cycling, graffiti, the smell of hay and historical materialism (visual story in 11 photos)

A little backstory. Last summer my local park have started some "reconstructions and renovations"; it was dug up and all the virgin, natural layer of soil was destroyed, and that was exactly what I loved most that park for ... So, I limited visiting that park, and when I checked it last week, - it turned out that at least one good thing have happened there: they built a velodrome for cyclists training in the "cross-country" genre.

I confess that my city's cycling infrastructure leaves much to be desired. The huge multi-million city has only 3 bike paths (!), and they are not very good, it is difficult to ride in the historical center of the city along the streets with cars, and cycling at the sidewalk with pedestrians is near impossible: in the crowd, you instantly turn from a cyclist into a pedestrian ... who is burdened with excessive luggage (i.e. bicycle).

The number of other places where people can ride bicycles is very limited. Some parks (in the city center) expressly forbid people with bicycles from entering.

By the way, a while ago I discovered that our city has a skateboarding park: special place for those who want to train their skateboarding and BMX-bikes skills. The park is located on Vvedenskaya Street, 11.

On that day I had my 150mm macro telephoto lens, which wasnt perfect to capture that location. Let me add a sourced image from internet, to give you an idea of this place:

Publicity shot #img #src

This is a small place, literally 500 square meters, surrounded by a fence, sandwiched between ordinary residential buildings ... a very strange choice of location for such a sports facility. If more than 20-25 people come here during peak hours, then instead of the expected training ground, they all get a 'traffic jam'.

I did a study ... and it turns out this is the only site like that in the city (!). I want to say, my city needs much more of such infrastructure.

So. I return to the beginning of my post. Recently I discovered that in the park next to me (at a distance like 20 minutes) another specialized cycling facility appeared! It has not yet been completed completely, but has already been filled with the public all day long. Basically, there are kids and teenagers. I periodically pass by, stop and already had a pleasure of talking with some of them.

No, I am not going to ride the slides myself, for me it's too big extreme. But I'm happy that such a place has appeared - now going for a ride I grab a camera with me 😎 and love to make here a special stop.

Asphalt Mountains for Cyclists.

I have yet to understand which plots look more intresting and which arent. I will share more photosessions of this place, as I make more cycling-photo-walks in this park.

Up to date, I find the most successful are captures with facial expressions: struggle, breaking thru the challenge, winning. Stunning!

Thanks for walking with me, see you next time.

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie

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