meli-melo designs

Chalktrail

 

 

Chalktrail. This would be way too much fun! Yup.

Griprings

 

Bike enthusiasts, check this out: GripRings lets you personalize your handlebars. Oh the possibilities are endless!

Quick get-me-outta-here-get-away

Quick get-aways are the best, and that is exactly what we did April 25 - 29.

We left Wednesday evening after work via a short plane ride to meet up with our friend at the Calgary airport. Thursday was "Big City" shopping day! This is our chance to go shopping at stores that we do not have back home! This included Lacoste, Anthropologie (where they are hiring a part time window designer!) and Camper Shoes.

Then we were on the road to Invermere. Once we arrived, we were greeted by this warm inviting door of this lake front cabin from a relative.

TADA! A hot tub magically appeared in the backyard! Booya! And in case you did not know, hot tub have this fast forward built in time machine, honest. Not backwards as demonstrated in some movies. We went in the hot tub at 9:00 that evening and next thing you know it was 3:00! And that is exactly what vacations are for.. loose track of time.

Scratch and sniff here for fresh mountain scent. Hmmm... take a deep breath...

 

I love this sign. 

Friday we had some business to attend, Saturday was a day in Nelson and then next thing you know, we were leaving Sunday for Calgary to go to the airport to go back home. That trip was done in a flash... pooof!  

Tour de Whiteshell

 art from Mike Joos

The Tour de Whiteshell Road Race took place at Seven Sisters this past Saturday, and the image above somewhat describes a bit how i felt at this race.

This was one of my first road race. I am a triathlete, not a roadie by any means, and i felt a bit out of my elements. I am the head-down, get-through-anything type of person. I am the lone wolf who works on her own. I need to do 3 sports in my race. Road racing is so different from triathlon and i have a lot to learn from this sport before i get comfortable with it. In short this is what a very wise person,the Winnipeg CycleChick herself, told me: "There is a time to be slow, there is a time to be fast and there is a time to be really fast and they all have a reason why. There is a time to pull and a time to draft. Learn to read other competitors body language and react to them." Oooufff! All the tactics that i have to learn! Next road race will be better.

 

This is how much i am a triathlete at heart: all cyclist will have their energy bars, gels or whatever nutrition they carry with them in their cycling jersey's pockets. I had my gels taped to the top tube of my bike. I still somewhat prefer this method because i do not have to fiddle around in my back pocket to search for my gels.

Next race i will not be boxed in towards the finish line so that i can react quickly to whatever is going on at the front of the pack. I will be more in tune with the other competitors, and come out with flying colours!

 

 

Leak Kirchmann pulling the boys along for a ride! It was amazing to see someone of this "stature" at work!

 

 art from Mike Joos

 So i am hoping i will be feeling more like this at the next road race.

 

May the 4th be with you...

 

pictures from 2010 in Munich

 

Toady is my b-day! Bonne fête à moi!

And this is how my b-day party will go on: i will wear my dirndl, drink Belgium beer and have awesome ice cream treats!

Just a quick post here because i saw project that totally inspired me to do something...

Dove + The Guinness Book of World Records have come up with a fun plan. If we beat the record for “Most Widespread Social Network Message in One Hour”, then Girls Inc. gets $15,000! How many time do we need to tweet/facebook/instagram in one hour to beat the record? 11,001. What message will we be spreading? A really good one: You Inspire Me.

Here’s how it will work:

From 6 pm to 7 pm EST on Friday, May 4th, we will all Tweet, Facebook Share, and Instagram messages of goodness. We’ll ask our friends, followers, and favorite people to do the same. We will spread the goodness far and wide and hope to make a difference. As long as we use the phrase “You Inspire Me” and the hashtag#DoveInspired, it counts.

So get ready. Tell your people. You can read more about the effort here.

 

Lots has been going on and lots going on this weekend. I will make a huge effort to post some stuff soon because it has been over a month since i posted something and i have been quite overwhelmed!

 

ice cream is happiness!

high five fridays

1) I love public art. I love how it transforms something public and shared (like a street) into a giant communal canvas. And of course i love the message. These chalk-art pieces were created by artist Tommaso Guerra and are dedicated to spreading pro-bike messages in urban areas. In addition to these beautiful typographic works, Tommaso has created some lovely book covers, as well. If you’re interested in checking out more of his work, you can view his site here, or find some of my favorite projects of his here, here, here and here.

2) Alfalfa Studio had a lot of good things to say on designer and illustrator Jon Contino and his hip branding style. "This New York native represents a new generation of various designers creating modern minimalist design but with an attentiveness to the past; a vintage style with a twist, updated and reinvigorated. Textured logo, script typography, hand-drawn lettering, minimal illustration, limited retro-inspired color choices, his creative palette is vast," said Alfalfa Studio founder Rafael Esquer. Read the rest here.

3)

Drawing Apparatus from Robert Howsare on Vimeo.

Hmmmm.. i just might have to borrow Ryan's turntables to do an experiment.

 

4) The Lightning ice cream cone from Marc Johns.

5) Love the message on this spread in Austin Kleon’s wonderful book Steal Like an Artist.

Spring is cycling...

... and mud of course. March has been  unseasonably warm and then this week it has been "normal", what ever normal means now days. The earth got soft and wet and then it got cold and snowed. On my commute to work, i snap this image and it made me smile for the rest of the day. This is what spring time is all about: drag racing through mud pits and spinning those wheels and spraying mud all over. Or maybe it is about playing in the mud and getting swallowed by the mud goblins. Or maybe it is simply getting that clean bike dirty again.

Ode to mud!

Happy St Patrick's Day...well almost

Sorry if the content is a bit picture heavy but i could not resist all the beautiful images of this beautiful bike. And not to say i have waited for a while to post this bike on this specific day.

The 2012 North American Handmade Bicycle show was held in Sacramento, CA from March 3 - 4. Tim O'Donnell of Indiana's Shamrock Cycles demonstrated his fabrication ability beautifully, but also his imagination. Oh the datails!! The curves of the easily detachable rack and fenders and elements of the Celtic knot work motifs. A signature shamrock incorporated into the bidon bosses. Internal cable routing, and in-built D-lock holster, SONdelux front dynamo hub lighting and internally-geared hub.  Every detail is subtle and classy and functional. She is so pretty!

FYI: Tim won the award for Best City Bike. Kewl!!!

Happy St Patricks Day!

6 Pack Bike Bag

This made me chuckle. Commuters: the only major bicycle bag is here! 

Summer is just around the corner and this would be perfect for picnics, rides to the parks and beaches.

high five fridays

1) Pine tree stain glass that my "mom" is working on. It is almost done. She just has to put patine on it and then a frame.

2) These Clump-O-Lumps made me smile! It’s stuffed animals that can be mixed and matched thanks to the zipper. Oh, the fun that can be had! My favorite is the Shark-o the Shark.

3) Artwork done by James Victore. He also has an article titled "Op-Ed: Accepting Less to Have More".

4) Illustration by Riccardo Guasco from the book Bike Art. Would love to have this book.

5) A quote from Willie Nelson from the Wisdom book by Andrew Zuckerman.