Morning Linkage (Dec 8)

Transportation

The odd sto­ry of George Disteel and his hoard­er’s col­lec­tion of motor­cy­cles. Which I give to you most­ly because the dog in the first pic­ture of Disteel, late and crazy in his life, clear­ly shows a Bouvier des Flanders. Proving that good taste in motor­cy­cles and good taste in dogs often go together.

Getting a bike that fits right and looks good is tough. Or was that shoes? Nope bike. Help is at hand. Cycle Ergo takes your mea­sure­ments and plops a lit­tle man­nequin built like you onto any one of hun­dreds of bikes. Though it claims that your rather petite cura­tor of shiny can flat foot a K1600 GLT. I am skeptical.

Speaking of the salt. (We were just yes­ter­day) Triumph — mod­i­fied. Prettiest sil­ver bike ever. Ever.

Science

We were just dis­cussing these mag­nets in the shop the oth­er day. Neodymium mag­nets are such a geeky won­der. Tiny lit­tle bits of (nickel-plated) met­al that grab on and won’t let go. You can get all sorts from K & J Magnetics. But more impor­tant­ly you can get their newslet­ter with stuff like this: “How Neodymium Magnets are Made.”

Art, Images, and Design

A hand­ful of Sanjeev Joshi’s quick sketch­es from Istanbul.

I know of Cliff Roberts only from car­toons in my father’s New Yorker mag­a­zines. Turns out he did some won­der­ful chil­dren’s books as well. I so want a copy of Thomas — he’s cer­tain­ly the finest cat I’ve seen this fall.

Though odd­ly, I do recall a copy of Langston Hughes’ First Book of Jazz also illus­trat­ed by Cliff Roberts. I just nev­er con­nect­ed the two.

Fascination with 60’s and 70’s design. There are pho­tog­ra­phers who seek out and cap­ture images of the every­day objects that filled our lives and homes. Browsing in this col­lec­tion can fill up your inspi­ra­tion well in just a cou­ple of min­utes. (via phil k)