Sketchbook of a GPS Artist

Six months. Two wheels. 50 GPS doodles.

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Stephen

Since I started pedalling my art on the streets of Victoria on the first day of 2015, I’ve amassed a portfolio of 50 GPS doodles – 34 pictures, 11 bike-writing messages and five creations that comprise a combination of both. Click on the poster below to see 31 of my favourites…plus the one that started it all!

Below the poster, I’ve included the link to each featured GPS doodle and its accompanying write-up.

GPSdoodles.com Garmin GPS Strava art by Stephen Lund in Victoria BC street art urban art GPS=tracking art

32 of the 50 GPS doodles Stephen Lund has created since January 1, 2015, using his bicycle, his Garmin Edge 800, tens of thousands of calories and a whole lot of creative energy

AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF GPS CRITTERS

QUEENS OF THE EMPIRE & KINGS OF THE MOUNTAIN

MYTHICAL, IMAGINARY & INTERPLANETARY

PREHISTORIC BEASTIES

A MIXED BAG OF GPS DOODLES

CELEBRATORY DOODLES + BIKE-WRITING

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bicycle, bicycling, bike-writing, creativity, cycling, cyclist, garmin, gps, gps art, strava, strava art, street art, urban art, victoria bc | 132 Comments

Dragonfly chillin’ in the summertime heat

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Stephen

Dragonfly by GPS artist Stephen Lund in Victoria, BC, Canada GPS Garmin Strava art cyclist cycling creativity animals insects dragonfly

A GPS-art dragonfly doodled on the streets of Victoria, BC, by Stephen Lund

For the 65 or so kilometres (40 miles) I pedalled to sketch this lovely creature, the mercury hovered at around 29ºC (84ºF). (My Garmin says the temperature spiked to 39ºC but I think it’s exaggerating.)

Way. Too. Hot.

I’ve rotate the map 180º for ease of viewing.

See it on Strava

Posted in gps art | Tagged creativity, cycling, cyclist, dragonfly, garmin, gps, gps art, insects, strava, strava art, street art, urban art, victoria bc, wildlife | 4 Comments

#OlympicDay do-over

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Stephen

A repeat of yesterday’s ride…with a lot less GPS scatter

#OlympicDay – June 23, 2015 – by GPS artist Stephen Lund in Victoria, BC, Canada GPS Garmin Strava art cyclist cycling creativity 2015 Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro contest

Version 2 of my #OlympicDay bike-writing ride shows a lot less GPS scatter than the first one…but it’s still not scatter-free

Since yesterday’s #OlympicDay doodle didn’t turn out quite as planned (thanks to all sorts of GPS scatter in the lettering of “Olympic”), I figured I’d give it another go this morning.

As you can see, it turned out much better…though how I ended up with a circumflex on the “a” is beyond me.

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in bike-writing, gps art | Tagged #OlympicDay, bicycling, bike-writing, contest, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, IOC, Rio de Janeiro, strava, strava art, victoria bc | 1 Comment

June 23 is #OlympicDay

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Stephen

(Judging by my #OlympicDay doodle, it’s also GPS ScatterDay!)

My #OlympicDay doodle on #OlympicDay – June 23 – didn’t turn out exactly as planned thanks to some inexplicable GPS scatter…but you get the drift

Today – June 23 – is #OlympicDay, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) calls on people all over the world to get off the couch and get moving!

To motivate people to get active, IOC is offering a chance to win a trip for two to Rio de Janeiro in the #OlympicDay contest. All you have to do is use #OLYMPICDAY to show how you get active.

The contest runs till the end of June.

About the Strava Doodle

One of the ways I get active is by indulging my Strava-doodling obsession. At 18.4 km and just over 45 minutes, my #OlympicDay doodle was comparatively quick. And apart from one short segment at the top of the “O” where I had to ‘connect the dots’ between two dead-end roads, my #OlympicDay route was uninterrupted.

As for the GPS scattering happening along 48.437º latitude…the afternoon was windy, but I didn’t think it was THAT windy!

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in bike-writing, gps art | Tagged #OlympicDay, bicycling, bike-writing, contest, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, IOC, Rio de Janeiro, strava, strava art, victoria bc | 2 Comments

100 miles of dizzying silliness

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen

summer solstice silliness – Strava art by Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps strava art cycling bicycle cyclist bike-writing summer solstice

A fitting caption for the Tripleshot Summer Solstice Century – 100 laps of Circle Drive at Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park

Back in 2013, about a week before the summer solstice, a fellow Tripleshotter came up with an idea so ridiculous, it was certain to become a Tripleshot tradition.

“Hey,” Simon announced, “I’m thinking of celebrating the solstice by doing a century…by riding around Beacon Hill Park 100 times.”

As the finishing point of our weekday rides, the Beacon Hill Park loop is well known to every Tripleshotter (as are the Park’s resident peacocks, who have a habit of congregating on Circle Drive precisely where and exactly when we’re in the midst our all-out sprint finish).

Circle Drive is almost exactly one mile around, so our summer solstice century calls for exactly 100 laps*. For our winter solstice ride – a metric century (100 kilometres) – we circle the Park 62 times.

Idiotic, yes – but that doesn’t stop dozens of us from getting up at 3:30 a.m. and joining the ride, which gets underway between 4 and 4:30.

En route to this year’s TSSSSC (Tripleshot Silly Summer Solstice Century), I doodled a caption for the morning’s activity.

The second image is a close-up of my ride around and around and around Circle Drive.

* For the record: I completed only 81 laps of Circle Drive. I tallied the balance of my 100 miles (and then some) while doodling my message on the way to Beacon Hill Park – around 36 km (22 miles) of bike-writing.

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Beacon Hill Park, bicycle, bicycling, bike-writing, century ride, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, strava, summer solstice, victoria bc | 2 Comments

A pest. For a pest.

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Stephen

I give you your spirit animal, Alan Cassels.

raccoon – Strava art by Stephen Lund Victoria BC garmin gps strava art cycling bicycle cyclist animals wildlife mammals Procyon lotor

The Victoria raccoons that rummage through my garbage every night remind me a lot of Alan Cassels. While slightly more intelligent than a rat, he is far less graceful and every bit as much of a pest.

Early on in my Strava-doodling days, a fellow Tripleshotter goaded me into bike-writing a seemingly harsh message across Victoria, BC.

“Alan Cassels,” it said (in an elegant Cannondale-crafted script), “you suck, Mr. Hairy Nose.”

Not surprisingly, other members of Tripleshot lauded it as one of my finest works. (One called it “the pinnacle of realism and artistic truth.”)

It was also Alan who hounded me relentlessly for Strava porn. To hush him up, I Strava-sketched this beauty. She seemed to satisfy him for a while, but now Alan is back at it.

While I have no desire or intention to fulfil his request for a high-profile critter congregation that’s more than likely fake, I thought I’d go ahead and doodle a raccoon.

Alan has much in common with the common raccoon, which is slightly more intelligent than a rat but far less graceful and every bit as much of a pest.

And then there’s this: during a Tripleshot ride back in 2012, a fearless raccoon threw himself under Alan’s front wheel and sent the blowhard tumbling ass over teakettle, all for the amusement of the rest of the critters in the roving raccoon pack. Pest versus pest, and the smaller pest prevailed!

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in gps art | Tagged animals, bicycling, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, Procyon lotor, raccoon, strava, strava art, victoria bc, wildlife | 1 Comment

A Thursday morning spin around Italy and Sicily

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Stephen

A European country recreated in a North American city. GPS doodling makes anything possible!

GPS-art illustration of Italy and Sicily by GPS artist Stephen Lund in Victoria, BC, Canada GPS Garmin Strava art cyclist cycling creativity Italy Sicily Europe Mediterranean geography cartography

A GPS-art illustration of Italy and its largest island, Sicily, by Stephen Lund on the streets of Victoria, BC. The inset illustration shows the actual shapes of Italy and Sicily.

On Wednesday mornings, I often join the Fairfield Farm Team for a ride whose route (as several Strava followers have pointed out) looks like Italy.

Yes…a little.

This got me thinking. “If a route through Victoria inadvertently looks a little like Italy, surely there must be a route through Victoria that purposefully looks a lot like Italy.”

I think I found it.

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

I was very near the end of my ride when I happened upon Florence Street – a perfect fit with my Strava-doodle of Italy.

Posted in bike-writing, gps art | Tagged bicycling, cartography, creativity, cycling, Europe, garmin, geography, gps, gps art, Italy & Sicily, Mediterranean, strava, strava art, victoria bc | Leave a comment

Congratulations, Oak Bay High Class of 2015!

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Stephen

A Strava-art send-off for the final graduating class of the “old” Oak Bay High School

GPS-art send-off for the Oak Bay High School Class of 2015 by GPS artist Stephen Lund in Victoria, BC, Canada GPS Garmin Strava art cyclist cycling creativity Oak Bay High SD61

A GPS-art send-off for the Oak Bay High School Class of 2015, created by a proud father with his bicycle, his GPS computer and about 35 kilometres of asphalt

Yesterday evening, I attended the graduation ceremony for the Oak Bay High School Class of 2015 – an impressive send-off for this year’s 258 seniors…my eldest son among them.

This year’s grads will forever hold the distinction of being the last group to graduate from the school’s current (and decidedly historic) buildings, which date back to 1929 and 1953.

For their final two years of high school, the Class of 2015 patiently endured the noisy distractions of construction as a new Oak Bay High took shape right next to the old one. The old buildings will be razed this summer; and when school resumes in September, returning students and staff will convene in shiny new facilities.

Cheer up, Class of 2015. You may not get to enjoy the new classrooms and labs, but you’re the first graduating class in Victoria – possibly in all of Canada – EVER! – to get a great big Strava-doodle send-off. And that’s way cooler than a brand new school.

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in bike-writing, gps art | Tagged bicycling, Class of 2015, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, graduation, Oak Bay High School, strava, strava art, victoria bc | Leave a comment

#Now Or Never…for Canada’s TO2015 athletes

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Stephen

A GPS-art shout-out to Team Canada’s athletes for the 2015 Pan Am & Parapan Am Games

#NowOrNever tribute to Team Canada by GPS artist Stephen Lund in Victoria, BC, Canada GPS Garmin Strava art cyclist cycling creativity 2015 Pan American Games TO2015 Pan Am Games and Parapan Am Games #NowOrNever Kirsti Lay Track Cycling Team Pursuit

#NowOrNever • A GPS-art tribute to Team Canada’s contingent of athletes for the 2015 Pan Am Games & Parapan Am Games in Toronto, Ontario [click image to enlarge]

It’s just 36 days until TO2015 – the Toronto 2015 Pan Am & Parapan Am Games.

After years of sacrifice and determination in the relentless quest to compete among the world’s best, Canada’s athletes will vie for gold and glory on home soil – a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The #NowOrNever campaign offers a glimpse into the athlete’s journey to the Pan Am Games beginning from the first jump off a diving platform, the first bike ride, the first gymnastics flip…. You can view the one-minute #NowOrNever video here.

Hosting around 6,000 athletes from 41 countries in 36 sports, 51 disciplines and 365 events in and around Toronto, Ontario, TO2015 will be the largest multi-sport competition ever held in Canada. The 2015 Pan Am Games run from July 10 to 26. The Parapan Am Games take place from August 7 to 15.

About the Strava Doodle

To create this doodle, I cycled around 50 kilometres. The vast majority of the lettering follows actual roads in Victoria, BC, as does more than half of the maple leaf’s outline. For the remainder, I had to “connect the dots” by turning my Garmin OFF and ON at carefully planned points.

See it on Strava

Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com

Posted in bike-writing, gps art | Tagged #NowOrNever, athletes, bicycling, Canada, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, Pan Am Games, Parapan Am Games, strava, strava art, Team Canada, TO2015, victoria bc | Leave a comment

A city-sized tribute to the Wounded Warriors

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Stephen

A Strava-doodling Ride in Support of the Battlefield Bike Ride

The Wounded Warriors Canada logo graphic, doodled as a show of support for the 90+ Canadians taking part in the Battlefield Bike Ride from June 12–20, 2015

In a little over a week, nearly 100 Canadians will set off on an incredible, and incredibly important, seven-day cycling odyssey: the 2015 Wounded Warriors Canada Battlefield Bike Ride.

The 555-kilometre journey begins at Vimy Ridge Memorial and follows the footsteps of Canadian WWI troops into Belgium and its historic Flanders Fields. From Bruges, the ride’s focus shifts to WWII and the major role Canadians played on the path to Victory in Europe as the world marks the 70th anniversary of VE Day and the liberation of the Netherlands. The ride ends in Nijmegen, Netherlands – the site of the only Canadian war cemetery in Holland.

The purpose of the ride is to raise funds and awareness on behalf of Wounded Warriors – a not-for-profit organization that supports Canada’s ill and injured Canadian Armed Forces members, Veterans and their families and provides a spectrum of care focused on mental health (in particular, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

About the Strava Doodle

A member of my bike club is among the nearly 100 cyclists from across Canada who’ve met the minimum fundraising requirement ($4,000) to participate in the Battlefield Bike Ride. Over coffee after last Wednesday’s ride, he asked if I thought it possible to recreate the Wounded Warriors logo as a GPS doodle.

Well…here’s the answer!

While sketching the figures inside the maple leaf required a lot of Garmin OFF/Garmin ON dot-connecting, 90% of the maple leaf itself followed actual roads. Notably, Veteran Street and Service Street form the top right edge of the maple leaf. To create this doodle, I cycled just shy of 60 kilometres.

See it on Strava

Veteran Street and Service Street form the top right edge of the maple leaf, adding a compelling dimension of thematic relevance to the GPS doodle.

Posted in gps art | Tagged Battlefield Bike Ride, bicycling, Canadian Armed Forces, creativity, cycling, garmin, gps, gps art, logo, PTSD, strava, strava art, Veteran Street, victoria bc, Wounded Warriors | 1 Comment

AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF GPS CRITTERS

QUEENS OF THE EMPIRE & KINGS OF THE MOUNTAIN

MYTHICAL, IMAGINARY & INTERPLANETARY

PREHISTORIC BEASTIES

A MIXED BAG OF GPS DOODLES

CELEBRATORY DOODLES + BIKE-WRITING

A repeat of yesterday’s ride…with a lot less GPS scatter

(Judging by my #OlympicDay doodle, it’s also GPS ScatterDay!)

I give you your spirit animal, Alan Cassels.

A European country recreated in a North American city. GPS doodling makes anything possible!

A Strava-art send-off for the final graduating class of the “old” Oak Bay High School

A GPS-art shout-out to Team Canada’s athletes for the 2015 Pan Am & Parapan Am Games

About the Strava Doodle

A Strava-doodling Ride in Support of the Battlefield Bike Ride

About the Strava Doodle

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