Post by aj1152 on Aug 27, 2008 20:10:00 GMT -8
Which side of the fence do you sit? Do bikes make the perfect accent to a room or do they scream, "Ugly alert!"? The first piece is from a person who says they're ugly and need to be hidden. The second piece is from a gentleman who has to decide between his wife in bed or his bike. Tough one.
Piece 1 From www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/bike-beautiful
Bikes are good for a lot of things — but not for beautifying the home or office. Any storage tips?
by Erin Craig – August 26, 2008
I like bikes. Great for transportation, great for exercise, fun for the kids, what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, I’ve found a fault with bikes in the past week which I can’t seem to shake.
It started a few months ago when I cleaned out my garage so well I could fit a car into it…as long as the bikes were vacated. No problem, we hung hooks on the ceiling and hoisted the “spare” bikes up to the ceiling, and put the two daily-use bikes in the semi-covered atrium near the front of our house. The atrium is secure yet makes for faster bike entry and exit compared to the garage or the side yard. As a result, moving the bikes has had an unexpected side benefit — we use them more because they’re right there, ready to go. But the new location also has an unexpected consequence: the bikes are quite visible through a big glass window, from every part of the living room. There they sit, just leaning against the plants. Ick.
Then this past week, we reorganized the TerraPass office space. A by-product of the reorganization is that all the bike commuters now have their desks in the same large room. The same large room where I have my desk, in fact. Since we have an open space with no cubicles or dividers, the bikes are, shall we say, prominent aspects of the room’s décor. Everywhere you look you see a bike hung with locks, train tags, helmets and sometimes clothing. It’s not unusual to have a half a dozen bikes strewn around the big room. Ick again. To me, it makes the place look like a either a parking lot or a dump.
Which brings me to the challenge. Is there no way to beautify a parked bicycle?
I scoured the internet for creative, interesting ways to store bicycles at home and found next to nothing. Most solutions — hooks, trees, cables — were described as “perfect for the garage” and at least as ugly as a bicycle. I looked for cool bike racks, and found a few great examples (see here and here and here), though most are designed for commercial applications and none of which would work inside an office.
As the bikers start to arrive at the office this morning, I notice that they park their bikes behind their desks, out of their sightline (but directly in mine). Even the diehards would rather not look at them.
Anyone have good ideas for beautiful bike parking? I’m looking…
Piece 2 from
cyclingphun.blogspot.com/2007/10/must-have-been-one-hot-bike.html
Must Have Been One Hot Bike
I’m going to push back the story I was going to post today until tomorrow to keep this fresh piece of juicy info hot! If I shared the first part of this story previously, I apologize, but it is somewhat important in the scheme of things.
My wife once gave me the option, gave me an ultimatum, call it what you will. I have my bike in my bedroom in my home. One day while I was gazing, yes I was gazing… far much more than just a glance or a stare, anyway I was gazing at my bike and my wife said “If you’d like, I can sleep on the couch so that you can sleep with your bike next to you.” After thinking about that for a minute, I came to the realization that she was being sarcastic. I also realized I should probably pay a little more attention to her than my bike. However I didn’t learn. I proceeded to start a conversation on how exactly one would have “sexual relations” with a bicycle. We got into far too long of a discussion, just starting a conversation about it can be categorized as “far too long”, about the subject and preceded to come up with some interesting ideas. This is neither the time, nor place for those to be shared.
The reason I bring this up; apparently the wife and I are not the only two people to ponder this. You see, recently a man was put on the “sex offenders’ register” in Scotland. I’m not going to get to deep in the story, but you can read about it for yourself. Man Who Had Sex With Bike In Court can be found in the Telegraph UK website. It’s a very interesting read. I won’t even ask why he was put on the register, since they came into his hostel room after opening a locked door with a master key, but whatever. The more important part of the story for today is that guy was trying to sex up his bike. I really don’t think I have to say anything more, do I?
And if you're really in love with your bike, you can read more about the abovementioned gentleman who is having his day in court for getting frisky with his bike here: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567410/Man-who-had-sex-with-bike-in-court.html.
Piece 1 From www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/bike-beautiful
Bikes are good for a lot of things — but not for beautifying the home or office. Any storage tips?
by Erin Craig – August 26, 2008
I like bikes. Great for transportation, great for exercise, fun for the kids, what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, I’ve found a fault with bikes in the past week which I can’t seem to shake.
It started a few months ago when I cleaned out my garage so well I could fit a car into it…as long as the bikes were vacated. No problem, we hung hooks on the ceiling and hoisted the “spare” bikes up to the ceiling, and put the two daily-use bikes in the semi-covered atrium near the front of our house. The atrium is secure yet makes for faster bike entry and exit compared to the garage or the side yard. As a result, moving the bikes has had an unexpected side benefit — we use them more because they’re right there, ready to go. But the new location also has an unexpected consequence: the bikes are quite visible through a big glass window, from every part of the living room. There they sit, just leaning against the plants. Ick.
Then this past week, we reorganized the TerraPass office space. A by-product of the reorganization is that all the bike commuters now have their desks in the same large room. The same large room where I have my desk, in fact. Since we have an open space with no cubicles or dividers, the bikes are, shall we say, prominent aspects of the room’s décor. Everywhere you look you see a bike hung with locks, train tags, helmets and sometimes clothing. It’s not unusual to have a half a dozen bikes strewn around the big room. Ick again. To me, it makes the place look like a either a parking lot or a dump.
Which brings me to the challenge. Is there no way to beautify a parked bicycle?
I scoured the internet for creative, interesting ways to store bicycles at home and found next to nothing. Most solutions — hooks, trees, cables — were described as “perfect for the garage” and at least as ugly as a bicycle. I looked for cool bike racks, and found a few great examples (see here and here and here), though most are designed for commercial applications and none of which would work inside an office.
As the bikers start to arrive at the office this morning, I notice that they park their bikes behind their desks, out of their sightline (but directly in mine). Even the diehards would rather not look at them.
Anyone have good ideas for beautiful bike parking? I’m looking…
Piece 2 from
cyclingphun.blogspot.com/2007/10/must-have-been-one-hot-bike.html
Must Have Been One Hot Bike
I’m going to push back the story I was going to post today until tomorrow to keep this fresh piece of juicy info hot! If I shared the first part of this story previously, I apologize, but it is somewhat important in the scheme of things.
My wife once gave me the option, gave me an ultimatum, call it what you will. I have my bike in my bedroom in my home. One day while I was gazing, yes I was gazing… far much more than just a glance or a stare, anyway I was gazing at my bike and my wife said “If you’d like, I can sleep on the couch so that you can sleep with your bike next to you.” After thinking about that for a minute, I came to the realization that she was being sarcastic. I also realized I should probably pay a little more attention to her than my bike. However I didn’t learn. I proceeded to start a conversation on how exactly one would have “sexual relations” with a bicycle. We got into far too long of a discussion, just starting a conversation about it can be categorized as “far too long”, about the subject and preceded to come up with some interesting ideas. This is neither the time, nor place for those to be shared.
The reason I bring this up; apparently the wife and I are not the only two people to ponder this. You see, recently a man was put on the “sex offenders’ register” in Scotland. I’m not going to get to deep in the story, but you can read about it for yourself. Man Who Had Sex With Bike In Court can be found in the Telegraph UK website. It’s a very interesting read. I won’t even ask why he was put on the register, since they came into his hostel room after opening a locked door with a master key, but whatever. The more important part of the story for today is that guy was trying to sex up his bike. I really don’t think I have to say anything more, do I?
And if you're really in love with your bike, you can read more about the abovementioned gentleman who is having his day in court for getting frisky with his bike here: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567410/Man-who-had-sex-with-bike-in-court.html.