WOW! Oh boy!Oh Boy!Oh Boy! I really like this Rocket Powered Trike people. It blings, but not in a diamond type, tacky..street way...but in a way that will make even the most ardent trike hater stand up, take notice, and say "You gotta be kidding me people! This monster moves and is powered by 2 rockets and I love MOST everything about it. What I think is straight tacky is the builder took the time to think through every component and parts in this design, but they seem to have lost the steam as it concerns the front tire and front rim.
I would also like to know a bit more about the braking system on this bike because as I look at the front brake, I am wondering how this seemingly ordinary brake is going to give this trike the stopping power it needs and even if it can stop the trike, wouldn't the brake pads be worn down per each stop?
However, this Trike is HOOOTTTT and I want to give a small applause to the builders of this thing of beauty. It stands out in an era where there doesn't seem to be much though put into...well...anything that is sold in ordinary retail outlets. Great going guys!
Marshall Major Taylor has begun to creep into the public eye with the unveiling of a Statue made in his likeness that now stands outside of the Worcester, MA. library. Nicknamed the Worcester Whirlwind, Taylor was much loved by his adopted hometown where he moved to with Louis 'Birdie' Munger, his mentor, in the late 1800s. To think that he did this in the late 1800s when African-Americans couldn't even drink out of the same fountain as whites makes this athlete's story even more incredible!
On another video interview, his Great-Great grand-daughter and Grandson said something that was almost Prophetic; "No one really knows him now but I hope Major Taylor is a household name in my life-time!" Fear not young ones, soon, your relative will get HIS DUE and in a way that every household in this country will scream the name "Major Taylor!"
As promised, I will periodically update a VERY popular series of posts called my 'Bicycle Design Funk Hall of Fame.' These are the designs in the last 20 or so years that have risen (aesthetically) above their peers. The criteria for entrance into this hall are;
1. They have to emotionally move me to a point that I would just grab them off the bike rack where they are being sold, take them to the check out counter and never ask the price. (I may not have enough $$$ to buy them, but they are funky so I would worry about that when it became an issue
2. The designer can not have sent these designs to me as I would view this as them promoting themselves instead of them relying on the 'General of Funk' (me) coming across them.
3. They have to be affordable to the average Joe. (If I can't find a price on them or they are prototypes they are eligible)
4. When I first lay eyes on them, the FIRST THOUGHT I must have is DAAAANNNNGGG! (I assure you, these are the only designs in the last 20 years or so to do that)
5. I WILL NOT give the name of the company or manufacturer, only the name of the design. (Sorry yall...I ain't promoting your stuff for free)
In no special order...Here we go!
Nuvinci
Come on yall...The Legendary...'Pee Wee Herman'
Velorbis
Wild Buffalo! (Great Design...Crappy name)
TAXI! (Can a brotha get a cab in this city?)
"Complain if you want..BUT THIS BLOG IS MY PARTY AND I'LL WHINE IF I WANT TO"
Every once in awhile and even though I am a design genius, I give an opinion, which 99% of the time turns out to be fact. However, although you may not believe believe this, 1% of the time I am wrong! Keeping my term Provolution' in mind, I am VERY HARD on those clowns who design stupid looking bikes in the name of INNOVATION. 99% of the time, the only thing they are innovating is the tooling that it takes to make their wacked out designs. This tooling tends to be expensive, which wouldn't be a problem IF their designs had any hope of seeing the marketplace where they could recoup the investment in tooling.
In this case, IF isn't even relative! I thought about posting a few of these idiotic designs but I have determined that my blog space is to precious to put forth such stupidity. Well.....now that I have that off my chest, back to the subject at hand. I found a rendering of one of these designs (futuristic) which my dear readers falls into that 1% category described above....but the design....DANG! This blog is 2.5 years old and I do not remeber saying this about ANY futuristic looking design, but I have to say this about the above design: "I saw the funk, and it WUZ GOOD!"
Yeh, I know, me, your fearless Blogger has to eat CROW. Me, your fearless Blogger has to admit this thing. But as I always say "A brotha like me didn't know what he didn't know." To you Bicycle Design Innovators (or so you call yourself)- Please don't email me waxing philisophical again about the value of what you do! Cause...as that song says "This is MY PARTY and I'll cry if I want to!"
Some Fool cried about the $3,500 price tag..they would rather ride on something that 10 million other people have...COME ON MAN!
Major Taylor StatueIt seems as if people are popping up all over the place producing Major Taylor Racing jerseys. What is interesting is that Nike (see pictures in post dated 12/01/2008) is doing sneakers packs and several different organizations are selling and distributing jerseys baring his likeness on them. As Paul Harvey says on the Radio "Now......the rest of the story." I read a book called 'Major' awhile back and the author of that book stated that he received input from Major Taylor's descendants and many big name celebrities have approached them about using Major's name.
Major Taylor Sneakers
Major Taylor Sneakers
West Virginia Honors African-American Athletes!
http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/news/page/6175/
I was recently searching through the archive folders on my laptop and I came across some interesting things that I had long forgot about. These took such forms as bicycle sketches, notes on my thoughts, rim sketches, etc. In particular, I came a cross 4 sketches that really had me thinking back a few years.
The above sketch is my very 1st design in over 23 years and I was still trying to figure out what path I wanted to take as far as designs go. In the above design, my thoughts were creating a bicycle that had all of the elements of ‘Funk’ yet characteristics of old school bicycle design. This particular design was set to be;
- Pearl in color
- A 7 inch long- 2 dimensional- blinged out logo
- Huge diamond shaped mags
- Old School cruiser handle bars
- A HARD plastic frame
- Stretch. Limousine in length
As I look back at this design from ‘Back in the day’, I cracked a smile because this is the original Marshall Taylor Design that assisted in launching the vision. My designs now look nothing like this and as I told you when this blog 1st launched, I had to teach myself to sketch because I couldn't find a designer that could put my vision of design down on paper or IF I told them something that didn't make sense to them (because of preconceived notions of what a bicycle should look like) freaked out and started to let me know what I was saying didn't make sense to them!
I am telling yall this, I promise when you see my designs, you will say to yourself "This guy is delusional, but his designs sure are hot!"
You want to know my secret? Now, you poor designers that are stuck working for those GIANTS in the industry, although you may understand what I am about to tell you, it is to bad you are to scared to exercise these simple principles...
1) I never start my design process ASSUMING I know what a bicycle should look like.
2) My motto "Genius is the absence of reality".
If you think you know what it is supposed to look like before you begin, you are already STUCK in mediocrity people. Let me expand a bit on on absence of reality. There are some things that you just have to be gifted enough to do in order to achieve greatness. Those who tell you "Work hard at it and you will become great at it" are lying to you. Case in point, "Lebron James". Do any of you think that Lebron James works any harder on his game than the next NBA or College Player? Kobe Bryant? What about Wayne Gretzky? The answer to this is ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I am not saying that they do not work hard, only that working hard won't necessarily make you great absent the gifting you need to succeed!
I want to encourage all of you to look back into your own ‘Archives’ whatever form it is in (computer, scrapbooks, photo albums, memories) and remember when you believed anything was possible. I promise you that there is something there that will bring back a powerful memory…maybe not always good, but all of us had to endure something tough to get where we are. For me, it was simply struggling through to get this sketch completed. Oh yeh, I am posting this sketch realizing that it will make it ‘Public Domain’. The truth is, compared to what I am working on now, if you choose to use it, it will be comparable to those ugly cruisers that everyone is riding on now. Yes…yes…you know who you are! Enjoy
Article courtesy of wikipedia.com
Isaac Burns Murphy (April 16, 1861 - February 12, 1896) was an African-American Hall of Fame jockey. The official Kentucky Derby website and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame say that "Isaac Murphy is considered one of the greatest race riders in American history."
Between 1877 and 1876, Isaac Murphy competed in eleven Kentucky Derbys, becoming the first jockey to win three Derbys: "Buchanan" in 1884, "Riley" in 1890, and "Kingman" in 1891. "Kingman" was owned and trained by Dudley Allen and is the only horse owned by an African-American to win the Derby.
As well, he is the only jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, and the Clark Handicap all in the same year (1884). Considered one of the great jockeys in American history, Murphy was dubbed the "Colored Archer," a reference to Fred Archer, a prominent English jockey at the time.
Murphy won 628 of his 1,412 starts, a 44% victory rate that has never been equalled and a record about which Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro said: "There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed. [1] On its creation, Isaac Burns Murphy was the fhe first jockey to be inducted in the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
Since 1995 the National Turf Writers Association has given the Isaac Murphy Award to the jockey with the highest winning percentage for a given year in North American racing, from a minimum of 500 mounts.
Story Courtesy of http://www.telegram.com/ and writer Mark Conti
Quicker than a kangaroo, Nelson “the Cheetah” Vails jumped at the opportunity to race in Australia. When the Harlem native was invited to compete in a series of track cycling races Down Under in 1985, more than 80 years after Marshall W. “Major” Taylor made his first trip to Australia, he was more focused on winning races than succeeding the 1899 world champion. “I was told I was following in his footsteps,” said Vails, the first black cyclist to compete at the world-class level since Major Taylor. “It was cool. It was good. I can appreciate that now, but at the time I was just a kid racing.” In 1984, Vails, who was called “the Cheetah” because he was the fastest cat on the track, captured the silver medal in the individual 1,000-meter sprint at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. A promoter subsequently invited him to Australia to race at velodromes across the country, much like Major Taylor had done at the turn of the 20th century. In the land of marsupials — kangaroos, koalas and wombats — the Cheetah was the star. Vails went from track to track, racing the champion of each venue. The tour promoted Vails as the next Major Taylor and described the event as retracing Taylor’s footsteps, including a race in Sydney, where Taylor’s wife, Daisy, gave birth to a daughter. She was named Sydney, after the city. As he traveled from Queensland to Tasmania, Vails heard Australian cycling enthusiasts talk about the achievements of Major Taylor and he was amazed how much they knew about “the Worcester Whirlwind.” Vails had heard comparisons to Major Taylor since he began winning races at T-Town, the Lehigh County Velodrome in Trexlertown, Pa., but the significance would not sink in for years to come. “People would always say, ‘Do you know of Major Taylor? You could be like that someday,’ ” said Vails, who will be attending the Major Taylor statue dedication with many other cycling legends Wednesday at the Worcester Public Library. “I was an African-American cyclist hearing stories about someone before me. People were saying you could follow in his footsteps.
“He did it before anyone. He accomplished something that black athletes won’t touch,” Vails said. Taylor, who was given the nickname “Major” because he wore a military uniform while performing bicycle stunts outside an Indianapolis bike shop as a teenager, moved from Indianapolis to Worcester with his employer and racing manager Louis “Birdie” Munger in 1895. Munger planned to establish a bicycle factory in Worcester but the move was also made because Massachusetts was considered a more tolerant region in the era of Jim Crow segregation. In his autobiography written in 1929, Taylor wrote: “I was in Worcester only a short time before I realized that there was no such race prejudice existing among the bicycle riders there as I had experienced in Indianapolis.” Taylor was refused entry in some races, and experienced threats and assaults from white riders, but he refused to get dragged down by the bias. He went on to set seven world records and win the 1-mile world championship in Montreal in 1899, not long removed from the Civil War and decades before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947.
“I can see him excelling in that because he could. It was naturally easy for him because he seems to have been strong-minded,” Vails said of Taylor. “I never had to deal with any hurdles like that in all my travels,” he said. Though he didn’t face the racism of Taylor’s era, Vails said he was the only black competing at the national and international level when he was racing. After competing in races with other black cyclists at Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Vails found he was the only black racer at the world-class level. “It was never a black and white thin
g for me,” Vails said. “I wasn’t raised that way. I never had that issue. I never had a racial issue the entire time I was racing.” “People would say ‘doesn’t it feel strange to be the only black cyclist,’ but I never looked at it that way,” Vails said. Vails said he has learned a lot about Major Taylor over the years, especially when he raced in the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis. He is looking forward to seeing the statue of Major Taylor unveiled in Worcester and considers any comparison to him a great compliment.I came across the below story and picture (The best I have seen of Marshall Taylor) while researching a 19th Century Inventor. The below story and picture are courtesy of;
For a brief moment in America, the bicycle was king, and Major Taylor was king of the bicycle, one of the country's first black sporting heroes. As author Todd Balf notes, the papers dubbed him "the colored champion" and "the Worcester Whirlwind."In 1897, at the peak of its popularity, there were two million bicycles in the US, sharing the road with only 4,000 cars. It was the dawn of the era of individual speed, and men pedaled themselves to previously undreamable velocities: In 1898, the fastest car managed 39 miles per hour, while the bike record was 45 mph.Though unable to race in the South, and treated poorly throughout the country, Taylor became famous for his incredible bursts of passing speed, and held an amazing 200-12 record in high-stakes race matches. Teddy Roosevelt was a fan. Taylor set about constructing a public identity, a strict Baptist who refused to race on Sundays, even as his opponents colluded to move championships to exclude him, and the press called him racist names and mocked what they deemed his holier-than-thou posture. When he married, he and his wife concocted a fake past for her, so she could publicly match his upright standing in birthright as well as conduct.
The book culminates, along with Major's career, in Australia, 1904, where Taylor raced against his longtime foe, the racist rogue Floyd McFarland, who'd once appeared for a race against him to the strains of "All Coons Look Alike To Me." Badly injured in an earlier race, Taylor left his hospital room to race, even though he has to slice open his own badly injured leg just before mounting his bike to even complete a pedal stroke. Taylor won against a field of 10 racers, with eight of them colluding against him. Think Curt Schilling times 50.
Following this triumph and his subsequent retirement, the speed craze moved on to motorized vehicles and Taylor quickly receded from the public eye. There is little documentation of his post-racing life. We know that his business endeavors did poorly and his wife left him, and that he was buried, like his father, in an unmarked grave (though he was later interred and reburied by his racing comrades). Happily, his story has resurfaced, and numerous black racing clubs in his name have sprung up in places as South Central Los Angeles.
(Old School Fighter) Over the last 
1 year and a few months, I have been super busy sketching my bicycle designs. Although I have over 100 designs. I have settled on 10 designs to roll out my 1st line of Signature Bicycles by 'Marshall Taylor RYDZ'. I told all of you last year sometime, I am not an artist by trade, but I had to do SOMETHING to get my designs out of my head and on paper so I trained myself to sketch them as best I could. This was a very tedious process. Imagine if you will having over 100 designs and having to re sketch them all until they are just right add on top of that having to provide 4 viewing angles (Side profile, Top, Front and Rear).
I didn't stop there! I created my own Handle Bar Designs (they are hot!), wheel designs (admittedly my weakest area) tires patterns with colors and you can get a general idea of how much work that is. Nevertheless, I was to focused on getting proto-types produced that I had forgotten the ONE THING I have the ability to do myself, and that is produce a basic, funky, Hand Made design by myself. The title of this posting says it all, IT'S TIME TO FIGHT the Good Fight! I am going to Longmont, Colorado to pick an old frame up this weekend and get the process started. I will give you all something to chew on until my next post though. I am going to use a WILD lime green color, magenta highlights, plaid patterns, a tire that is going to freak you out, specially designed logo graphics, and a few other things. I let yall know!
2008 Chrysler 300 Royale
I saw a commercial for a car yesterday and I was simply blown away. So much so that I literally yelled out “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Chrysler came out with a Model called the 300 in 2003 and it was the hottest production model car seen in years! It won Motor Trends car of the year award in 2003 and 2004. 2008 brought another evolution in the 300 Series. The commercial for this car has African-American people in it and it shows at least 3 different 300’s with this just funked out, 2 tone paint jobs, nicer rims than before, bigger front grills and they are just nice! As usual I thought to myself “Why can’t a bicycle design exude true Urban nastiness like that?” Fear not my loyal readers, they absolutely can and I promise you that I am in the process of sketching something right now that will be the equivalent of this car.
Nevertheless, take a look at this car yall. In my mind, this is not only funky but elegant especially for the price range it is in. The designers could have gone to far and made it look tacky (Remember in design sometimes more is just that-More), but the beauty of this design is they STOPPED adding stuff at the right moment! Ah my heart longs to see a bicycle design that flows with the FUNK like this car. Wait a minute, the time is very near and if you my readers, have just a little patience, I promise to show you some stuff you’ve never seen before!
Some bad news on all of these
pictures that are posted here folks. All of these were presented at an Auto Show so they are known as ‘Concept Cars’. It is very common for a concept car to look a little bit different from the production model of the same cars, which is what winds up at your local dealerships. 
I was surfing the web a few minutes ago and I ran across this picture that is circa 1946. I couldn't find to much information about what this design is. All I found is that it is called 'Future Design'. As I have said before and I now say again "I saw the funk, and it was good." This design is from 60 years ago and I must say that it is still HOOOOTTTTT!
A Few Things that could make this 2007 HOOOTT!:
- Bring the tip of the head badge area backwards towards frame, flatten the tip, cut and insert platinum style grill. Chrysler 300 style grill
- The whole frame cover can remain as is but loke it out with platinum (plastic) style, encrusted jewelry appearing bling~
- Larger seat, slick fur style, harvest gold in color with a slight arch on the back
- Loose the spokes! Replace with machete style blades that are accented with harvest gold imitation jewels.
-Fork isn't platinum but is harvest gold to break the monotony in color.
- Front fender length can remain the same, but top-middle of the fender should be cut about .5 of an inch and have a Chrysler 300 style grill in the center. Back fender also.
I won't go any further but just close your eyes and see that this can be HOOOTT even today if a little 'Swagger' is applied to the redesign.
I marvel at the beauty and simplicity that defines this bicycle. This bike is even hot by today's standard. By viewing and studying this image, I want to challenge all of you and myself to produce renderings that mimic such design greatness. There are a few updates that I believe need to happen on this design to make it a 2007 'Funk Ball',but it is still clean.Just the other day I developed a sketch called I*B*2 which is the 2nd coming of the I*Bike mentioned in an earlier post. I have seen images of the old 'High Wheel' bicycles from the late 1800's and asked myself the question "Could such a design be modernized and thereby made relevant to an 'Urban Audience'?" The answer is YES! Solomon, the richest and wisest man who ever lived said something very profound in the book of Ecclesiastes in The Bible. He said "That thing that was is that thing that shall be and there is no new thing under the sun."
This is true in fashion and bicycle design also. I*B*2 excites me every time I look at it because this bicycle is designed strictly for the youngster who wants to chill out, ride slow, be noticed, and get every one's attention who sees them. The person who rides this will receive the reaction "What is that they ridin?"For you naysayers, I have made modifications to the design so it won't be as dangerous as the original. It is shorter, with my web style chrome rims, tri-cycle style crank, chrome, open air-grilled out fenders and lean back style handle bar designs.To us design enthusiast, remember that what I said about inspiration "It comes when it will and stays as long as it pleases". Catch hold to that inspiration what it is there to be had.
I was recently meditating on the sheer magnitude of what it is I envision doing with this project. What an enormous burden to resurrect such a great icon from yester year as Marshall 'Major' Taylor. The burden of resurrecting a legacy of a forgotten sports hero should be handled very delicately and not rushed into without thinking of all the ramifications. I have personally read the Autobiography written by Major Taylor himself and the biography written by Andrew Ritchie withmajthe help of Taylor's daughter, Sydney (named after Sydney, Australia where Taylor was treated with the utmost respect and color wasn't an issue) in 1988.
Taylor's Autobiography, written with his own pen, presents a man that had many struggles on the Bicycle Race Track because of his race. Although the book, titled 'The Fastest Bicycle Racer in the World', was poorly written, through the pages of his book, I found him to be a very dignified man whose ceaseless focus was to overcome all obstacles thrown in his way regardless of the personal cost to him. He rarely spoke of his family or how his post racing days affected his outlook on life. A broader more objective look was given to Taylor by Andrew Ritchie in his 1988 Biography of Taylor called "The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer." After alot of research that stretched from the United States to France and Australia, interviews with Taylor's only child, Sydney, I gained much more appreciation for Taylor than I derived from his own writings. Taylor's writings, while a few struggles with other riders were mentioned, painted a very rosy picture of his career while Ritchie's writings gave much more detail.
What I found of particular interest in Ritchie's book that Taylor never addressed was around 1907-1910 when Taylor's career was winding down and he no longer was the best of the best (age started to catch up with him) how he struggled and felt incredibly insecure about not making as much in prize money as he used to and his worries (indicated in letters to his wife Daisy) about wanting to buy his wife nice things but he could no longer do so because he wasn't winning as much as he had just 4 years earlier. After his 2nd retirement from racing in 1910, he really struggled to adapt because he was no longer traveling the world and was forced to be at home with his family. He started getting depressed and would isolate himself, within his house, from his wife and daughter.
I said all of that to say this, my project of presenting Marshall Taylor to the world is going to present the man as dignified, driven, a pioneer, and as the greatest African-American sports hero of all-time. Taylor did something no other African-American in the history of the world had done, become a World Champion Bicycle racer which was an all white sport at the time, he integrated a major sports team (bicycle racing) at a time when integrating anything in this country was unheard of! Marshall Taylor Bicycles is going to do what no other bicycle company has done, that is to totally capture the inner-city consumer through bicycle design and decor that speaks directly to their culture. It will be done with the class and dignity that personified the man, Marshall 'Major' Taylor.
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