Theme Day - Bicycles

Well, fancy that! A classy European cyclery in downtown Sydney. Atelier de Velo is at 156 Clarence Street in the city, and when I made these photos the Tour de France was in full swing. It is one of four cycle shops within two blocks; a peloton of shops, perhaps. Clarence Street runs north-south, from the Town Hall until it disappears in the mess of on-ramps to the harbour bridge, commonly known as the Western Distributor. It is wedged between York Street and Sussex Street. Atelier de Velo specialises in three brands of bicycle: Cervélo Cycles, which are manufactured in Canada; Focus Cycles, which are engineered in Germany; and, Bianchi Cycles, which are designed in Italy, even though the parent company is now Swedish.

This is my contribution to the City Daily Photo Monthly Theme Day. To see further contributions to the August Theme of "Bicycles" please visit the CDP Gallery. This theme was chosen by Giacomo and his wife Gianna, who live in the Italian port city of Livorno , the Mediterranean gateway to Florence and Tuscany. They started Livorno Daily Photo on Christmas week of 2008 and have posted continuously ever since. Please pay them a courtesy visit. The cartoon on the right is by Cathy Wilcox, and first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2008.

Bicycles - 1 sleep to go ...

Cycling has been the go-to sport for quite some time now. It is non-contact - the way amateur cyclists play the sport - which means that one can stay in the sport longer. Non-contact does not mean injury-free, of course. As I indicated yesterday, cycling is not a poor-man's-sport. However, riding a bike is a poor-man's mode of transportation. So, I conclude this week of heads-up to our City Daily Photo Theme Day, which is tomorrow, with a look at bikes simply hanging about in the city by-ways. Rusty bikes. Secured bikes. Cheap bikes. Bikes for the "everyman".

Bicycles - 2 sleeps to go ...

Clarence Street Cyclery sell a TREK EDMONDA SLR 10 H1 for $15,999. Last year, Damien Hancock from Melbourne, bought a custom-made De Rosa Protos that cost $17,000. My son-in-law has a $7,000 something or other, leaning against the wall of the girls' "art-house". SiL reckons it is his shed. Hah ...

Bicycles - 4 sleeps to go ...

My grand-daughter, Alannah, turned 5 last week. She flew solo (sans training wheels) on Mothers' Day, which in Australia is the second Sunday in May. My father, Laurie (1921-2011) was 18 in 1939, when this shot was taken the morning after the awards night of the Hornsby & District Amateur Cycling Club.

Bicycles - 5 sleeps to go ...

A bicycle racked, with its partner, beside the Museum of Contemporary Art, at Circular Quay, yesterday afternoon.

Monochrome Weekend - Riding high

The Hume Highway, somewhere between Goulburn and Campbelltown, Easter Monday

A member of the Monochrome Weekend community.

Getting panned

Waiting on lower Burton Street, where Riley intersects with Oxford, for my son to arrive for our dinner date at Cafe Hernandez, I filled in the time learning to capture movement by panning cyclists.

As I stood at the back of the wide footpath to enable reaction time, that often meant that a pedestrian walked in front.


As you can see, I am learning. My aim is to freeze the moving figure and blur everything else. As yet, I cannot pace my camera adequately as I track the figure, and I stop AS I depress the shutter rather than following through.

I aim to incorporate panning into my daily shooting schedule.