Monday, September 28, 2009

Lance Armstrong Bikes

Lance Armstrong Rides in Style with Bikes Designed by World-Class Artists
Lance Armstrong has been vigorously Twittering from the Tour de France course, and those following his Tweets may have perked up at this July 7 message: “Just saw my new Trek Madone (for later in the race) that legendary artist Damien Hirst put his touches on. Speechless.”

Though this is not his first collaboration with an artist—two of the bikes Armstrong used in his 2005 Tour de France victory were customized with designs by legendary graffiti artist Futura—Armstrong’s involvement in the art world has reached new heights this year: he’s raced on bikes designed by graphic designer KAWS, Pop Surrealist Kenny Scharf, and contemporary artist Shepard Fairey, and during Stage one in the ongoing 2009 Tour de France, which started July 4 and ends July 26, he rode a Trek Speed Concept time trial bike crafted by industrial designer Marc Newson. Armstrong is set to ride the same model decorated by Japanese Pop artist Yoshitomo Nara during Stage 18 and will spin into Paris on the Tour’s final day on a Trek Madone customized by art-world bad boy Damien Hirst. (He is riding a different Trek Madone during the other stages of the race, so he’ll have ridden four bikes in total during the competition.) The artists do not construct the bikes, but they do, however, add their one-of-a-kind touches to the frames, wheels, and wheel discs.


COUNTERCULTURE CYCLIST. Lance Armstrong riding his Marc Newson–designed Trek bike.

At the end of the tour’s 21 stages, the Hirst and Newson art bikes will become late additions to the Nike-sponsored “Stages” art exhibition, which opens tomorrow at the Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, in Paris. (It kicks off tonight with a party at the gallery.) The exhibition, inspired by Armstrong’s battle against cancer, includes the art bikes created by KAWS, Scharf, and Fairey, but the 20 artists in the show focused mostly on Armstrong’s Livestrong message, rather than cycling. (Take, for example, Pop artist Ed Ruscha’s “Vital to the Core” piece in acrylic on linen.) The show will then move to the Park Avenue Armory, in New York City, this fall. The art is available for purchase, with proceeds benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.


In March of this year, when announcing launch of “Stages,” Armstrong explained his desire to work with artists when he said, “I’ve kind of been a closet art collector. And in the last three years because I didn’t anything much to do other than run around with [Livestrong president Doug Ulman] and fight cancer, this art passion accelerated.” He went on to credit the involvement of Nike C.E.O. Mark Parker, who is a noted contemporary art collector. Armstrong said they “spent more time over the last three years talking about art than we spent talking about sports.”
Herewith, a sampling of Armstrong’s art bikes over the years.


Sunday, September 27, 2009

Qaddafi 's Fashion

Colonel Qaddafi—A Life in Fashion
Dictator Chic

Since completing his transition from international pariah to statesman, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi—the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world—has brought color and his own eccentric panache to the drab circuit of international summits and conferences. Drawing upon the influences of Lacroix, Liberace, Phil Spector (for hair), Snoopy, and Idi Amin, Libya’s leader—now in his 60s—is simply the most unabashed dresser on the world stage. We pay homage to a sartorial genius of our time. @vanityfair.com

Ugly man of fashion, Libyan leader Colonel Qaddafi shows off his wardrobe to the world, and like MOST American rock stars / film stars..... Maybe he can star in the next over.













Friday, September 25, 2009

Carbon Cop Car

In October 2008 a story appeared about a company called Carbon Motors whose main intention was to make a purpose-built police from the ground up. The car is called the E7 and it's made of an aluminum body structure and features things that can only be found in a car dedicated to policing.

The Carbon E7 measures 200 inches, it has a wheel base of 122 inches and features a track that's 66.9 inches front and rear. Wrapped around the 18-inch wheels are 245/50R18 tyres with 14-inch vented brake discs in front and 13-inch vented discs in back. The car uses a 3.0-litre turbo diesel engine that is claimed to produce 300hp (221kW) and 420 pound-feet of torque. It has a 6-speed automatic transmission driving the rear wheels and will cover 0 - 60mph in 6.5 seconds.

read more here and here .






Thursday, September 24, 2009

Tramontana R - A Exotic From Spain.

Tramontana R-Edition, a supercar from Catalan marque Tramontana. Based in Girona, Spain, about an hour north of Barcelona, the Tramonta Group rolled out the new €385,000 beast.

When it comes to eccentric exotics, a few names spring to mind; today, a new one can be added to the list. The Tramontana has the looks, mechanicals and aura of something very special, and when you dig a little deeper, your interest grows exponentially.



To begin with, a V12 Biturbo, producing up to 720 HP and 678 ft.-lbs. of torque, is mounted midship and mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox. 20-inch carbon/magnesium wheels frame 380 mm carbon ceramic discs, squeezed by six piston calipers both fore and aft. Any affection for the styling is strictly subjective, but we will say that the Tramontana's looks increase ten-fold with the glass canopy removed. Only twelve will be made each year.
read more @ autoblog.com





Sunday, September 20, 2009

America's Next Great Supercar

The Devon GTX was officially unveiled at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance on August 15.
On July 23, the GTX set a Laguna Seca one-lap production car record of 1:35.075. This compares to "rough" estimates that put the Nissan GT-R's lap time at 1:39.62, and the Porsche 911 Turbo's lap time at 1:39.89.

The stunning event caused company founder, Scott Devon, to say "The Laguna Seca test session showed us just a glimpse of what the Devon GTX is capable of from a performance perspective. Through further validation and testing, we know this car is capable of even greater lap times and making an even stronger statement about the future of the American supercar."






The design is sensational, but are plans to build and market the Devon GTX at $500,000 a copy, beginning in early 2010, overly ambitious?
Scott Devon, CEO of Los Angeles-based Devon Motorworks and owner of Michigan-based Cole's Frozen Foods (which bills itself as "Home of the Original Frozen Garlic Bread"), doesn't think so. Devon is already touting the GTX as the "next great American supercar," and says he expects to build and sell 36 cars a year from his Southern California headquarters.
The GTX actually started life several years ago as the VR Concept, from the pen (and computer) of Swedish designer Daniel Paulin, the former Ford designer who created the Focus C-Max and founded Paulin Motor Company in Gothenburg in 2005. Images of the VR Concept, with its unusual articulating doors, can be seen on Paulin's Web site.
Earlier this year, Devon made an unsuccessful bid to acquire the tooling and rights to the Dodge Viper, which Chrysler at the last minute yanked from the scrap heap and transferred to new owner Fiat.
Not surprisingly, the specs for the Devon GTX sound suspiciously Viperesque: a wheelbase of 98.8 inches, coil springs and gas-pressurized shocks at all four corners and an 8.4-liter V10 engine under the hood, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox and a limited-slip differential.
In the Devon GTX, the engine has been tweaked, with output nudged to 650 horsepower.

Devon Motorworks has released a new promotional video of their GTX supercar at Laguna Seca.




sources: edmunds.com and worlcarsfan.com

Secrets of the Guitar Heroes: Carlos Santana

Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. His father was a mariachi violinist, and Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie ValensTijuana, the border city between Mexico and California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from Mission High School there in 1965.[2] at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to
In San Francisco, the young guitarist got the chance to see his idols, most notably B.B. King, perform live. He was also introduced to a variety of new musical influences, including jazz, world music, and folk music, and witnessed the growing hippie movement centered in San Francisco in the 1960s. After several years spent working as a dishwasher in a diner and busking for spare change on the streets, Santana decided to become a full-time musician; in 1966, he formed the Santana Blues Band, with fellow street musicians David Brown and Gregg Rolie (bassist and keyboard player, respectively).[2]
With their highly original blend of Latin-infused rock, jazz, blues, salsa, and African rhythms, the band (which quickly became known simply as Santana) gained an immediate following on the San Francisco club scene. The band's early success, capped off by a memorable performance at Woodstock in 1969, led to a recording contract with Columbia Records, then run by Clive Davis.
read the full Carlos Santana biography @ Wikipedia.org


DAVID FRICKE for Rolling Stone Magazine 06/12/08 
You were born in Mexico, your father was a mariachi violinist, and you played the violin before taking up the guitar. Did you feel torn between the old and new when you discovered electric blues?
I don't disrespect tradition. But it is not going to hold me back. John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins and Jimmy Reed — that was something I needed. I started with those three gentlemen, because they were the ultimate in simplicity. They make it look simple. But if you try to play like John Lee Hooker or Jimmy Reed, it's not that easy.
I joined my father in the streets, playing boleros. But I had my ear on Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley, on B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. There was nothing plastic about those guys. They went deep, and each note carried something important. I knew, from a long time ago, the difference between notes and life. I'd rather play life than notes. It's OK to learn how to read music. It's not going to hurt you. You can go to the Berklee College of Music. But they do not teach you how to play life.
As a teenager in San Francisco, you went to many early Fillmore shows. Who were some of the guitarists you first saw there?
The same people Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were into — Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Freddie King and Albert King — and Michael Bloomfield and [Fleetwood Mac's] Peter Green. Even before Jimi Hendrix came out in '67, Bloomfield was hitting it hard with Paul Butterfield's band on things like East-West. It was a different kind of blues, even for white people. When you closed your eyes, it did not sound white.
What about Jerry Garcia? He was playing almost every night all over town with the Grateful Dead.
There is something in me — my body will not let in bluegrass music. I love Merle Haggard and Buck Owens — the songwriting — and of course Willie Nelson. But there are certain kinds of music that my body doesn't allow. One is norteño. Another is bluegrass, and Jerry's playing had a lot of that. When he did "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" — which is more in a Buddy Guy-Junior Wells style — I was like, "OK, I can listen to that." I'm very particular. There is certain music that I just don't want to know about [laughs]. I'm still working on that.
When Santana played at Woodstock in 1969, you already had your trademark sound, that piercing sustain in which you hold a single note for what seems like ages. How did playing with so much high-speed percussion affect your approach to soloing?
The more somebody plays fast around you, the more you slow down and play long, legato lines. In "Jingo" [on 1969's Santana], we had that bass line and the conga going in that rhythm. I had to do something different. Plus, I started with the violin, which was drawing long notes with a bow. I realized that playing longer notes, sustaining them, was more appealing.
It was getting crowded at that time with blues people. My voice on the guitar felt more natural in a different vocabulary. But I still love the blues. You need to marinate yourself in that music daily. It's like putting syrup on pancakes. If you don't have any syrup, the pancakes are not that cool [laughs]. If there's no blues in it, then I won't listen.
What was it like to hear those notes sail over that huge Woodstock crowd?
It was beyond scary, especially because I was at the peak of acid. I said, "God, please help me stay in tune. Please help me stay in time. I promise I'll never touch this stuff again." Of course, I lied [laughs]. What I remember is that it was really hot, all of the other bands were playing the same — and we were different. When we started, it felt like we were back in Aquatic Park in San Francisco, where people would drink wine, smoke a little hemp and just play congas. It felt that natural.
It's amazing — within a year [after that show], everybody had congas and timbales: the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis. All we really did was integrate Tito Puente, Afro-Cuban musicians like Mongo Santamaria, into the blues that I loved.
How would you describe your role in Santana as a guitarist? It's your name on the marquee, but there is so much going on under and around you.
I tie it all together. We play Santana music, but at the same time, we become like John F. Kennedy Airport. Bob Marley, Miles, John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye and Jimi — they are going to land here and there. We are going to visit those guys. But we are still going to sound like Santana. What I do with the guitar, when I move around in the music, is make sure that the bass, drums and keyboards are on the one [makes a heartbeat-rhythm sound]. That creates the trance, the spell. And it makes women go absolutely wild. It's the same thing Miles had with his group. You play two or three notes and let people know, "It's fun exploring, but now we gotta get back to this."
Do you have a practice regimen? How much do you play offstage, when you are not recording?
I don't call it practice. I call it dipping. I have a serious collection of records — Wes Montgomery, Miles, Jimi, a lot of Marvin Gaye — and I play along with them. I try to play the way Marvin sings. I don't practice to know where my fingers go. I'm curious about how to penetrate inside the note. I think it was the Grateful Dead who used to say the music is playing you. You're not playing it. I want to utilize sound, resonance, vibration, to bring people closer to their own hearts.
And you do it without pedals — just volume and touch.
I only use a wah-wah once in a while. I'm wired, just like Buddy Guy. Buddy can grab any guitar, any amplifier, and they're gonna sound like him. When I do it, it's still going to sound like me. I stopped fighting it. I used to want to sound like Otis Rush. The way he sings and plays guitar in "Double Trouble" — there's a reason why Eric Clapton quotes him every night [laughs].
You talk a lot about trances. Do you go there when you hit one of those long notes?
You have to give yourself chills before anyone else gets them. I become less of a ringmaster. I forget to correct anyone onstage. I just go into my guitar. I can see the rest of the musicians going, "Yep, he's hungry, and he's helping himself."
[From Issue 1054 — June 12, 2008]

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Big Swells of Maresias, São Paulo - Brazil.

High Fall season is one of the best times of the year for surfing in the Southeast region of Brazil. Constant cold fronts come from Antarctica sending weekly swells, the sand bars are at their best after the long and hot months of Summer, the water temperature will not drop before the arrival of Winter in June and the winds use to be gentle this time of the year with glassy mornings everyday.



Maresias beach is positioned in a way that the South swells reach it straight in the face and the usual Northeast trade winds are perfect offshore. In classic days the waves there can display ´hawaiian power´ and quality similar to world famous beach breaks as Hossegor and Puerto Escondido.

This region of the São Sebastião county is a sanctuary of the Atlantic Rain Forrest with summer vacation mansions lining the shore and lush green vegetation covering the hills. Each beach is divided from the other by a green headland. Besides Maresias, surfers can take advantage of two other neighboring beaches: Baleia e Camburí.

If a very strong swell comes, sometimes Maresias can get a bit closed out and very difficult to get through to the outside, as there are no clear channels. In days like these broken boards are a common sight, in this situation Baleia will be the perfect venue to keep the competition running in a less stressful environment. But on the other hand, Camburi is one of the most consistent beaches in Brazil and if the swell drops (which is very rare at this time of the year), Camburi always has some rideable surf. Baleia, a half moon shaped beach with dark thin sand, Baleia has the characteristic of holding very big waves, maintaining shape.



text excerpted from surfersvillage.com

Tudo Vira Bosta

Friday, September 11, 2009

The New For 2010 Mc Laren MP4-12C

The McLaren MP4-12C is revealed as the first in a range of high-performance sports car from McLaren Automotive, the independent car division based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England. The 12C, and future models within the range, will challenge the world's best sports cars, benefiting from the expertise and virtuosity of the McLaren Group.
 Twenty years of sports car design, engineering and production combined with inspirational success in Formula 1 have driven Ron Dennis, McLaren Automotive Chairman, to announce his plans for the ultimate line-up of technology-led and customer-focused performance cars for the 21st century. The rules in the sports car world are about to be re-written.




 
Through a rich modern history, McLaren's automotive division has already built the world's most critically acclaimed supercar, the McLaren F1 (1993-1998) and the world's best-selling luxury supercar, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (2003-2009). McLaren Automotive now looks to the future with a new range of revolutionary sports cars.
"It is a long-held dream of mine to launch high performance sports cars that set new standards in the industry," said Dennis.
"We began designing and building cars for aficionados of thoroughbred sports cars almost 20 years ago. Incorporating the leading edge technologies that the McLaren Group has built up within its various companies, I believe we are now perfectly placed to open up this new chapter in McLaren's history as well as play a part in the regeneration of high-tech manufacturing in the UK and global automotive environment," he concluded.
At its heart, the McLaren MP4-12C features a revolutionary carbon fibre chassis structure, the Carbon MonoCell: the first time a car in this market segment is based around such a strong and lightweight racing car engineering solution and the first time any car has ever featured a one-piece carbon fibre structure.
  
 
read more @ Supercars.net

A study in customization

Most recognizable car in history changes into something less recognizable in these outrageous mods:







source: darkroasted.com