Our roadside reporter Ed Hood’s annual pilgrimage to the attractive and romantic canal metropolis of Venice in some way managed to show right into a flirtation along with his favourite topic – biking. Right here’s Ed’s report on this really magic metropolis via his biking addicted eyes again in 2013.
In January we misplaced our pal and colleague Ed Hood, two years after his devastating stroke. We are going to always remember Ed and his information, connections within the biking world, his writing type and love for the game. Ed wrote 1000’s of gorgeous articles for PEZ, so we can pay homage the ‘King of the Blackberry’ with re-runs of his nice work.
And an enormous thanks to everybody who contributed to Ed’s ‘Go Fund Me’. It made a distinction to his final two years.
You’ll be able to learn the PEZ-Crew’s recollections of Ed Hood HERE.
It’s laborious to keep away from artwork in Venice.
There are artists in all places. And there are artistic endeavors too; you possibly can’t keep away from them.
There’s a jolly tri-coloured sculpture within the Bienniale Gardens.
To not point out garish, ‘ironic’ glass fibre fashionable artwork within the courtyard of classy galleries.
And there are tributes to fashionable legends held in stunning outdated palazzi.
However you possibly can nonetheless discover smooth marble statues which owe a lot to the outdated renaissance masters.
And nightmarish monstros in fashionable supplies – however you wouldn’t need to keep away from any of it, not when you’ve got human curiosity and a soul.
There aren’t many bicycles although, on this metropolis on the lagoon.
However nevertheless laborious it’s to consider, the Giro ran a time trial straight into the guts of Venice in 1978, stage 14 over 12 kilometres.
Throughout the Mestre causeway which is the street and rail hyperlink with the mainland; down via the seaport after which alongside the slim Zattere wharf – whizzing over plywood ramped bridges within the pouring rain on their single ringed, silk tyred time trial ‘specials.’
Then hanging a 90 diploma left throughout the slim alleys of the Dorsuduro ‘sestiere’ (district) from the Giudecca Canal to the Grand Canal. And actually that ought to have been an finish of it – however legendary Giro organiser Vincenzo Torriani had that one discovered. He had a pontoon bridge floated throughout one of many world’s busiest and most well-known waterways.
From the well-known customs home topped with it’s fabulous golden globe. Throughout to Piazza San Marco; with Saronni, Moser and Visentini whizzing between the San Marco lions after which the Campanile and Doge’s Palace into the Piazza earlier than braking laborious to keep away from working into the rain-sodden crowd.
Moser gained in 16:11 for the 12 Ok in what have to be the world’s most extraordinary time check?
The place usually the orchestras performs for the vacationers and the pigeons beg for seed, the ‘Bigs’ needed to brake laborious to keep away from working into the group – surreal.
However on my annual pilgrimage to this stunning, distinctive and hideously exploitive metropolis – the down aspect of getting a lady with good style – I used to be intrigued by a poster which I stored seeing.
‘Biking, Cubo-Futurism and the Fourth Dimension, Jean Metzinger’s On the Cycle Observe.’
How may a person resist?
The venue was the Collezione Guggenheim – former residence of the millionairess artwork lover Peggy Guggenheim who lived within the stunning Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal till her dying in 1979.
The palazzo is tough to overlook from the water, there’s at all times a monumental artwork work on the terrace – this time it was a metal creation.
We pay a go to yearly, Marlene isn’t loopy about fashionable artwork, however it’s not every single day you get to be in a room filled with Jackson Pollock’s most interesting work.
Ready for us within the courtyard beneath a sizzling Venetian solar was ‘Cyclosna’ by Paul Wiedner a sculpture, or maybe ‘cell’ is a extra correct description; involving iron, digital parts, electrical motor, tower-clock, gasoline and blended media – in addition to bike wheels and tyres
It definitely caught the attention, even when it did seem like a Mavic check rig.
The central level of the exhibition was a portray by Frenchman Jean Metzinger known as, ‘On the Cycle-Race Observe’ – in oil, sand and collage on canvas.
Born in Nantes in 1883, he was ‘Renaissance Man;’ not solely did he paint he was a theorist, author, critic and poet. He was a number one mild within the ‘Cubist’ motion, pioneered by Picasso and Braque.
The best description of this type of artwork that I’ve seen is; ‘In Cubist art work, objects are analyzed, damaged up and reassembled in an abstracted type — as a substitute of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the topic from a mess of viewpoints to characterize the topic in a better context.’
However the portray additionally leans in direction of the Italian ‘Futurist’ college which celebrated modernity – town, air journey, motor automobiles and pace.
Metzinger’s rider on the Roubaix observe definitely matches in with that – he’s travelling so quick that we will see via him.
There have been Futurist work on show; a bicycle owner flies via a metropolis the place even the buildings can’t stand nonetheless.
There was extra of Metzinger’s work on show; it’s mentioned that Danish nuclear physicist Niels Bohr had certainly one of Metzinger’s works hung in his home.
Bohr was one of many precept founders of quantum mechanics and the Cubist idea of a ‘fourth dimension’ was one which fascinated him.
However there have been extra standard representations of cyclists on show, and – actual bikes.
Not least, certainly one of Fabian Cancellara’s Treks. I used to be pondering that it’s not every single day that the fellows at Trek get a request for certainly one of their bikes to go on show on the Guggenheim.
And persevering with with the ‘man of the pave’ theme, there was one of many late, nice Franco Ballerini’s mounted cobble stones, which he acquired for certainly one of his Paris-Roubaix victories.
They’d additionally sourced some outdated gems of machines from the; ‘when males have been males’ period and when the one factor you probably did with carbon was stick it on the fireplace. It did happen to me that Colby Pearce’s ideas on ‘bike match’ for certainly one of these machines could be fascinating to listen to.
They have been laborious males again then, driving enormous distances on largely unpaved roads on heavy unsophisticated machines.
And because the finish piece of the exhibition, there was a machine which the Futurists would certainly have authorized of. It pulls off the trick they’d have favored – wanting quick even once you’re standing nonetheless.
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