Who is an artist?
More specifically, what makes an artist an artist?
OK, I know that you (some of you, anyway) don't come to this blog for answers to questions like those. Greater minds than mine can't come up with them, so I won't try to formulate any on this blog, let alone in this post.
There are, however, cyclists who make, if not objets d'art, then at least conceptual creations when they ride.
Anthony Hoyte, a.k.a. The Pedaling Picasso, created this Strava image of Pere Noel in and around Paris. While pedaling 109.7 miles over 13 hours and 19 minutes does not yield an impressive average speed, you have to remember that works of art, great or not, take time. In Hoyte's case, he probably spent much of that time simply navigating his route.
Likewise, his GPS must have worked overtime as he pedaled sketches of Frosty the Snowman, a reindeer, Santa's head and the words "Merry Christmas in and around London and Birmingham.
If he could make street-level route maps of those images, they would be more useful than some of the "bicycle infrastructure" built lately:
I mean, what is the point of a "roundabout" in a bike lane? An intersection with signal lights synchronized so that cyclists cross before the traffic would be infinitely more practical--and safer.
A true artist would know better, I think.
