Tag: clever

#365daysofbiking Baby, that’s neat


June 5th – I’ve been passing by this graffiti – if one can call it that – for weeks and only recently realised what it is.

I have no idea of the purpose or intent, but it’s very neat.

A baby, in the womb, on an otherwise unremarkable wall between Victoria Terrace and the shops on Lichfield Road, Walsall, just by the Mellish Road island in the Butts.

I really, really like it and would love to know more…

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#365daysofbiking Spring has sprung:

September 13th – Spotted in a customer’s bike shed, and improvised, clever repair to a brake calliper with a broken return spring.

The return spring – present in some form in nearly every type of brake – forces the brake off once the lever is released.

Since the brake cable pulls the yoke awards the cable end stop to engage the disc brake fitted here, forcing the two apart will duplicate the effect of releasing the brake as performed normally by a return spring. The spring has clearly broken and instead of replacing the whole calliper, the owner has released the cable, threaded on a very stiff spring and re-assembled the cable. The cable retains the spring and the brake operates as normal.

Clever. I’m impressed.

June 29th – Ever wondered what that hill was on the horizon? Find dioramas a bit hit and miss? There’s a great piece of software for your smartphone called Viewranger.

It’s actually a quite good 2d/3d mapping application, but has this great augmented reality feature where you hold it to a view with the camera and it labels what you can see.It’s quite remarkable, and that functionality is free, too!

It was great for the view from Morridge over the Roaches.

Find out more at the developer’s website here. 

October 20th – Oh my goodness this is clever, but I’ve given up trying to think of a way to explain it – it’s just best to take a look yourselves.

The Co-operative store at Streets Corner in Walsall Wood seems very popular, and the new build has been a generally welcome addition to the local amenities. In the same building, there are two other retail units, still to be occupied. They looked blank for a while, then some time ago, so clever person came up with this.

Behind the windows, images of the inside of a store have been arranged at angles and flat on, to look like aisles in a store. Because of the angles, as you move past, they give a remarkable convincing three-dimension effect.

A reader pointed this out to me ages ago and I’ve struggled to find a way to represent it. It’s a really neat optical illusion, and works best at night.

I take my hat off to the designer…

August 9th – I pootled into Brum on the train for an early evening curry on the Soho Road, and did a little shopping in Brum while I was about it.

These street performers were drawing good crowds of astonished onlookers, which amused me as it was clearly separating those with some mechanical knowledge from those without.

It is very clever and visually stunning, but it can’t be comfortable for extended periods, so hats off to the chaps doing it.

Can you spot how it’s done?

May 20th – In Leicester today, I noticed this graffiti on a railway bridge. The original text says ‘Small minded vandals’ and some wag has added underneath ‘wearing socks with sandals’ – top marks though for the Anti-Nazi League stencil, and the remarkably detailed stencil of a woman on the capstones.

Graffiti can be a pain in the arse, but I do appreciate it if it’s creative, witty or makes its environment more interesting.

January 19th – Sometimes, a solution to a problem is so simple that you wonder why it’s not in common use. At the bike jumble the day before, I got two of these water bottles (known as ‘bidons’ to pretentious roadie arses everywhere) which have a dome cap that loosely clips over the nozzle and remains attached by a band around the collar of the bottle.

The purpose is simple; it stops mud thrown up by the front wheel from contaminating the bit you drink from. This is a common problem with mountain and cross bikes as you can see, and I’m not convinced drinking from a mud-contaminated bottle didn’t give me the dreadful bout of campylobacter I suffered over new year 2011/2.

In conditions like we’re enduring at the moment, this is a godsend, and ensures I’m not throwing away half bottles of drink due to the fear of the dirty nozzle.

These bottles are marketed by cycle accessory brand BBB and I got two for a pocket-pleasing fiver. 

Bargain!