Eye Magazine

In the Traffic Signs Regulations of 1982, code 1057 refers to the road marking for a cycle lane, track or route: an upright bicycle compressed, like most road markings, to be legible in the extended perspective of road users.

Over the past decade, this old bicycle has multiplied in tarmac along the sides of roads, in advance stop lines at junctions, and in some cases placed randomly in the middle of highways. For the road sign painter the bicycle icon represents an opportunity for creativity, and the artistic endeavour or sheer incompetence of contractors is revealed in countless mutations of the original roadster. For his book 1057 (Carter Wong Tomlin, £10), Philip Carter has cycled around London photographing these fantastical, often mechanically impossible, contraptions. His images are snapshots of a charming and eccentric detail of the city streets – a celebration of the determinedly individual business of urban cycling.

First published in Eye no. 40 vol. 10, 2001

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