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"If boulevards aren’t too wide, like 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, they can serve to break the monotonous pattern of streets and blocks, let sunlight in, and function as a landmark (so you know where you are)."

—

There’s not much new in David Byrne’s Perfect City, a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed that nonetheless is worth the click-through for a peak into the Talking Heads’ - well, head.

I had never before heard of his idea of a boulevard being too wide, however, and I’m intrigued. I’m not familiar with 9 de Julio, but will have to go through my mind’s eye of this summer’s European travels and see if I have any educated opinions about boulevard/esplanade width.

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Make: Online : Bike accessory leaves a trail of chalk behind you. Pictured hipsters notwithstanding, I like the idea that a colorful remnant of bicycle use would help cyclists to assert a claim to the streets. Commuting with one of these is both performance and function, always an interesting combination.

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From the Week in Review (which Lauren and I are realizing is rather fluffy, if enjoyable), A Modest Proposal - Bikers, Take the High Road:

Next comes another species of biker, which I call the Really Cool Biker, because they are really cool — usually younger than the Lance Armstrong types, wearing skinny jeans and a windbreaker imprinted with, say, the name of a bar or a bowling alley, and riding a sleek, fixed-gear frame bike that I myself am too uncool to even adequately describe.

Now, as the Tour de France vs. the tourist melee is exploding, the Really Cool Bikers attempt to skirt the scrum of tourists, using the moment of chaos as an obstacle course, causing tourists to break like pheasants after a bad shot. The Really Cool Bikers speed silently around terrified bystanders, leaving a trail of bike-induced horror.

But it’s kind of fun to skirt the melee!

"Armstrong, who turns 37 this month, will compete in the Amgen Tour of California, Paris-Nice, the Tour de Georgia, the Dauphine-Libere and the Tour de France — and will race for no salary or bonuses, the sources, who asked to remain anonymous, told VeloNews."

— By no means was Lance the greatest cyclist, though I’d put him as the greatest Tour cyclist ever - he descontructed the race and rode it with an intention no one had ever had before. But what Lance has never figure out was the intangible sportsmanship, class, and nobility of all great cyclists - hell, even just the good ones. You can’t weigh class on a scale like a bowl of spaghetti, and Lance has never had much of knack for it. Like another Texan we’ve gotten to know well in the last decade or so, Lance ran amock and generally made a tacky ass of himself. This news comes as no surprise, though it does make me wince for him and for the sport. “Lance Armstrong coming back”

links for 2007-12-05

• Subpixel Anti-Aliasing Follow-Up (Quarter Life Crisis) Anti-aliasing in the Leopard Menu Bar is absolutely worthless, this is the first (though I’m sure far from the only) piece I’ve stumbled on bemoaning that fact. Yes, I know I’m late to the game. (tags: apple os x graphics)
• Graphic Design and typography - Swiss Legacy Oh Lord, a whole blog dedicated to swiss design: grids, Helvetica, and look at all that black, white, and red! Pure glory. (tags: blog color fonts typography inspiration design)
• Fontshop - Unzipped - The making of FF Meta Serif How studly does Spiekermann look in that photo at the top? If he were in Tiger Beat, I’d put his poster on my wall. [via Kottke] (tags: typography typeface article)
• UCI Track World Cup Keirin Final - Hoy Wins Footage from the boards at Sydney (local friends and training partners from my home track in San Jose are down there, too). (tags: cycling track australia worldcups)
• OMG, There Will Be Blood | The A.V. Club OMG, P.T. Anderson + Daniel Day Lewis + Oil tycoons + Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead). (tags: movies film review)

That’s what I call a keirin! (via NCVA)

Maybe I figured out something to do after graduating? Perhaps a nice bike ride... →

One thing's for sure in all of this: Greg LeMond is an asshole. →

Now that be a match sprint! Not for the feint of cycling-heart. (via YouTube)

This is among the greatest 5 minutes of cycling ever. If you don’t understand how bike racing can be exciting, watch this. It’s absolutely unbelivable - and I was on the mountain! Lance is in yellow (and thus in the lead) here on Luz Ardiden in ‘03, but it’s a tenuous advantage over the strongest competitors he’ll ever have - he needs to leave everyone behind and win this stage in decisive fashion to clinch his fifth consecutive Tour victory and join the ranks of the only 5 other men who have done so - 5 of the greatest athletes in any discipline. It’s all or nothing on this one day; strategically, it’s his only remaining chance. Something to watch for: the rider in seafoam green is Jan Ullrich, the perennial ‘bridesmaid’ and runner-up to Lance for nearly all his Tour victories. You see him ahead of the group for a moment, and then a rider in red & white comes forward and puts his hand out (about 3:11 remaining) - that’s the other American in the group, Lance’s former lieutenant Tyler Hamilton (who is now leading his own team and has been racing 2 weeks with a broken collarbone) telling Jan to slow down and wait for their race leader - you don’t attack the yellow jersey for bad fortune. Incredible! Such a great YouTube addition! (via Spencercycling)