Playing Ketchup!

This is fun, going through my pictures - my stories, my journal. A year's worth of notes and observations.

In Art School, a stellar professor one day outlined the different types of photographers. One type was the ones who used their pictures as "windows".  I knew instantly I was this type. 

In the worst sense, art is artificial - a sad way of living life by avoiding it. In the best sense, art is a way of communing with the world, life. To love something is to want to know it, explore it, experience it.

This is a picture of my bicycle from February of this year, 2011. I took a picture of the porteur bars before I removed them to try drop bars. Before these, I had used Nitto "Moustache" bars, though it was on a different frame. I never went back to the Moustache bars. Recently I picked up the wider Moustache bars and I felt like I was steering a tractor. The porteur bars are narrower, and more elegant in feel. You cold easily use the wider part of the bar if you were to stand up to pedal hard.  Having my hands in the bends felt nice. This allowed my finger tips to rest on the ends of the brake levers, should I need to brake suddenly - as so often happens in this city of ours...

In the end, I found I loved the vertical hand position of the dropped bars so much more. I was also surprised to find that the more forward position of the dropped bars shifted my torso forward and put less weight on the slim Brooks saddle. Not only was this more comfortable, but I also started using the next higher gear, with no added effort!