I know it’s been slow going these days here, and oh how I wish I could share with you some of the cool things we’re developing on the PechaKucha front, but that’ll have to wait for a bit. One fun little thing I did the other day was to put together a Tumblr blog to just share PechaKucha Night posters, as I thought it would be great to see them all together up on a wall like that. It only includes posters from 2012 (so for the past 2 and half months), and I’ll keep updating it with new ones I receive.

I know I haven’t put up the last PauseTalk participants list yet, but I’ll do that soon, and in the meantime, you can have a look at photos by Michael, up on Facebook.

I haven’t had time for much else, but I do hope to record a new episode of the Codex tonight, and over on Warren Ellis’ blog, you’ll find a few thoughts I shared with him on the topic of magazines.

Despite this gray and rainy weekend, it really does feel like warmer spring weather is just around the corner, which should mean my bike life will become active again — can’t wait.

I’m very happy to announce a new little project of mine called Instabike Tokyo. It all started last week when I discovered a site that Amsterdam-based illustrator Laszlito Kovacs had launched called Instabike. The idea was a simple one, and can be explained with this mathematical equation: Amsterdam + Bikes + Instagram = Victory! I loved the idea — and I need to thank my main man in Amsterdam, Luis Mendo, for turning me on to this — and immediately thought that it would be great to do the same thing in Tokyo, and a few days later, and with the blessing of Laszlito, Instabike Tokyo was born.

I will say that my version is a bit different in that my plan is to cover Tokyo cycling culture in general — one of the ideas behind the original Instabike site is to capture shots of cyclists from behind. The density of cycling in Tokyo would make this a hard thing to do.

Laszlito has now put up an Instabike hub page — and I’m assuming he’d be open to other cities joining in. For Instabike Tokyo, on top of the Tumblr site, you can follow the project through Twitter, and there’s a Facebook page as well.

As of a couple of weeks ago I’ve started spending more time at the Klein Dytham architecture office in Ebisu, and that’s given me an excuse to do a lot of biking again. That’s still my bike pictured above, a Bianchi BD-1, that I bought from Craig Mod close to 3 years ago. At first I told myself I’d maybe go to the office by bike on one day a week, but so far I’ve been doing it more often, and rather looking forward to the ride.

From my home in Ikebukuro to the KDa office takes me about 40 minutes, with a distance of around 10km — even though it’s a very easy ride, since I’m pretty much just on Meiji street from start to finish, things always slow down around Shinjuku, when I start hitting all those traffic lights. I had a blast last night when I left the office after a meeting with Ian Lynam and Mark McFarlane, as we all biked together until Shibuya before separating, side-by-side on one lane (traffic was light).

And yes, this does mean that I’m out and about more, being based in Ebisu (and often with a bike), and can be easily bribed by coffee or drinks if you want to meet up with me.

As I mentioned when I wrote about it at SNOW Magazine, this past Friday night I headed out to Koenji to catch the reception of Antonin Gaultier’s “2005-2010: Collected Archives” show. It was held at Alin Huma’s F de C Tokyo multi-purpose space, and it was my first visit there. I had a really nice time, and the crowd was great — was good to finally meet Alex of so+ba, although I hope I didn’t freak him out too much with my Uwe Boll stories — but what made the evening even better is that I decided to go there by bicycle, from Ikebukuro. I’ll say that the ride back when it suddently got really cold with high winds wasn’t as fun as the way there, but it still felt good (I haven’t really been cycling regularly of late).

The photo above popped up on Facebook, and was taken by Yann Le Goec. That’s me in the space, with my back to the camera, talking to Alin.

Even though I was planning on going, I missed out on Paper Sky‘s “Bicycle Club” event this past Saturday at the farmer’s market in front of the UN University, but the magazine’s Lucas Badtke-Berkow has posted a few photos from the day, both for the bicycle event and the booth the magazine had at the market. Above on the right, Lucas and his carrots!

Wanted to post this a while back and for some reason didn’t get around to it, but really enjoyed Tim Rudder’s report on the cycling trip he took to Nikko (from Tokyo and back).

The new issue of Paper Sky (31) is a special one, marking a major renewal for the magazine. The most obvious change is the cover design, but you’ll find English content creeping back into the magazine as well — for now, mostly with intro paragraphs to each article, but Cameron Allan McKean‘s article on sento bathing in Tokyo is published entirely in English.

The Paper Sky website is also about to get a major revamp, and is set to launch within a week or two. The new site will now have a strong English component, of which I’ll be a contributor (but more on that once the site launches).

The other day I had the great pleasure of finally meeting the magazine’s founder, Lucas Badtke-Berkow, who also founded the original — and truly great — TOKION. Seems like this should have happened ages ago, and it was great to have a nice long chat with Lucas about where Knee High Media has been, where it’s heading, and on the state of print media in general. After checking out the KHM office in Shibuya, we ended up getting coffee at this amazing little retro cafe nearby, which I hate that I can’t remember the name (but I’ll be going there again).

Above, the label for Lucas’ new Luke’s Carrots line of organic products — I had a taste of the carrot jam, which was delicious. You can currently buy it at the weekend farmer’s market in front of the UN University in Aoyama, where he and his wife are manning a booth this month. Next weekend they’ll also be offering free rides on some very cool bicycles, as part of the new Paper Sky Bicycle Club.

Update: The cafe’s name is Aoyama Ichibankan, and here’s a map that shows the location. Make sure to get the honey toast!

Tim Rudder took the afternoon to draw a girl on a fixed gear bike, and walks us through the process.

CNNGo has a piece up looking at some of Tokyo’s best bike shops. Pictured above, WBASE Harajuku.

The Cycle Chic from Copenhagen blog has a post up featuring a few ladies riding their bicycles in Fukuoka, courtesy of photographer Stephen Crawford. It is indeed great living in a city/country where women are frequent cyclists. Via Ryan Ruel.

Felissimo in New York is hosting a Japan Brand pop-up shop during the holidays (until December 24), and it’s been getting some coverage on a bunch of NYC-based blogs, including JoshSpear.com and Spoon & Tamago.

Pictured above is a bicycle designed by Gelman, made of lacquer, silver plating, and gold leaf. It was created for his “Gelman’s Masterpieces” exhibition earlier this year at the Kakitsubata gallery in Nakameguro. I was actually given the chance the take it for a spin after the show was over, but I chickened out — was just too nervous that I might crash it or something.

Click through to see a very cool panorama photo of the JAN track bike shop in Tokyo by Kyoichi Ozaki — best viewed fullscreen. Via Gordon Kanki Knight.

Here’s a pretty interesting project in which Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment put together a navigation system that mounts an iPhone on a cycling helmet, with the display running into an eyepiece. Thanks to the device’s compass — if you have a 3GS that is — everything orients correctly as you move your head around. Via Core77.

In collaboration with this year’s traveling Bicycle Film Festival, Italian manufacturer San Marco has produced a series of limited edition saddles, one for each city that hosts the event. Tokyo is covered in red. Via Cool Hunting, which includes more photos and details.

“Aeolian Ride” — held so far in a few cities around the world — sees a bunch of riders get together, put on an inflatable suit and, well, ride around. It’s coming to Tokyo on May 16, and if interested you can sign up here. Visit the previous cities’ photo galleries to get a better idea of what the event looks like.