I WILL NEVER LIVE LIKE YOU.

Thanks to @evilnoodle!

Photos by Chris Lee

Chris’ photos are always great and his 35mm shots from the Red Hook Crit Navy Yard race are nothing short of exceptional. Head on over to his Flickr for more! That portrait of Dan is awesome man.

I’ve started to post some of the film photos from China that didn’t make it to the Ends book or photo show up on the Norse Photo. Most of which are riding shots, something I love taking but for whatever reason, didn’t make it into the Ends.

Mission Workshop still has a few copies of the books left and we’re working out international shipping rates as well… More on that this week.

Tools of the trade:
Shot from a moving bicycle
Mamiya 7ii / 65mm
Kodak Portra 400 / high res scan

Tarragon and white bean salad, masala dal, and mango and pistachio frozen yogurt in today's Delicious Links... 

I did all the vocals on this album. It’s called “HELL ORBS: PLEASURE NEXUS” and it’s out today. Listen to the whole album here and download it if you like it.

If you have to pick just one song to listen to, make it “Piss Admiral Dildo Captain.”

The Potechi Potato Chip Grabber ($29) lets you eat potato chips, popcorn, or other snacks without getting your fingers greasy.

You know what else comes from Asia and does the same thing for $29 less than that? Chopsticks. Sorry if I just blew your mind.

Expectation:

Reality:

The CMWC makes its way to Lausanne this year and Brooks England is showing their support the best way they know how: prizes and by releasing a commemorative saddle package. This year, they teamed up with PEdAL:ED to make the package even more special.

“Our CMWC Collector Sets have been limited to 300 pieces, and will be available by the time our winners are standing on the podium in Lausanne from selected Brooks Dealers of Excellence worldwide.”

Check out the the saddle here and the shoes here.

See more at Brooks.

One of the best FYXO jerseys is now available. Introducing the Carrefour.

“French for crossroads / intersection.  This design is a collision between FYXO colours and the Mapei cubes synonymous with Paris-Roubaix thanks to their doping dominance in the 90s.

Melburn’s cobbled back alleys are thousands of miles from the stone farm roads of Northern France, but at speed and with the ringing of cowbells, the bumpy experience is the same.

If you are ever at the crossroads, always go North.  Hell awaits you.”

Pick one up here!

Photos by Samson K Hatae

Out of all the documentation I’ve seen from the Wolfpack Hustle CVCCTR criterium event last Sunday, Samson’s are by far the most diverse and the best representation of the event. I feel like I was there and obviously, I wasn’t.

Check out all of Samson’s photos at his photography blog.

See more information at TDTTTDDTDTDTDTTDTDTTDTDTDTTDT

A bright orange river of sparks from a campfire cascades from a high cliff in Yosemite National Park, May 1958.
Photograph by J. Baylor Roberts, National Geographic

Ever noticed how artists and designers hold up their work in front of them when having it photographed? Primarily as a way to show it displayed, but also to show scale. Well, now there’s a more permanent hanging solution that mimics that and it’s called Handvas. Handvas are 3D printed hands that attach to the wall to hold up your prints and posters in a more creative way than tape or thumbtacks.

Using a high-quality 3D printer, the white hands come in two sizes and in a polished finish.

Looking for a cool new home bar? Bombay Sapphire and design firm, AvroKO have teamed up to craft the limited edition Bombay Sapphire East Gin Wheel.

If you’re a gin lover, you know a thing or two about Bombay Sapphire. However, from the design side, AvroKO is responsible for several high-profile projects including LAVO, Beauty & Essex, Kid Robot, and Saxon & Parole in NYC. The firm uses storytelling as a way to create innovative designs and transformative experiences.

Inspired by the “Lazy Susan” turntable, the new Gin Wheel is handcrafted from exotic walnut. Its base – on which the main body spins on – is a plate made of brushed stainless steel. The Gin Wheel’s design celebrates the classic nature of the Gin & Tonic cocktail (of which it’s meant to celebrate!) while boasting an imaginative and refined aesthetic.

The main body opens to high quality bar tools, glassware, removable cutting boards, coasters and custom made aluminum tongs that double as a locking mechanism. There’s also storage for ice and garnish for your cocktails.

Starting next month you’ll be able to buy one of these from The Future Perfect. Bottoms up!

Submitted by Mood

Thanks to @alex_france!

Dead

Yesterday after I got done shooting one of Chas’ bikes, we were about to roll home when Lindsey stopped at the top of a hill and I snapped this photo. I really miss having a dog! More on these two later…

Pick up one of the mens and ladies edition Brooks Cambium C17 online today. This issue is a limited-edition run, so swoop one of these vegan saddles up fast. See more information at the Brooks Blog.

Photo by Luke Batten

I like what Ten Speed Hero does with their product shots, whatever it is. Minnetonka Moccasin + Ten Speed Hero Socks + Lake Michigan = marketing genius? Whatever it is, it’s working. Check out the full “sock look book” at TSH.

I spent my Saturday afternoon, avoiding the Parisian summer crowds and tiptoeing along the train tracks of the “Little Belt” railroad (La Petite Ceinture), a surviving relic of a bygone era, closed since 1934; open for pleasant summer strolls if you look hard enough for a way in …

Built in 1862, the Petite Ceinture is a great way to see Paris from a different perspective  as the railroad’s bridges peep over the boulevards every few hundred yards. The tracks run along the backs of artist ateliers which you can’t see from the street.

The railroad was a circular route (hence “the little belt”), connecting the main train stations of Paris within the old fortified city walls.  This is one of the old stations, Gare de Charonne, which has since been converted into a café and rock’n'roll music venue, La Flèche d’Or. Of course when the métro was built, it was to be the end of the Petite Ceinture.

More than 150 years later, the Petite Ceinture is colorfully decorated, both by the graffiti and 200+ species of flora and fauna that have overtaken the wooden tracks put in place under Baron Haussmann. The tunnels of the obsolete railroad are also said to have the easiest access points into the Paris catacombs.

Can this really be right in the middle of Paris?!

Officially off-limits to the public, the national rail service SNCF has left the tracks largely untouched, just as they were for all these years.

A good vantage point for peeking into Parisian backyards!

So if you’re interested in taking a stroll along the Little Belt yourself, look for the  animals peeping over the wall on Rue Florian (the tiny street opposite Philippe Starck’s Mama Shelter Hotel where you can have cocktails on the terrace overlooking the railroad). Behind a large grey gate, which I can’t guarantee you’ll always be lucky enough to find ajar, a few locals with a passion for gardening appear to have squatted some land on the side of the railroad. I had no invitation, but when I happened to walk by, there was a brocante going on in the neighbourhood that day. I assume they felt like welcoming anyone who cared to see what was behind the door.

Maybe next time I’ll pluck up the courage to find that access point into the catacombs …

:::

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

.

Tagging is typically considered an urban art. At the very least you need walls to write on, right? Not necessarily – some clever artists have started to stretch cellophane between any available supports, making paint-ready surfaces out of thin air.

Suddenly, rural settings (sans buildings) are fair game – mountains and forests can become backdrops for spray-painted expression. The translucent nature of the plastic ‘canvas’ employed adds a fascinating layer of visual complexity for artists like Ches working in the cold winters around Moscow, Russia (above).

None of which is to say that city contexts will not work for this alternative approach. In fact, the temporary, light and portable nature of the surface material makes it an easy sell for would-be critics who might not approve of tagging on concrete, brick or other more permanent walls.

Sites like Cellograff feature stretched-plastic installations in impressively central places, including major urban parks, museums and monument sites in and around Paris, France. These two short time-lapse films show how the process works from start to finish.

Fixie bros! ( Chas, T-Bear, Dylan )

Photo by Bklynjosh

For as bad as it looks, everyone appears to be ok. Last night’s Red Hook Crit Navy Yard course proved to be too much for 98% of the field.

Photo by Michael Williams

I receive what I would consider “gems” in the form of emails from time to time. This one in particular came from Michael in Sacramento. A lifelong Merckx fan, Michael actually got to visit the factory back in 1985, where, as he described, he was too much in awe to focus. Literally.

Amazing… Hopefully, there will be more on the site from Michael in the future. Even if I have to travel to Sacramento to document it myself.

What would happen to the Earth if the Sun suddenly switched off?

—Many, many readers

This is probably the single most popular question submitted to What If.

Part of why I haven’t answered it is that it's been answered already. A Google search for what if the Sun went out turns up a lot of excellent articles thoroughly analyzing the situation.

However, since my recent articles on sunsets, the rate of submission of this question has risen even further, so I’ve decided to do my best to answer it.

If the Sun went out ...

We won’t worry about exactly how it happens. We'll just assume we figured out a way to fast-forward the Sun through its evolution so that it becomes a cold, inert sphere. What would the consequences be for us here on Earth?

Let's look at a few:

Reduced risk of solar flares: In 1859, a massive solar flare and geomagnetic storm hit the Earth.^[1] Magnetic storms induce electric currents in wires. Unfortunately for us, by 1859 we had wrapped the Earth in telegraph wires. The storm caused powerful currents in those wires, knocking out communications and in some cases causing telegraph equipment to catch fire.^[2]

Since 1859, we've wrapped the Earth in a lot more wires. If the 1859 storm hit us today, the Department of Homeland Security estimates the economic damage to the US alone would be several trillion dollars^[3]—more than every hurricane which has ever hit the US combined.^[4] If the Sun went out, this threat would be eliminated.

Improved satellite service: When a communications satellite passes in front of the Sun, the Sun can drown out the satellite's radio signal, causing an interruption in service.^[5] Deactivating the Sun would solve this problem.

Better astronomy: Without the Sun, ground-based observatories would be able to operate around the clock. The cooler air would create less atmospheric noise, which would reduce the load on adaptive optics systems and allow for sharper images.

Stable dust: Without sunlight, there would be no Poynting–Robertson drag, which means we would finally be able to place dust into a stable orbit around the Sun without the orbits decaying. I’m not sure whether anyone wants to do that, but you never know.

Reduced infrastructure costs: The Department of Transportation estimates that it would cost $20 billion per year over the next 20 years to repair and maintain all US bridges.^[6] Most US bridges are over water; without the Sun, we could save money by simply driving on a strip of asphalt laid across the ice.

Cheaper trade: Time zones make trade more expensive; it's harder to do business with someone if their office hours don't overlap with yours.^[7] If the Sun went out, it would eliminate the need for time zones, allowing us to switch to UTC and give a boost to the global economy.

Safer Children: According to the North Dakota Department of Health, babies younger than six months should be kept out of direct sunlight.^[8] Without sunlight, our children would be safer.

Safer combat pilots: Many people sneeze when exposed to bright sunlight. The reasons for this reflex are unknown, and it may pose a danger to fighter pilots during flight.^[9] If the Sun went dark, it would mitigate this danger to our pilots.

Safer parsnip: Wild parsnip is a surprisingly nasty plant. Its leaves contain chemicals called furocoumarins, which can be absorbed by human skin without causing symptoms ... at first. However, when the skin is then exposed to sunlight (even days or weeks later), the furocoumarins cause a nasty chemical burn. This is called phytophotodermatitis.^[10] A darkened Sun would liberate us from the parsnip threat.

In conclusion, if the Sun went out, we would see a variety of benefits across many areas of our lives.

Are there any downsides to this scenario?

We would all freeze and die.

Last week, I made a post about No 22, a Canadian company who is producing Made in the USA titanium track and road frames. Their road frameset, the Great Divide, retails for around $2,500 (Enve tapered fork, Chris King i8 and Thomson clamp included) and as these photos show, builds up quite nicely with your choice of kit. The guys sent over some photos showing both a Campagnolo Super Record 11 and Dura Ace 9000 build.

Check out more below.

I've been told that if the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a bowling ball, it would be smoother than said bowling ball. My question is, what would a bowling ball look like if it were blown up to the size of the Earth?

—Seth C.

A good, professional-quality bowling ball is smoother than the Earth.

Phil Plait, of Bad Astronomy, took a look at the claim that the Earth was smoother than a billiard ball. He concluded that the Earth was smoother but less round, based on published billiard ball roundness tolerances. However, he couldn’t find any information on the size and shape of a billiard ball’s pits and bumps.

Fortunately for us, there are people who digitally scan bowling ball surfaces.

These scans (along with various measurements of ball roughness^[1]) tell us that a high-end bowling ball is quite smooth. If blown up to the scale of the Earth, the ridges and bumps^[2] would be between 10 and 200 meters high, and the peaks would be between one and three kilometers apart:

By Earth standards, this is quite smooth; our highest mountains are 40 times higher.

What would this bowling ball world (we’ll call it “Lebowski”) be like?

For starters, bowling balls are a lot less dense than rock, so Lebowski’s surface gravity would be a quarter the strength of Earth’s:

It would also (at first) have no atmosphere.

The finger holes would be about a thousand kilometers across and a few thousand kilometers deep.

On Earth, holes this big would expose the molten interior. But Lebowski doesn’t have a molten interior.

The Earth’s core is hot for two reasons: It’s still glowing from the heat of all the dust collapsing together when it formed, and it’s full of radioactive metals. Lebowski wouldn’t have either of these, so its core would start out cold.

The holes would be far too big to hold themselves open against gravity; On that scale, the polymers in the bowling ball would behave more like a liquid. In the space of about half an hour, the holes would undergo a slow-motion collapse.

As they collapsed, the material around the holes would heat to a glow. At the center of the hole, a white-hot jet of charred hydrocarbons would fountain outward into space.

When it was over, Lebowski would be left with massive scars, each marking the location where an abyss collapsed to form a molten sea.

And now, thanks to this question, whenever I look at the Moon, I’ll notice the Sea of Tranquility, the Sea of Serenity, and the Sea of Crisis, and I’ll think: Finger holes.

But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.