I can has tattoo!

[andygates]

Last year I realised that I've been cycling for a quarter century.  I wanted a tattoo to mark that... but what to get, when every bike would exclude some other sort of bike (even a "cogs 'n' chains" design would kybosh the penny farthing!)?  Eventually I settled on a bit of Science, the power formula for bikes, which describes how hard you have to work to overcome the various resistances I've resisted every week since I was eleven.

Getting it done:



The finished article:



Although it's hard to tell from those shots, it's in non-outlined deep brown - the colour of birthmarks and moles, Jadzia Dax's spots - I dig the idea that it might look almost as if the physics has expressed itself in my skin. Though, on reflection, the leg itself is pretty much an emergent property of a quarter-century of bike riding anyway.

And now I don't have to wake up from a typesetter's nightmare every night to grip the lapels of my minion's labcoat and rave, "Oh God, Carruthers, the kerning -- that damnable inhuman kerning!"

Comments

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

Extremely cool.

[splinister.livejournal.com]

Very snazzy sir!

[fialta.livejournal.com]

I like it , can you explain the formulas please?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The first chunk is frictional and gravity drag: the resistance of bearings and tyres and chain and so on, and the resistance felt by going uphill. It is proportional to your groundspeed Vg. "s" is a unitless gradient ratio.

The second chunk is air drag, and it's proportional to both your groundspeed and the *square* of your airspeed Va. That's why when riding, you start to hit lots more air resistance, and why it's so much harder to go from 21 to 22 mph than from 17 to 18 mph. And why aero position matters so much if you want to go fast.

In both chunks, the K values are "lumped constants" - fudge factors specific to each rider and bike.

There's a good wikipedia article on it here: Bicycle performance

[andygates.livejournal.com]

And I thought you didn't like tattoos?

[xeeny.livejournal.com]

Just not on me

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see - you're not allowed to be a scumbag. I'm already lost. :)

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

Can we have that conversation about running both ways around the lake again? That was fun.

[fialta.livejournal.com]

I was right, Ant was wrong and we have moved on after establishing this fact :-))

[(Anonymous)]

I rather agree with Fialta. Not a fan of tattoos in general, but if others want them it is their business. In America (generalization here) it is seen as low class to get tattoos. To the point where my father used KB's tattoos as a reason to feel him unprofessional and inappropriate for his daughter. My mother and grandmother on the opposite side of my family also were put off by them. They are just more polite than to say so to KB and myself in any kind of direct, "Are you sure you know what you are doing?" kind of way. My grandmother just said, "Oh" a lot and then said she didn't want to talk about it. Perhaps it is a culture thing in Russia as well?

That said, I do like your tattoo idea and what it represents to you. If you were going to get one anyway this one is at least meaningful and interesting.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I think it's a generational thing: not enough of the "happy mutants" generation are old yet.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

Somehow got signed out. Annie mouse post is from me.

Chav (sp?) is the closest word I can think of to describe the sentiment in America related to tats.

[fialta.livejournal.com]

This one looks kinda cool, how's it healing? Have you got special cream to put on it?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It's healing fine, thanks - scabbed up like road rash, but each part is small enough that there's no big "cap" of scab so there's no need for cream.

Tats with lots of flex, or solid coverage, benefit from some cream to keep the scabs supple. My armband wanted it, but didn't get it, and you can see the pale lines still where it cracked early and drew a little ink out. The backpiece didn't need anything: the heads were relatively immobile, and the rest is quite shallow apart from the lines - light shading doesn't scab anything like as much as solid colour.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Actually, this morning the scab *was* kinda stiff, so I've given it a rub with the same stuff I use for road-rash: Badger Healing Balm. :)

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

Oh that's very fine. Are you going to submit it to one of the science based ink collections?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Already there because it was this collection that got me thinking in this direction in the first place.

[flitljm.livejournal.com]

All kudos to you. Hope cycling with fresh tattoo is not too uncomfortable!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Just a little tuggy when the scab pulls, nothing to worry about.

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

How magnificently geeky. To you I tip my propellor beanie.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I'm going to end up like the guy from Memento only with Science, I can tell...

[fox-uk.livejournal.com]

You're a nutter :)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

What? It's just ink :)