¿Tiene una jirafa rojo?

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Stephen

A heartbreaking tale with a two-giraffe ending

Strava art giraffe by Stephen Lund Victoria BC Garmin GPS Strava art cycling bicycle cyclist

I wanted to buy a red giraffe to commemorate the success of my Strava giraffe. How I ended up with two is a tale of incredible sadness. BTW, that’s Garmina on the left and Geoffrey on the right.

Two weeks ago, I was broiling on a Sayulita beach when a trio of Mexican girls no older than 10 approached with armfuls of handmade stuffed animals – lions, monkeys, zebras and giraffes, all cute and brightly coloured. One of the girls inched forward to show her wares.

I elbowed my wife, who’d recently breezed through a Spanish for Travellers course. “Ask her if she has a red giraffe,” I said. (Just a week earlier, my Strava giraffe had cantered merrily across the Twittersphere, and a red giraffe seemed an apt memento of my brief flirtation with fame.)

“¿Tiene una jirafa rojo?” she asked.

The young girl dropped her bundle of stuffies in the sand. “Espera,” she said, and then she disappeared into the tangle of tourists and palapas that lined the beach.

At least half an hour had passed before her friends, who’d been lingering nearby, dashed over with a red giraffe in hand. They pointed toward another vendor to show where they got it.

I hesitated – I really wanted to buy from the girl who’d originally approached us – but our time to say bye to the beach was nigh, so I dug through my backpack for 150 pesos and took possession of one red giraffe.

I named him Geoffrey Pedro Stravinsky – GPS for short.

Twenty or so minutes later, as we were shaking sand out of our towels and packing our beach bags, who should reappear but the original girl, breathless and beaming and clutching a red giraffe!

When I held up Geoffrey to show her I’d already bought one, she crumpled. Her shoulders dropped and tears welled up in her eyes, and as she slumped slowly away her friends crowded around to console her.

It was heartbreaking.

I called her back, and in broken Spanish my wife sussed out what had happened. Determined to get me una jirafa rojo, the girl had run all the way home and asked her mother to make one. She watched and waited while her mother stuffed and sewed, and then she raced back to deliver the goods.

Her sadness was unbearable. And that is why I left the beach that day with two giraffes – Geoffrey and his hastily fashioned companion, Garmina Paprika Sayulita (also GPS for short).

Garmina Paprika Sayulita (left) and Geoffrey Pedro Stravinsky

Garmina Paprika Sayulita (left) and Geoffrey Pedro Stravinsky

 

 

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Fine dining in James Bay

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Stephen
Giant anteater • Strava art by Stephen Lund on the streets of Victoria BC garmin gps art strava art cycling cyclist bicycle animals

A giant anteater slurps up a tasty snack in one of the West Coast’s oldest neighbourhoods

Perched on Victoria’s southwest corner due north across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles, WA, James Bay is North America’s oldest West Coast neighbourhood north of San Francisco.

And by the look of things, it has an ant problem!

Fortunately there’s a giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) on the loose in Victoria.

After sniffing out its quarry, an anteater uses its sharp front claws to tear into anthills and then feasts by flicking its tongue up to 160 times a minute.

Sometimes called an “ant bear,” the giant anteater is quite common in Los Llanos (Venezuela’s tropical grasslands).

How this one found its way to Victoria is anybody’s guess.

See it on Strava

NB • The image here varies slightly from the actual ride as I used Photoshop to remedy two minor glitches caused by two wrong turns – one at the base of the tail, the other at the top of the rear left leg.

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If at first you don’t succeed…

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Stephen
Nine-banded armadillo – Strava art by Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps strava art cycling bicycle cyclist

After yesterday’s armadillo fail, I was eager to get back out on the streets of Victoria and give it another go.

…try, try again.

Though I wasn’t all that thrilled to go out and retrace many of the same roads that made up yesterday’s “almost” armadillo, I was eager and determined to right yesterday’s wrongs.

Also it was Friday afternoon, and this provided the perfect excuse to take a break from work and ride my bike in the sunshine.

I’m much happier with this specimen. It’s a nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) – a solitary, nocturnal critter found in North, Central, and South America.

Say, did you know that armadillos harbour Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium that causes leprosy? So if you should happen upon an armadillo, don’t touch it. Or kiss it. Or eat it.

Consider yourself warned.

See it on Strava

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A well-fed rat from the Roaring Twenties

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Stephen
Armadillo fail – Strava art by Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps strava art cycling bicycle cyclist

It was an off-day for Victoria’s Strava artist and a sad day for his daughter, whose high hopes for a Strava armadillo went woefully unfulfilled.

As every artist knows, there’s often a gap between vision and output – between what you conceive and what you actually create. Sometimes, that gap is chasmic.

My daughter asked me to Strava-doodle an armadillo. (She actually requested an arma-dee-yo, since she’s really quite tickled by the Spanish pronunciation.)

I studied a few armadillo images, and then on my map of Victoria I sketched out what seemed to me to be a pretty fair likeness of a “little armoured one” (which, I learned, is the translation of armadillo from Spanish to English).

That, unfortunately, is the only thing I was able to translate with any degree of accuracy. After 26 kilometres of Strava-sketching, I could only laugh (and thank the universe it didn’t happen on a mermaid-scaled project) when I saw the outcome.

Instead of an armadillo, I’d drawn a pudgy, pouty-faced sewer rat in a frilly flapper-style dress.

Charleston, Charleston, gee how you can shuffle –
Every step you do, leads to something new.
Man I’m telling you, it’s a lapazoo!

See it on Strava

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The Siren of the Salish Sea

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Stephen
Mermaid of the Salish Sea • Strava art by Stephen Lund in Victoria BC garmin gps strava art mermaid siren temptress Salish Sea

This beautiful creature of the deep required more than 200 kilometres of cycling in and around Victoria, BC

Beautiful but dangerous, the Sirens of ancient myth lured sailors with their enchanting music and voices to wreck their ships and meet their doom on the rocky coast of their island.

Well, this beauty of the deep was nearly the ruin of me…and three of my bikes! Lured by the notion of doing a huge yet intricate work of Strava art, I was drawn irresistibly into a punishing 11-plus hours of riding (not including hours spent stopped at the side of the road, poring over my map). I suffered. And my bikes suffered.

Here’s a little write-up about the experience, which I penned before I downloaded my ride…

It’s 11:10 Sunday morning – some 28 hours after I rolled out of bed to start work on my Strava mermaid.

I got up just after 5 am Saturday, eager to get an early start. En route to the starting point, I got a flat – and then another – so I rolled slowly home on a flat rear tire to swap bikes and start anew. On bike #2, I got a puncture at exactly the same bend in the road, so on a flat rear tubular I rolled home again to once again swap bikes.

I was “third time lucky” with bike #3, but it was nearly 9:00 before I clicked “Start” on my Garmin and got underway.

The degree of detail called for a crazy amount of map-checking, dot-connecting and retracing routes, so it was a slow, slow go. In fact, when I called it quits well after dark on Saturday, I was only about three-quarters done.

On Sunday I was back at it by 6:30 am, and it was nearly 11 before I finally rolled up to the end point. (The freewheel bearings on bike #3 made quite a fuss for the last hour, but everything held together to the end. Phew.)

Although the road sections in my mermaid add up to 90 kilometres, she required far more biking back and forth between connecting points where the map didn’t cooperate. My total distance was actually more than 200 km, and my total moving time on the bike was 11.2 hours.

I haven’t downloaded her yet. I’m scared to. After all that time and distance (and all those mechanical issues), if she doesn’t turn out, I’ll go berserk!

See it on Strava

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The beauty of chin-warts and nose-whiskers

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Stephen
Wicked witch of the West Coast • Strava art by Stephen Lund on the streets of Victoria BC garmin gps strava art cycling cyclist bicycle gps-tracking

Including a few fine details (like my West Coast witch‘s chin wart and nose hairs) will add another dimension of impressiveness to your Strava doodles.

After I scrawled a bike-writing message on the cobbled streets of Bucerias a couple days ago, a fellow Strava member commented, “I just noticed the accented e’s – that’s attention to detail!”

I heard similar remarks after I sketched Wicked witch of the West Coast (“Geez – she’s even got a wart on her chin and a couple hideous hairs growing out of her nose!”) and my Strava giraffe (“When I zoomed in, I saw that you went up and down both sides of the highway to make the fringe of the giraffe’s tail. Impressive!”)

Yes, there is beauty in simplicity; and I’ve seen many outstanding Strava doodles free of “warts and whiskers.” But in my limited experience as a Strava doodler, I’ve found the creations that get the most exuberant reviews and draw the most enthusiastic expressions of awe are those that include a few small but thoughtful details.

Happy doodling!

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Vive México

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Stephen
Mexico – ole! • Strava art and bike-writing by Stephen Lund on the streets of Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico garmin gps cycling cyclist bicycle cobbles

It was slow going over bone-rattling cobbles to create this little commemoration of our Spring Break 2015 holiday in Bucerias, Mexico

Technically, I’m on holiday. But the Strava art obsession never really rests, and I’d’ve been really quite sad to have spent two weeks in Bucerias without adding at least one more piece to my Strava doodles collection. (I guess I can call it my first international work of Strava art.)

I’d set out to scrawl this bike-writing message a couple days ago, but after a terribly wrong turn three letters in, I aborted the mission.

Apart from the fact that I was riding in wholly unfamiliar areas, this relatively small bike-writing effort was big on challenges. Steep cobblestone streets that narrowed into deeply potholed dirt lanes. Barking dogs nipping at my shiny new Sidi shoes. Motorcycles darting out of side streets. Intersections without signage. And chickens crossing the road, for whatever reason.

The route ends right on the doorstep of Bici Bucerias – the great group of guides I’ve been riding with (and whose bike I’ve been riding on) in and around Bucerias.

See it on Strava

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The post my biggest fan has been waiting for

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Stephen
Alan Cassels sucks Strava art and bike writing by Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps Strava art cycling cyclist bicycle

Yes, Alan Cassels sucks. Even he admits it. To find out why, click, read and enjoy!

Okay – before you jump to any conclusions (like “Holy smokes, that Strava artist is mean-spirited SOB!”), let me tell you about Alan “Mr. Hairy Nose” Cassels and how he earned this 54-kilometre dressing down.

Alan is a fellow Tripleshotter and a fellow writer, but when it comes to appreciating the vision and passion that together drive the pursuit of Strava artistry, he’s a Philistine.

In response to an early bike-writing effort that I posted on our club forum, he penned a feeble poem suggesting I’m an ADHD-stricken “Strava-spewing junkie.” When I responded with a poem of my own*, he extended this invitation:

Next excursion on your bike I dare you to write ‘Alan Cassels Sucks’ in large enough letters to be readable from the space station…and while you’re at it, might as well write ‘and he’s slow, and mildly feminine and never wins the sprint and he cuts his own hair and wears clothes that don’t fit, and has hairy nostrils and, and, and…’ Dare ya.

So I did.

* If you’re interested in reading Alan’s poem, my rebuttal and the bike-writing effort that started it all, click here and enjoy! It’s really quite hilarious.

See Alan’s “tribute” on Strava

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The Strava Artist’s Workplace Hazards

Posted on March 9, 2015 by Stephen
Strava artist Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps art cautionary tale crash cycling cyclist bicycle

When you’re out on the streets creating Strava art, it pays to pay attention, ride defensively and “mentally rehearse” different crash scenarios.

The work of the Strava artist is fraught with peril.

While venturing down unfamiliar sidestreets and alleyways – often in the dark – I’ve encountered gaping potholes, loose gravel, fallen tree limbs, skittish deer and fat raccoons…all startling and potentially perilous. I’ve bush-whacked through brambles, scrambled over chain link fences and skidded down muddy hillsides. Often, my Strava art feels more like a military training exercise than a cycling activity.

But the biggest dangers, far and away, are the motor vehicles racing to and fro and the unpredictable creatures presumably controlling them.

On February 2, I was about 10 km into a new Strava bike-writing message when a pickup truck pulled quickly through a stop sign on the opposite side of the road, straight into my path. With no time or space for evasive action, I braked hard…but as the roads were wet and I was going more than 40 km/h, I knew a collision was inevitable.

Fortunately, due to a near miss in a similar situation several years ago, I’d mentally rehearsed for that very scenario. What would I do, I’ve often wondered, if I found myself suddenly face to face with the side of a minivan or transit bus or, well…a pickup truck?

The best course of action, I decided, would be to turn my front wheel hard to the left or right and throw my shoulder into the impact. The alternative – riding straight into the vehicle – would result in a powerful meeting of face and head with metal or glass…a recipe for serious injury, never mind the damage to the wheel, fork and frame of the bike.

With a split second to react, my mental rehearsals made all the difference. After a short skid that slowed me from 43 to 20 km/h (according to my Garmin), I turned my front wheel hard to the left and turned my right shoulder to take the brunt of the impact.

And did it work? Well, the photos here show the damage to me (scraped chin and shoulder), my bike (scuffed Garmin and handlebar tape) and the pickup truck I collided with.

You be the judge.

PS – As you can see, I botched the “b” in my bike-writing message and would have had to do it all over again anyway. Is this what they mean by “silver lining”?

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A tribute to BC’s Best Cycling Club

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Stephen
A big shout-out, Strava style, to Tripleshot Cycling Club – BC's Cycling Club of the Year 2014 by Stephen Lund garmin gps strava art bike-writing cycling cyclist bicycle

A big shout-out, Strava style, to Tripleshot Cycling Club – recognized in 2014 as BC’s Cycling Club of the Year

63 kilometres of bike-writing from January 8, 2015… 

Shortly after scrawling my Happy 2015 message and muddling through my big Strava selfie, I set about planning my third Strava art and bike-writing project: a shout-out to the club I ride with in Victoria, BC.

In 2014, Cycling BC – the provincial governing body for the sport of cycling in British Columbia – recognized Tripleshot as “Road, Track, Cyclocross Club of the Year.”

With upwards of 200 members, Tripleshot is Victoria’s biggest cycling club, well known for camaraderie, inclusiveness and an enthusiastic spirit of fun.

I hooked up with Tripleshot right after I moved to Victoria three and a half years ago. After hundreds of rides with the Tripleshot gang, I can say unequivocally that the “Club of the Year” honours are well-deserved indeed.

But oh, to be in Phoenix or Baltimore or San Fran – anywhere where the grid of roads offers a vast canvas of “Strava art pixels”! There’s no such thing as “writing on ruled paper” here in Victoria.

See it on Strava

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