After a very long loaner period the unavoidable „I need my camera back“ call came. Today I had to give back the digital SLR Canon 1D Mark I to my friend. It was great that he loaned it to me for about 2 months. Especially during teh Beijing Olympics it was so much fun to shot with such a professional camera. Only drawback was that I took about 800 pictures at each Olympic event and till today I still haven’t found the time to sort through them. I got so used to that camera that it is hard to see it go. Now I am cameraless again. And the Canon 5D Mark II that I have been waiting for for half a year is still not yet available everywhere. I will have to bridge another month or two…
Archive for Oktober, 2008
Return of Canon 1D
Montag, Oktober 13th, 2008Risk Evening
Sonntag, Oktober 12th, 2008Friends invited us over to play risk. They live in a nice three sided courtyard.
Problem in the beginning was that the key for the room in which the risk was was inside the room itself. But we did manage to retrieve the keys through teh window from the outside.
So we could start the game. It was a really exciting game with lots of negotiations. A few hours later we had delicious roasted beef with mashed potatoes. That went along nicely with the red wine we had been drinking.
Introduction to Cyclo Cross Racing
Samstag, Oktober 11th, 2008Trek organized an introduction to Cyclo Cross racing and training. They held it at the Wenyu riverside in Shunyi. We cycled out and back to the city afterwards as it was such gorgeous weather. Trek gave out Cyclo Cross bikes (similar to road race bikes but with wider rims and tires) as loaners for people like me who do not have one. It was great fun to jump off the bike, jump over barriers, carry the bike uphill and jump back on again. Cyclo Cross riding seems very fun – I am looking forward to teh upcoming race season (6 races).
Vegetarian Restaurant
Freitag, Oktober 10th, 2008Wow! This was the first time that I had vegetarian Beijing Duck. They also had delicious vegetarian sweet & sour pork and vegetarian fish and vegetarian fried shrimps as well as vegetarian sausages. The special tea was really nice and it was claimed to be very healthy too.
Ditan Park Book Fair Opening Ceremony
Freitag, Oktober 10th, 2008Today early morning was the opening of the 8th Book Fair in Ditan Park. They had many booths – for example from the Beijing Association of Science and Technology (BAST) as well as an exhibition of almost real size pictures of the Chinese Olympic athletes. The Beijing Youth Daily newspaper had a small bike race course with obstacles like rocks and wood. That was fun.
The Beijing Youth Daily and the Chinese Cycling Association are promoting cycling as an alternative transportation method. So I was asked to perform tricks on my trick bike as a „green“ environmentally friendly sign.
And here are two cycling friends Tian He (from the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper) and Lao Zhao
Fixed Gear Article on YNET
Donnerstag, Oktober 9th, 2008Some time ago 3 of the Beijing Fixed Gear Crew were interviewed and some pictures were taken. Today an article was posted on YNET in Chinese. It has this nice picture that they took.
YNET Article: 伊泉：Fixed Gear Bike的开拓者
Donnerstag, Oktober 9th, 2008Ben, Jason and me got interviewed and photographed for YNET news. It was about how fixed gear bicycle riding started in China and what fixed gear bikes are about. I love the picture they took of me. Here is the article.
伊泉：Fixed Gear Bike的开拓者
2008/10/09 10:21 来源：YNET.com 北青网 39.2℃
Ben说：“我从没想到在北京会遇到伊泉，我在6年前就在网上看到过他表演的视频……”张宸说：“伊泉可是车店老板重点推荐给我的玩家……”如此你知道伊泉有多大的名气了吧，其实她真是一名德国花样单车的演员，她可以在Fixed Gear Bike上做出很多花式动作，把Fixed Gear Bike当作BMX玩，这不是任何人都能做到的。
◎我来自国家队
初见伊泉，她递给我一张名片上面就直接写着：“TRICK BIKE SHOW”，采访间隙伊泉在Fixed Gear Bike上原地玩着各种动作，记者真以为她是个职业表演者。当我确认这个想法时，伊泉才不好意思地拿出另外一张名片，原来走下自行车她是一家外企的亚太区经理。
这样伊泉就生活在两个世界里，Fixed Gear Bike世界和没有Fixed Gear Bike的世界。伊泉原本是一名体操运动员，入选了德国国家队。在德国，如果体操运动员到13岁的时候没有更高的造诣，就要放弃这个项目，而伊泉就是在 13岁遇到了自行车运动，她觉得自己可以在自行车上施展体操才能，就这样，自行车表演成为了她的主业。后来她也入选了德国自行车表演队。
◎Fixed Gear Bike是我面前新的高峰
去年，伊泉在纽约第一次见到了Fixed Gear Bike。第一感觉就是这辆车太酷了，造型简单却有着惊人的速度，最重要的是没有一辆车是相同的。就这样伊泉的车架是靓丽的粉色，这是她精心挑选的颜色喷绘到淘来的古董车架上的。
Fixed Gear Bike是带有手工艺元素的工业产品，因此在欧洲的价格很高。作为一名自行车老玩家，伊泉深得全世界采购Fixed Gear Bike零件的心得，她会给想接触Fixed Gear Bike的人更好的建议。
伊泉在采访间隙总是要摆弄她的自行车，调试各个零件一丝不苟。伊泉说：“我还要适应并且调试这辆车，我觉得Fixed Gear Bike也有很多拓展性，我要把它挖掘出来。”
链接：
Fixed Gear Bike圣经
来自旧金山的世界知名顶尖Fixed Gear Bike潮流单位MASH近期发售的这“MASH SF DVD”，是各位想接触Fixed Gear Bike的朋友或Fixed Gear Bike Rider的必看Video。
影带里每个团员都有各自的影响力，除了各自展示他们高超而有型的Fixed Gear Bike技术，也含概了Fixed Gear Style的衣着及单车改装风格等！这张DVD在MASH的在线购物网开始发售，随DVD附上一本120页印刷精致画册。
详情请登陆：http://www.mashsf.com/
Fixed Gear Bike也ID
Pedalmafia是日本东京以Fixed Gear单车文化为主的设计单位兼品牌，他们的网站上更有一项非常好玩的“PEDAL ID”。有玩过NIKE ID网站的朋友应该就知道，PEDAL ID就是在网上有不同颜色颜色及款式的零件让你自助组装成一辆独一无二的Fixed Gear。来这里体验Fixed Gear Bike ID吧：http://www.pedalmafia.com
Fixed Gear Style
Message Bag：
邮差包是Fixed Gear Style的必需品之一，因为不要妄想简单的Fixed Gear Bike车架会能让你放上背包，而Fixed Gear文化由邮差而来，随身物品一律装在包里，所以玩Fixed Gear Bike必须背Message Bag。
现时持续于东京都占据前列流行位置的自行车搭配Messenger Bag的造型，依然是新季度的潮流指标。而在云云日本流行包包品牌当中，就以HEAD PORTER的Messenger Bag作品最受欢迎。
Vans Sneaker：
Vans鞋适合Fixed Gear Style的原因除了简单方便意外，其尖头造型适合将脚部伸进Fixed Gear Bike的脚蹬里面，以保证骑行的安全性。而原本Vans就是众多街头运动的潮流装备，在异军突起的Fixed Gear Style中怎么少得了Vans呢。
Office View
Mittwoch, Oktober 8th, 2008In the past few years that has been an enormous development in Beijing. In so many areas the nice traditional 1 story buildings like the beautiful courtyards have been torn down to give way for more glass high rises. The Financial Street (Jinrong Jie) in Beijing has become longer and longer with more and more office buildings. Most of them still empty. Like these ones next to my office.
Next to is are still towers of typical Chinese residential buildings. They are about 26 stories high and always look the same. Before the Olympics the city put huge efforts to repaint them all. So some look better from the outside – but only at a first glance. This building is what I see from my office.
It is amazing to see that the residents constantly throw things out of the window. And also empty bottles out of the window. So the best is to have a small roof above your window as well as keeping the windows closed at all times (except for when you have trash to throw out) to protect your apartment from falling garbage.
There is somebody who owns pigeons and has a pigeon house on the top of the building. He lets the pigeons out for some flying in the late afternoon every day. But actually I often wonder why there are no wild urban pigeons in Beijing. They are in almost all big cities, especially Western cities.
In case you did not pay attention to the pictures: We have been having gorgeous blue skies here in Beijing. 🙂
Juggling Workshop
Montag, Oktober 6th, 2008Tonight we had our regular Beijing Jugglers Workshop in Yugong Yishan. I did more balancing than juggling but I did actually practice juggling clubs.
At the end of the Juggling night I realized that I had carried my camera all the way so I decided I needed to take some pictures to make it worth while. So I took pictures of the co-leaders of the Juggling group: Fede and Peter:
Cycling through Beijing
Samstag, Oktober 4th, 2008My two friends from San Francisco wanted to come out on the road bike ride. Tom had arranged two nice road bikes for them. I had tried to have somebody write down the address of the meeting point the night before. But that seemed to have failed. And the bigger problem was that they did not have a working phone. So there Tom, the other cyclists and me were waiting for them. At a certain point the group left and I continued waiting. I got fascinated by this mountain bike. Can you find out why?
A typical old Chinese bike will always have the saddle holder mounted pointing forward, so that the saddle would be mostly in front of the saddle post. My theory is that the huge bikes were uncomfortable for the mainly small Chinese so they just started installing the saddles that way round. But for this mountain bike it looked like the stem was mounted the opposite way. That was never an option for the old bikes, because they did not have any stem.
For my friends: We actually did meet that day. They found somebody with a mobile phone and had her call me. Then we actually did ride a bit through Beijing and up to Wangjing and a nearby country side market. It was quite nice despite the cold temperature (much colder than the day before) and the dark clouds that were always giving the impression that it would start to rain any minute.