’ Acciaio’ on Friday 27th August.

Trailers for the features are now online:

Two Broad Arrows

See the film »

• _{Screening: FRI 20 AUG}
• _{Director: ADRIAN MOAT}

D’ Acciaio (Of Steel)

See the trailer »

• _{Screening: FRI 27 AUG}
• _{Director: BEN INGHAM}

A Throw of the Dice

See the trailer »

• _{Screening: FRI 13 AUG}
• _{Director: NICK LIVESEY}

]]> http://seedssewn.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/rapha-and-rsa-shorts/feed/ 0 seedssewn http://seedssewn.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/from-big-dig-to-big-digs/ http://seedssewn.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/from-big-dig-to-big-digs/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:50:19 +0000 seedssewn http://seedssewn.wordpress.com/?p=247 ]]> I was reading the Boston Business Journal today and way in the back (page 41 of 48) there was an article about a modern home made almost entirely from recycled materials. These materials are left over and reclaimed from the “Big Dig”, Boston’s most over rated and over priced debacle in urban planning to date. Needless to say there was and still is a lot of wasted materials to be reclaimed and reused in new and creative ways.

That is exactly what Paul Pedini, an engineer from Lexington, MA and VP of  Jay Cashman, Inc., did to design and build two luxury private, single family, residences here in Massachusetts. The first of which is in Lexington and the second in Lincoln.  The two, 4 bedroom, 4000+ sq. ft. residences are both on the market through agent Carol de Jong of William Raveis Real Estate in Wellesley. These are “Big Dig” homes for a fraction of the cost of the Big Dig and could be your for a cool 3 million dollars each… Lexington ($2,295,000) and Lincoln ($2,299,000). Word on the street is that Pedini is even planning another similar project in Cambridge.

Check out this PBS Grey to Green episode about Paul and his awesome recycling ideas.

Lexington: Boasts 6, 000 tons of concrete recycled from Boston’s major highway renovation. This impressive eco-friendly home offers 6 levels with every convenience and amenity. Open floor plan includes state of the art 1, 000 sf designer kitchen/family room, dramatic living room with 26ft ceilings flanked by walls of custom insulated glass. Beautiful master suite and high end baths. Roof top hot tub and Japanese garden, exercise room, 4 door, 2 car garage. ~ de Jong

Lincoln: The concept of using the recycled structural materials in residential housing won many awards and this second version shares many of the same features that attracted worldwide interest. The open floor plan is ideal for entertaining. The living/dining space is almost 1, 000 sq. ft. each and connected by a small interior bridge. The high-end kitchen features bold modern wood and lacquer cabinets by Pedini of Italy and top of the line appliances. Unusual and interesting in design, the home features a two-level garden and deck, an enormous master suite and three additional bedrooms.~ de Jong

T0001-0A

This is a really functional and beautiful tool with an amazing attention to detail right down to the vellum packaging sleeve and the reflective-tagged buffalo plaid polish cloth.

You can get yours at OPEN.

1. Make it Work for Women.

Researchers from John Pucher to the folks at the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals say the same thing – women are the indicator species for a well-fucntioning bicycle infrastructure. And here’s what women want: cycle tracks – bike pathways that are physically separated from car and truck traffic. Unfortunately, cycle tracks are more expensive than simple painted bike lanes or sharrows, because they can involve breaking up sidewalks and planting physical barriers between the flow of car traffic and the cyclists.

Another way to get women, especially women of all colors and younger women, out there is to sponsor more programs that emphasize the joy of biking, like this Brooklyn “cycling-based curriculum” with beautiful orange Batavus bikes.

Nothing better for boosting bike moral than pretty girls on pretty bikes. Photo by Malias via flickr CC license.

2. Do That Bike Share Thing. Right Now.

Vélib in Paris is still the best example of a bike share that begat a signficant change in a city’s cycling habits. Paris’ iconic bike share program is now a firm part of the image of the city, and has been extended out to the suburbs. But you don’t need to be Paris to have a successful bike share – Washington D.C. started almost pitifully small with its bike share program but managed to capture the imagination of locals, and now its share is also expanding to include outer areas of the city – plus D.C. has a spanking new bike lane smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. Perhaps it’s nothing more than senedipity, but a bike share is the most obvious way for a city to show its serious about attracting cycling.

Cities strapped for cash can follow London’s lead and get sponsored.

Takes the baby on board and gets up hills, too. Photo Cleverchip via flickr cc license.

3. E-Bikes Are One Less Car. Support Them.

Cycling purists tend to metaphorically spit on the likes of the electric bike enthusiasts. “Cheaters” is the most common epithet thrown at e-bikers on the bike path. But as Portland has learned, once you have early adopters of cycling out on the streets, you need to tap that core of a city population that is interested in cycling, but concerned about safety and some of the other hurdles hindering biking. E-bikes have their issues, but they provide mobility to those not ready for their first century ride or road race, i.e. the rest of the potential cycling public. A solar canopy sponsored by someone like Sanyo and shared by e-bikes and electric cars is another good goodwill offering to “One Less Car, Too” e-bikers.

In Portland, the Sprockettes clad in pink and black are a common feature at bike events. Photo by Gabriel Amadeus via flickr CC license.

4. Have a Pedalpalooza.

Currently running in Portland is a seventeen day long progressive bike festival known as Pedalpalooza. A loose conglomeration of more than 250 events, Pedalpalooza or a similar set of events allow different types of riders to find their tribe. In Portland, that can be anything from tall-bike-riding cyclists jousting with padded sticks, to “pretty panty” riders showing off their underwear, to naked cycling enthusiasts painted up and baring it all, to local city entrepreneurs networking while taking a spin through the city. Events are key to Portland’s bike-friendly camaraderie and they can help new cyclists get a feeling for the city streets in a slightly-safer atmosphere. And a city doesn’t need to start big – one or a series of Cyclovia-style events will almost certainly bring out riders and pedestrians to take back the streets…if only for a few hours.

It’s harder to kill people when traffic is no more than 20 miles per hour. Photo Sanjay Virji via flickr.

5. Slow and Steady Arrives Alive.

What many road-raged car drivers don’t seem to realize is that cyclists can make the streets safer for everyone. That’s because those pesky people on bicycles are a very visceral way to calm traffic. And slow traffic is safer traffic – speed limits of 20 miles per hour inside a city’s inner limits can reduce traffic fatalities to next to nil because drivers have time to stop before they hit a cyclist…or a child. Portland is pursuing lower speed limits on some of the streets where it will implement bike “boulevards” – those are shared bike and car paths with street markings called sharrows or painted lanes – in order to give new cyclists the additional perception of safety they crave.

One place the need for speed is appropriate…the Velodrome. Photo Trefethen via flickr.

5. Repurpose a Little-Used Stadium as a Velodrome.

One problem Portland realizes it has but doesn’t quite know how to fix is putting together diverse bike subcultures into a unified voice for urban cycling. Road-race style cyclists and speeding messengers definitely were the first to take to the streets and more or less make them safer for the rest of us to get out on our bikes, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for reversing the still-prevalent trend of giving over city streets to King Car. But using the morning rush hour to do a training ride doesn’t jibe with a making the inner city bike lanes friendly for the multiple styles and speeds of the next wave of bikers.

While it isn’t the only solution, re-making under-used city facilities into a space for a Velodrome for track-style bicycle racing is one way to boost the profile of sporty cycling at the same time that a city tries to foster good manners and civilized speeds on the streets of the inner city.

The tube bag holds your tube while it’s in your backpack or messenger bag so it is not uncoiling at inopportune times. If you have ever tried to leave your spare tube in it’s box while you are riding, you know that by the time you need it, the box has fallen apart and your tube is a tangled mess! My tube bags are made from recycled fabric and have allowed the shop to buy tubes in bulk, reducing packaging at the distribution level and thus reducing residual post-consumer waste.

Here’s the deal… if you have one of these tube bags, when you need a new tube you just bring it to  OPEN and get $1 off your replacement tube!!

I made 52 tube bags for this event and they gave them ALL away for free! If you want one for yourself or a friend stop by OPEN and ask about how you can get your hands on one or more!!

I have been wanting to write more about my peers and so here you go. While reading up on the 2010 London Tweed Run, which took place last month, I came across a brooks saddle that had been engraved with a tweed/herringbone design. I was thrilled. I have always had an affinity for engraved leather and for leather saddles as well, so this invoked excitement naturally.

The artist is Kara Ginther and her work is superb. Only vegetable dyed full-grain leather can be carved this way, which makes Brooks saddles a perfect canvas so to speak. Kara is working out of Madison, WI, but her leather work has spanned the globe. Check out her FB page here and more pics here.

REPOST:

Why would I need a vintage industrial strength machine for making hats you ask? Well, Seeds Sewn is not only the best handmade cycling hats in Boston, it will soon be expanding to include cycling bags! Crazy ideas have been seizing me in the middle of the night. Ideas of bag designs and redesigns to the extent that if I don’t get up and start writing out my ideas I can’t get back to sleep.

Jon was having similar fantasies of shoulder bags for the light traveling cyclist. So when we started chatting one night over dinner at my place we knew this was going to be awesome. We will keep you posted as we version out and prototype bag.

Until then, just look at my new beauty!

I am proud to introduce to you, for the first time in use for cyclist’s needs…

Grey Wolf

Big thanks to Joan Sutton for taking some great shots!