One of the forgotten works of art (well, at least for me) are tracks left on the ground by bikes. With carefully designed patterns from a variety of bike types (road bikes, mountain bikes etc.), bike tires can sometimes leave some stunning works of art on the ground:

Example photo showing bike track art on the ground. Source

However, these masterpieces are often lost forever in mud and/or rain. So I decided to take a stab at designing a visualization to recreate and preserve these works of art in a “colorful” fashion.

The premise behind the visualization is very simple. Imagine if you were riding bikes over a circle with hidden colors, and as you bike over the circle, the colors are revealed. How will the end result look like? Here’s a simulation of this scenario:

Simulation showing bike tracks over a single color wheel. (Please wait for the animation to load)

In this simulation, bike tires can have one of six patterns, and to simplify matters, all tracks were drawn in the shape of circular arcs, and only one wheel was drawn per ride. A color wheel was used to layout different colors in a circle. When a bike moves over a certain part of the color wheel, the corresponding color is exposed.

Now, to take this to the next level, how would it look like if there were a collection of such color wheels and bikes could move over many of them at once? Here’s a simulation of that scenario:

Simulation showing bike tracks over many color wheels. (Please wait for the animation to load)

Note: The animations above are using GIF format and they don’t show all the detailed steps. Here is a web-based version of the above animation showing full details.

Personally, I think these simulations and final images are super interesting. Even if the individual patterns, shapes and colors are very simple, a collection of them laid out in a logical and natural fashion gives life to something larger. Agree/disagree? Please leave your comments below.

Like what you see? Please recommend, like, tweet and/or share with your friends. I have also put up some of my favorite designs onto posters, t-shirts and phone cases at Zazzle. Hope you like them!

Technical Details