Slow Clouds

I love the Bicycle Commuter Contest.  I love seeing people out on the road, riding in groups, wearing neon orange and yellow jackets, zipping around town in blur of caution and warning.  I like the fact that the bike shops always seem slightly under staffed in April as flocks people come and go with either smiles, or looks of uncertainty as they prepare themselves for a month of riding.

For those unfamiliar with the Thurston County Bicycle Commuter Contest, the BCC is a Intercity Transit sponsored event that takes place during the month of May and is designed to encourage area residents to commute by bicycle to work or on errands. Cyclists record their miles as individuals and as a team in an effort to earn prizes, but more importantly, the data is compiled to demonstrate the positive effects on the environment, individual health and traffic reduction. If you’re interested, read more about the Bicycle Commuter Contest.

This is my third year participating in the BCC and with Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters’ Chain Gang team. Generally, each team that participates in the BCC creates a team shirt and since I’m designing our team’s shirt this year, I thought I would try and lay it out by hand.  Below is a draft of the design I decided to stick with.

The design is heavily influenced by one of my favorite designers, Jay Ryan and his 2000 poster titled Everlasting The Way. (View the original design here.) Obviously, I modified my design to represent a cyclist and I tried working with two different hand drawn type styles. The first is my own take on a uppercase italicized Helvetica, with noticeable alterations done to the characters C and G. The bottom text is my version of the architype Tschichold, which was designed by Jan Tschichold in 1929 though never put into production.

After a few iterations, I finally ditched the hand drawn type for “CHAIN GANG” in exchange for digital type (Trade Gothic Standard). I wanted the hand drawn version to work, but it wasn’t and after redrawing it three or four times, it still looked forced and unskilled. Not everyone can be like Mr. Jay Ryan.  

I will post photos of the screen printed version in a week or so when they are finished. In the meantime, go ride your bike because it’s fun and it’s good for you and your fellow Olympians.

Portland 1st Annual Tweed Ride 2010 from Peaker on Vimeo.

Portland’s 1st Anual Tweed Ride took place January 30th, 2010 was well attended with over 100 cyclists clad in their finest tweed and wool knickers, skirts, vests and caps. The pack caravanned through most of the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast neighborhoods, stopping for tea at Overlook Park, cheering for a fashion show and finally settling down for a picnic.

The best part for me was watching peoples faces as they idled at stoplights or scurried down their front steps to the street. There were lots of smiles, gawking, pointing of fingers, and one woman even happily yelled while carrying a cardboard box to her car, “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” It was a most curious sight I’m sure, but one that made people smile. One gentlemen jumped out of his idling car with camcorder in hand and started filming while waiting for the mob of cyclists to pass. (See video above :30 second mark.)

Overall the ride was really fun and a great promotional tool for encouraging bicycle advocacy within the city. There we’re a few people talking about Portland’s 2030 Bicycle Plan, which was unanimously voted into action by Portland’s City Council on February 11th, 2010.

I hope that Olympia will consider a similar bicycle plan for our little city.