Canadian cyclist creates doodles using GPS

VICTORIA, British Columbia, May 11 (UPI) -- A Canadian man has turned his bicycle routes into works of art using GPS tracking to create detailed images.

Stephen Lund, 50, first realized his bicycle could be used as an art tool on New Years day in 2015 when he biked a path that spelled out the phrase "Happy 2015."

Since then he's earned the nickname "Cycleangelo" for his bicycle creations and even travelled to Ottawa to recreate Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man on behalf of the Canadian Association of Optometrists.

"It struck me almost immediately that this red line on the map had more to it than just tracking...I decided to do some experimentation," Lund told the Toronto Star.

His drawings require an immense amount of planning to determine the proper route and to figure out if he will complete it in one continuous ride or "connect the dots" by turning his GPS on and off.

Completing the routes themselves can also take several hours, as he told the CBC he expects to ride for at least six hours to complete the Vitruvian Man.

"So it covers a fair chunk of the city," Lund said. "It'll be a little slower-going than usual because it's a brand-new city for me and I don't want to make any wrong turns. If you make a wrong turn with a GPS drawing, you have to go back to the start."

Lund has come a long way from his original New Years message, drawing everything from Star Wars and Queen Elizabeth to Michelangelo's David.

"The possibilities for it are really quite limitless," he said.