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taking off my training wheels

sarajofrieden

bit of a convoluted and tenuous cycling link this one but worth following i think. currently featured on apple's website is artist sarajo frieden. and one of the items of work by this very idiosyncratic artist is the cd cover shown right by justin roberts for his album of children's music entitled 'meltdown'

the music is available on itunes (just type 'justin roberts' into the search box), and one of the tracks is entitled 'taking off my training wheels' (if you ever listened to the davis county cycling podcast, you could imagine them playing this) which presumably gave rise to the illustration by sarajo. so it gets a mention here because i like sarajo's style, she uses a mac and it's got a bike on it.

what other reason do you need?

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a question of balance. a collection of 24 postcards by jean jacques sempe. phaidon press £9.95

sempe collection

i confess to having never heard of jean jacques sempe before this wonderful collection of postcards arrived on thewashingmachinepost editorial desk (such as it is), and i have no idea what his sympathies towards cycling are, but they must be fairly deep, since all the bicycles depicted are very succinctly observed. aside from recently featured brooklyn artist, taliah lempert, i cannot bring to mind anyone else who has such a fluid line when drawing a bicycle, and believe me, drawing a bicycle is nowhere near as simple as it may seem (i studied at art college many moons ago, so perhaps have a better appreciation of this than most). to reduce the mechanicals to such beauty of line takes a love of the subject.

a question of balance

according to the enclosed biography, sempe is one of the world's most successful illustrators, having drawn many of the covers for new yorker magazine. he was expelled from school for bad behaviour and has the distinction of having been employed as a travelling toothpaste salesman.

this double dozen collection of cards from phaidon press is presented in a book sized cloth bound box with a sempe illustration embossed on the cover. just exactly what we are intended to do with the collection is not clear. i'm not sure i could afford to have two dozen cards framed in a manner that would do them justice (and not too sure that mrs washingmachinepost would be keen on having the walls covered thus) and while it seems a shame to have them hidden away in a bookcase in their delightful slipcase, i think this is just exactly what will happen, withdrawing them from such seclusion at appropriate moments (the adverts during cycling.tv coverage perhaps?) just to enjoy for their own pleasure.

a question of balance

with christmas coming up all too soon, if you can't afford to give that all important cyclist in your life some carbon fibre with colnago on the outside, this may be a more than affordable alternative. apparently available at all good bookshops but perhaps more readily so from the phaidon website. a true delight.

i should also mention that phaidon were kind enough to send me another selection of 24 cards, similarly packaged but depicting musicians. same price, same delight and available from the same website.

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cobbles baby! big ring films £19.99 (prendas) scott coady

cobbles baby

did you ever want to be a fireman, a train driver or a truck driver when you grew up (i'm assuming a respectful degree of adulthood in my readership here)? and did you ever manage to achieve any of those dreams? i guess not too many of us can put our hands up to that one. but scott coady can put both hands up. because he made it to the 2004 paris roubaix (won by honorary welshman, magnus backstedt) and got to see the bits that eurosport and cycling.tv don't show us. the only way you'll get to see this stuff, is to go to the race armed with a brass neck and some media passes. and scott coady is just the man to have done exactly that.

this is a real fan's movie, and all the better for the fact that it's paris roubaix. i'll happily admit that this is my favourite race in the whole wide world, and that i have only ever seen it on the two aforementioned tv channels. 2004 was before us postal become discovery channel, and scott seems to have been given unprecedented access all areas by the team, talking to the mechanics, soigneurs, george hincapie and dirk demol then following the race in a people carrier driven by pr's answer to ari vaatenen. this is like being there with a guide who's as excited as you are. with a liberal dose of humour thrown in.

scott meets up (unintentionally, as far as i can figure) with phil ligget, paul sherwen and sean kelly in the shamrock irish pub in compiegne - and there's even subtitles when sean's talking - hilarious (wonder what sean thinks?) and even manages to have a shower in those famous stalls in the velodrome. and the water is hot.

the main chapter of the dvd is (obviously enough) the cobbles baby (including some close-ups of cobbles and puddles), and with the sort of grabs at race coverage that you would expect if you were haring about trying to see as much cycle racing as you possibly could, with the occasional stop to chat with other pr fanatics at the cobbleside. there are three bonus features: a visit to omaha beach, a visit to museeuw's pub on the eve before his very last race (won by tom boonen), and a visit to belgium's cycling centre which helps young american riders adapt to racing life in europe. good stuff and definitely not fillers.

this review copy came direct from scott at bigring films in the usa (courtesy us postal no less), but it should be available from prendas very, very soon or even now. get excited about this, but whatever you do, get it.

big ring films

and while i remember, the music is decidedly un-naff, in fact, it's darned good.

if you're not in the uk, the dvd is available from bigringfilms for $24.95. scott is donating one dollar from each sale to dollars for davis, the davis phinney foundation for research into parkinson's disease with which phinney was diagnosed in 2000. i don't know if prendas are doing likewise, but if not, trundle along to the foundation's website and donate online. go on, make it two dollars.

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it's good to torque

campagnolo have a downloadable movie (mac and pc) on the evolution of their new ultra torque chainset/bottom bracket available from their website. and when the computer animation morphs to reality, guess which make of bike the ultratorque is fitted to? since the movie downloads as an flv file, if you'd rather have it in a quicktime friendly format, option click here

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a dram on the box

singlemalt.tv

this is only very tenuously cycling related but since film producer and owner of singlemalt.tv rob draper was once a trackie in oz, and because of our association with velo club d'ardbeg i think i'll get away with it.

singlemalt.tv uses the same technology as cycling.tv (so the instructions below on how to use quicktime on the mac will apply) and will use the services of noted whisky writer, charles maclean started broadcasting on 29th september this year. they were on islay over the weekend of september 9/10 filming at the distilleries. something to watch over the winter when cycling is at a minimum

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dave z on an ipod

i'm hoping i don't get into bother for this, but matt, who's the webmaster at cervelo.tv managed to have the zabriskie movie and soundtrack of dave z's time trial success at the 2005 tour prologue converted into the appropriate format for an ipod. well, for a video ipod - something i do not own, and probably neither do lots of the rest of you.

so i downloaded the video version and stripped out the audio into an mp3 and therefore audio ipod friendly format. now i can listen to dave z when i am nowhere near the powerbook. and in case you fancy a similar experience, you can download it here. this should work in all mp3 players. if you want to watch the video version, click through to cervelo.tv. (on a mac, option click the link to download. windoze people can right click and download to desktop)

and if you're there, drop matt an e-mail to thank him for his efforts

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le grand pelerinage - histoire d'une passion cyclomythique. jack fournier & bruno moreau. libris publishing €9.90

le grand pelerinage

this book (the great pilgrimage) came via jez, though i've no idea what the connection is with jack fournier (who sent it here in the first place and who drew the cartoons). however, it is rather comical, even though i have to admit that my french isn't anywhere near good enough to appreciate the subtleties of the captions. basically it's a send up of the tour de france, cycling, and the foibles of those that follow every wheel turn - and all done in the best possible taste.

sometimes cartoonists can't draw (surprising, but true) however, jack fournier can and this makes this an entertaining book, even allowing for the fact that for some of us, french is barely even a second language. most of the pages are fairly self-explanatory if you've ever watched le tour. i have a sneeking suspicion that there are even more items of french humour hidden in the pictures, but it may take repeated viewing to fathom them all.

i've had this book for over a week, and even at only 63 large format pages, it's been a source of amusement most evenings over that period. with a foreword by raymond poulidor and a cost of only €9.99 it's something you ought to have in that extensive cycling book collection.

as it says on the libris website: Les grandes epreuves cyclistes creent des rites, des rituels, des sacres, des moments d'extase. Elles engendrent parfois des comportements excessifs qui frolent l'rrationnel... Avec humour, cet ouvrage met genereusement en scene cette passion... cyclomythique !

or if you prefer snail mail Jean-Paul Rousselet, Editions Libris, 17, rue Bayard, 38000 Grenoble. tel. 04 76 84 25 03 fax 04 76 84 25 01 jp.roussel@libris.fr
www.libris.fr.

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as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

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