Buenos Aires Cycle Chic

Bat For Lashes bike clip

2010-06-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Brandazza cycling-inspired fashion show

2010-05-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

Manuel Brandazza is a designer from Argentina. This was sort of a comeback show for him because he quitted making clothes about five years ago. The show was done at Parque Thays, a big park near Retiro station that hosts a huge Botero sculpture of a naked torso, which added a classic and strangely decadent feel to the show. As you see, the clothes mix very different fabrics and textures and feature geometric and symmetric designs that often resolve in sort of a demonic face from a manga hell. It's astronaut chic with tribal designs: the kind of clothes that the musicians from the Sun Ra Arkestra or the characters in a science fiction utopia would wear. All Brandazza clothes have an otherworldly quality to them. This collection was inspired by cycling. These are vintage/future/alien cycling and living clothes.

Before the show...

My girlfriend Ana got the best dress!

The show

After

Then, ambient pop artist Aldo Benítez played some tunes. Just him, his mic and his boom box...

Another fourteen songs about cycling

2010-05-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Mogwai Superheroes of BMX

múm Slow bicycle

Red Hot Chili Peppers Bicycle Song

Brian Wilson Roll, Plymouth Rock

XTC Season Cycle

Madness Riding on my bike

Luka Bloom Acoustic Motorbike

Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine

Autechre Bike

Alain Bashung L’arrivée du Tour

Belle & Sebastian The Fox in the snow

Clouddead Bike, Part 1

Danny Elfman Park Ride from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure OST

Lisa Germano Riding my bike

BA cycling

2010-05-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

Very bad video (shot by myself) that shows the basics about cycling in Buenos Aires. In a nutshell: lots of cars (some illegally parked), no other cyclist in sight, no bike lane and not a single driver that even remotely considers the possibility of a bicycle approaching their car.

Critical Mass: May ride

2010-05-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I wasn't there this time. My girlfriend Ana took the picture. There were almost 400 hundred bikes. she says.

Bike ride to work

2010-04-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday Morning. I took off from home at 9 AM. After a few blocks along Córboba Ave. I got to Alvarez Thomas Ave. Luckily there are almost no cars.

A fellow worker on his bike.

This street is Galván, the barrio here is called "Saavedra", I´m about to leave the city. Notice that there aren't any bike paths in sight.

This little brigde crosses to the Greater Buenos Aires, what we call "provincia". Below me, the General Paz Ave. that separates the "city" of Buenos Aires from the "Greater" Buenos Aires.

Not the way you wanna go. The "riachuelo" (small river) is extremely polluted, specially around heavily populated areas like La Boca (one of the barrios that the tourists like to visit here). The riachuelo has been cause of controversy over the years because every government has promised to clean it but none has fulfilled the promise yet.

This is called "Villa Martelli", typical middle class barrio of the Provincia de Buenos Aires.

Going under...

and under. Another fellow worker/cyclist. Two bike commuters in half an hour is not a bad average at all for this city!

9.30 AM Not there yet. Still no bike path. No need for suspense, I won't find any on the whole trip.

Almost there.

Some 19 kilometers from home... The Telefé studios in Martinez, the place from where one of the shows that I work for is broadcasted live.

9.45 AM I park the bike.

The lot.

Work

Green & Orange

2010-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Our friend Felix, sent us these photos

Top ten (actually fourteen) bicycle songs

2010-04-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

10. Queen, "Bicycle Race"
This was, of course, unavoidable. It is probably the best known song about cycling. Queen (and specially early John Deacon songs) are now a guilty pleasure for me. But when I was a kid I unashamedly liked them. The naked "fat bottomed girls" of this video helped, I must say. When I was at school there was an inexplicably antinomy: you were either a Queen fan or a Kiss fan. You had to choose between them, as if there were no other rock groups in the world. I was a Queen fan. They played in Argentina when I was 11 and, at that age, it was a revulsive event to see (on TV) a real british rock band with an ambiguously provocative singer in leotards! The "I don't like Star Wars" and "I don't believe in Superman" lyrics posed a minor problem to me, but I discovered that I could disagree with them and still like the song.

9. Ex aequo: Beach Boys, "It's a beautiful day" / Shonen Knife, "Cycling is fun"
The Beach Boys song is a b-side saved by a rocking piano and a propulsive chorus. Brian Wilson was long gone (we're talking 1979 here) so this is not exactly their finest hour. But who can dislike a song that talks about californian freeways jammed with bikes instead of cars. Shonen Knife is a mix of a 60's group and Sonic Youth in an all-girl japanese trio. That is to say that their song feels as sunny and fun as the boys tune.

8. Ex aequo: Tomorrow, "My white bike" / Pink Floyd, "Bike" / Dukes of Stratosphere, "Bike ride to the moon"
Tomorrow are an overlooked British invasion group and this was their only hit (later covered by hard rock disaster Nazareth). The Pink Floyd song has a similar psychedelic sound since it's from the Barrett era. It's the closing track on their first album but it doesn't compare with masterpieces such as "Lucifer Sam". The Dukes song is clearly based on the Barrett tune.

7. Tom Waits, "Broken Bicycles"
The bike as metaphor for lost love. From the great One from the heart soundtrack.

6. Sugarcubes, "Motorcrash"
Seems to be about a girl that rescues injured people from car accidents with her bike. Nice Björk vocals.

5. Boards of Canada, "Happy cycling"
Great track off their superb Music has the right to children album (1998). I think the video was done much later and the idea was lifted from Michel Gondry's video for the Chemical Brothers' "Star guitar" (or perhaps it was the other way around).

And now, for something completely different
Bonus track: Ives Montand, "A bicyclette"

Back to the countdown. The last four...
4. The Clientele, "Bicycles"

3. TV on the radio, "Bicycles are red hot"

2. The Smiths, "This Charming man"
This is really not about cycling, but it starts with the words "A punctured bicycle / On a hillside desolate" so I think it counts. And, anyway, this is one of the best song ever, so it could fit in any "best of" list. If you don't think it's valid, replace it with The Pixies' "Tony's Theme".

And the quintessential
1. Kraftwerk, "Tour de France"

What's missing?

Critical Mass: April Ride

2010-04-05T05:03:00.000-07:00

On the double

2010-03-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

Now reading...

2010-03-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

More strips

2010-03-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Striped bike

2010-03-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Red

2010-03-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Color-coordinated tee and trainers

Now listening to...

2010-03-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

The bird and the bee, "I can't go for that".
This is a live version of one of the tracks in the new Bird and the Bee album, called Interpreting the Masters Vol 1. A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates. The album turned out to be pretty bland and soulless, basically because Daryl Hall outsings this bird in every song. They use the same sequenced, synthetic and not particularly original sounds all over the album, so it feels repetitive and poor in craftsmanship and concept. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist the idea of a Hall and Oates covers album by an indie/electronic group (because I knew that they would not take an ironic and bullshit approach to a 80's hit). This is what I'm listening to nowadays on my bike.

Cycling in NYC

2010-03-21T20:31:00.001-07:00

Close encounters in the new bike lane

2010-03-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today I went for my first ride in the "Ciclovía Norte", the bike lane that connects Retiro and Plaza Italia recently inaugurated by the city government. There were a few bikes and dozens of people walking or jogging in it. Even when they have a sidewalk just for them, the pedestrians decided to walk on the bike lane, I don't know if because they thought that it was made for them or because it was new and they felt that they had to try it. I didn't mind to share the path so I cycled slowly and tried to enjoy the ride. But two minutes later, when I was passing a little girl riding a children's bike (of course, I had to ride over the opposite lane to do it) a jogger run into me. He could have avoided me, but I think he expected me to get off the bike path (or to run over the little girl, I don´t know) to let him through. "YOU ARE RIDING ON THE WRONG SIDE!" he shouted, to which I reply that I was passing another bike and that HE was jogging on a path that was only for bikes. "SAYS WHO?" he shouted again in typical arrogant porteño manner. I couldn't see any signs around so I had to repeat myself: "This is a bike path, it's only for bikes. YOU could have very easily avoided me just by moving one step to your right". Again, he stressed his point: "Why? YOU were riding on the wrong lane". "I was passing another bike, that's the only way to do it". Perhaps he too thought that the dialog was getting repetitive so he move onto his final argument: "You are an idiot", he said. I felt the adrenaline pumping into my veins and replied: "No, YOU are a fucking asshole!" I guess he sensed that I was very willing to get into a more serious fight so he turned around and began to jog, again over the bike path. Since I got the last word, I felt that I had "won," even if I´m not sure exactly what. But this feeling helped me to relax faster. A few seconds later I saw the sign that I was looking for but I couldn't figure it out. Was that fucking jogger right? Am I an idiot? (This is a rhetorical question, dear reader) What does this sign mean to you? If it means that people and bikes must share the lane it kind of misses the point of having a bike lane, more so when you have a sidewalk just a few meters away.

Wrong?

Right!

More Critical Mass photos

2010-03-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

Critical Mass Buenos Aires: March ride

2010-03-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur

Felix, photographer, check his website

Bicipunks

Cruisers cut the street

Angry cabbie thinks he owns the road

The ride goes on...

until we meet another demonstration!

Sayonara

2010-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

In Miyashima

2010-03-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Kyoto: my favorite things

2010-03-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Kyoto was the city I liked best. It's modern and very traditional at the same time. Ancient and new. You have the high end stores, of course, and the Starbucks everywhere but at the same time you can still see Maiko (apprentice geisha) walking into a restaurant in Gion and houses more than a hundred years old. The city feels more livable, more friendly and more stylish than any other place I've been in Japan. And it's the hometown of Astroboy!

Streets of Gion

The golden palace

Kyoto Manga Museum

The "wall of manga"

The vaults: first editions

Maiko drawn in manga style

A real maiko

Funaoka Onsen

An Onsen is a hot spring. Funaoka is the eldest one in Kyoto. It was established in 1923. We went after a long ride with our bikes, in a very cold winter night. When we arrived we were on the verge of freezing ourselves. Two hours later, we left like floating in a bubble of steam. We ride one more hour to our place and never felt the cold again. Admitance fee is 5 dollars and you can stay as long as you want. Men and women are separated because no clothing is allowed in the baths (not even towels). I was the only foreigner sharing the pools with twenty naked japanese men. Everyone pretended to be cool about it but I have to say that at least those japanese men could not avoid to look at a westerner's penis. I guess it was just curiosity. I never felt unconfortable, though. The place is beautiful (very nice vintage white tiles on the walls) and the electrified water bath is something to try out!

Best bike store: Moulton specialist Moku 2plus4

Japan must be the place with most record stores per capita in the world. In Shinjuku (central Tokyo) only, the Union Disk chain has like ten stores, each one of them specialized in one genre (both in vinyl and CD) and all of them very well edited. But in Kyoto you can find stores that never went into CDs and that even have some stuff still sealed from the 70's and 80's. Like this one...

Not a bad find at all

More Kyoto

Bunraku theater

2010-03-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

We went to a Bunraku play at the National Theater. It lasted four hours (and they only performed excerpts from the complete play). The story dealt with samurai, ronin, fake identities, fights, kidnapping and murder in the Edo period. It was like viewing a "live" action anime. Each (very realistic) puppet is handled by the puppet master (whose face you can see, but it' amazing how they manage to express, to signifie absolutely nothing) and his assistants (who use a black mask to signifie that they are invisible). The story is told by several singers that take turns and that do a sort of sprechgesang (they middle point between singing and talking), accompanied only by a shamisen (sort of a three stringed banjo) player. As Roland Barthes says, the perfomance is devoid of hysteria: the players do not try to show off their art but to dissapear in the play.

Pachinko!

2010-03-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

Panchiko is like a vertical pinball in which you can win small prices and, occasionally, money. Your only intervention consists in releasing the ball (you have to turn a wheel to select the speed: medium is the right one). The rest is luck. The ball has to go into a little hole to give you a change to win. Old time players say that the trick is knowing which machine to choose. Some people make a living out of it. And much more lose a lot of money every day. Inside the manga decorated parlors the noise is deafening, stadium rock level: there are hundreds of machines emiting high pitch noises and some gabba-like techno music. Not really recommended.

Nara Koen

2010-03-04T12:21:00.000-08:00