Tuesday 10 August 2010

A week in Scarborough

We spent last week up on the coast near Scarborough. There wasn't any cycling involved, but whenever we were out and about I tried to keep an eye out for any interesting bikes to post about on here.

Before I even got chance nosey at other people bikes, the first thing I noticed on the drive up there were some great looking (for this country anyway, which means crap for any country with decent infrastruture) cycle paths and the a much greater effort to provide facilities for cycling in general. I'm sure there is still the inevitable dodgily routed cycle lanes that appear standard in Britain, but through the eyes of someone more used to the streets of Manchester it was quite refreshing to see some effort put into providing a useable cycling infrastructure.

A bit of googling comes up with Scarborough Council's cycling strategy.

There seemed to be a thing of using old bikes as a bit of themed advertising. Such as this one advertising Scarborough Music on the main shopping street:




















There was a similar bike to this outside a butchers shop on the way into town. That one had a smaller front wheel though to allow for a bigger front basket. unfortunately they had closed and taken the bike in before I got a photo.

Here's a lovely old Pashley that looked as if it was in frequent use and not just a bit of advertising furniture:




















This couple has their young kid in a little towalong trailer. He was busy on his Nintendo whilst mum and dad did the pedalling.




















I really liked this well-used looking Dawes Super-Galaxy, but if it was mine I wouldn't have locked it up with such a skinny little cable lock. I once had a lock like that, I thought it was fine to use until one day I accidently snapped the lock shaft with my barehands using very little effort (I bought it from Halfrauds obviously)



















Nice touch on the bicycle racks, shame the only person enjoying the use of them at the time wasn't actually locking a bike up!



















When I saw this fella from a distance I thought he had a Raliegh Twenty, so I got the camera out and snapped. When I got closer I realised it was some kind of Philips folder with deraileur gears. Still nice to see the flatcap and trouser clips combo combined with a nip to the corner shop. (funny colours in the photo due to pressing the wrong setting on the camera, I quite like it though!)


Postie bike, but not a Mailstar on our way into town.




















And here it is in use on our way out of town. Liking the socks.




















This last one is in Middlesbrough, it caught my eye as it had no brake levers which is odd for anything other than a 'fixie thats trying a bit too hard' in this country. On closer inspection the owner must be happy with just a rear coaster brake.

8 comments:

  1. I went to scarborough about 3 months ago and saw some of the exact same bikes when I was there. I don't think that Pashley gets much use, I'm surprised no-one has thought to bring some scissors along and steal it yet

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  2. Maybe they just keep it clean then!. Just seemed odd that if it was just a bit of themed advertising then why would it have led lights and new tubes fitted, so I guessed it must be in use of some kind.

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  3. Hey, love the photo of the folder (wonder if I could do the same in software???)
    I've done something similar by selecting an object in the photo and turning the rest black n white to make it stand out. Takes a lot of delicate work with a mouse though - and patience - grrrr... :>D

    The postie could carry more on a Mailstar than the older bike, and his socks are a bit worrying too. In fact they're bad for cycling & he should get his ass down to their clothing stores for some with the Royal Mail logo stitched into them. Do you think they issue them? It would be about as sensible as getting rid of their bikes don't ya think? LOL

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  4. It was 'Colour Accent' mode on my Canon Ixus. basically just picks out the most vibrant colour and grayscales everything else out.

    You could do the same thing in Ps pretty quickly. Just use 'select color range' to pick a colour. Use 'refine edge' to feather/expand your selection to what you want. Then ctrl+shift+I to invert the selection. Then desaturate it.

    I almost typed something about him maybe wearing the socks as a little rebellion for all the high-viz he has to wear on a sunny August afternoon, but decided it was too cynical of me!

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  5. Cheers, I'll give that a go.

    Re socks. You could well be right about the rebellion thing. Either that or he's a hell of a 'purrsonallitty' ;>D

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  6. @ian... I thought you were an open source man, how are you going to use Photoshop without using Windows or OS X?

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  8. (Whoops - messed up the link - 2nd attempt)

    LOL yep open source all the way mate.

    I'll have to figure out how to do the same with Gimp ;>D

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