Almost got my bike stolen this week.  Right out from the loading dock area of our building.  Inside no less.  Whoever it was only had enough time before the automatic door would begin to close, like two minutes after someone had been allowed entrance, say a delivery truck.  One of the women in the office had her bike stolen the day before.  My bike was right next to hers and targeting since all I was using was a cable lock thinking no one would be able to get at these bikes.  I went down to get my bike for my commute home and when I did the combination and pulled the lock apart I was holding two separate pieces.  The cable had been cut and was only being held together by a bit of the plastic sheath.  Apparently the person got spooked or the door began to close and he had to get out without the bike.  So I have a homemade mega urban assault lock that I'm using until I can move into the world of Kryptonite ultimate security.

I also wanted to learn more on how people actually go about stealing bikes and the two best videos I found is one called "Know The Enemy" from the UK, a great animation done for BIKE OFF from the University of Arts London  and probably the most famous bike locking video with a more recent update with Hal Ruzal of Bicycle Habitat in New York and Kerri Martin, founder of The Bike Church in Asbury, NJ.  Take a look.
(http://www.bikeoff.org/design_resource/ABT_problem_who_steals.shtml)

http://www.streetfilms.org/hal-and-kerri-grade-your-bike-locking/

Lately I've been reading and looking at a lot of material on-line, in books and documentaries on the whole maker movement, getting back to a hands-on independent, open source do it yourself mentality.  The book that got me interested in this at first was Shop Class As Soul Craft by Matthew B. Crawford.  Being able to not only understand how things are made but how to make and repair things is at the core of this read and in Crawford's estimation an essential element for success in our everyday lives.  I came from a family of men in the trades and never had an issue with being able to work with my hands. The one thing that I really loved about art school and graduate school in particular was having free reign in a studio packed with welding, grinding, cutting and casting materials all available for use.  I was able to think up an idea and then build it pretty much without any ones intervention allowing it to stand on it's own.  Art R&D.  There is also a very interesting world of bike hacking out there where people are coming up with new street design tall bikes, art bikes, cargo bikes and just about any other version of bikes and accessories that you can think of.  I consider this all as part of the maker movement initiatives going on today. Street creativity on the rise.

http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/

Suspended Design

Riding my mountain bike through the suburban no-mans-land.  This is the landscape between new housing developments.  A place that's suspended between design projects.  Will it be more housing or commercial structures or maybe some type of mixed-use area or open space.  For the moment nature has reclaimed it and whatever construction intervention or clandestine dumping there is it's slowly being camouflaged by plant growth.  Invader species taking advantage of the neglect.  I ended up exploring the fragments of past projects and discarded materials, trying to retrace what had occurred.

More photos of this project on my website:http://www.flloydsobczakart.com/ongoing-projects-1/