This week: a record-breaking cyclist, a 1960s singer and a pop art pioneer

THE endurance cyclist Mike Hall, who has died aged 35 after being struck by a car during a race, became the fastest person to circumnavigate the globe in 2012 when he completed the journey in 91 days and 18 hours - beating the previous record by two weeks.

Hall, who was from Harrogate in Yorkshire, was regarded as one of the best exponents of endurance cycling, in which the riders take on long-distance challenges. They also race for no money and do not have the vast teams of supporters that cyclists in other events do.

Hall had been competing in the 3,400-mile Indian Pacific Wheel race from Perth to Sydney when his GPS tracking stopped working. Around 70 riders had been taking part.

At the time of his death, Hall was in second place which was entirely expected for a cyclist of his abilities - he held the record for the fastest completion of the Trans-Am and Tour Divide bike-packing races in the United States and was the founder of the Transcontinental race in Europe.

His around-the-world trip in 2012 was also a remarkable achievement. He set off from Greenwich Royal Observatory as one of nine riders taking part in the event and arrived back in Greenwich 90 days later, having travelled through 20 countries.

THE singer Rose Hamlin, who has died aged 71, was best known for the 1960s hit Angel Baby, which was covered by artists including John Lennon and Linda Ronstadt.

Born Rosalie Hamlin in Oregon, the singer was raised in Alaska before moving to California as a child.

She was just 14 when she penned Angel Baby, a song ex-Beatle Lennon would later call one of his all-time favourites.

Hamlin said that she wrote Angel Baby about a teenage love and struggled for years to get credit for the song after a man was listed as its writer.

"We were musicians and not business people. We got burned like so many of our peers in those days," she wrote.

Her son, John Sanders, said his mother told him about the difficulties of the music industry.

"She really had to work a lot harder to get the same recognition," he said.

Hamlin also wrote about her pride in many of her accomplishments, such as being in an exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, about one-hit-wonders. She said that she was the first Latina to be on that list.

THE artist James Rosenquist, who has died aged 83, was a key figure in the pop art movement. He started by painting signs and billboard advertisements in Times Square and other public places and later incorporated images from popular culture into his work.

One of his best-known pieces is President Elect, which was reated in the early 1960s. It is a billboard-style painting depicting John F Kennedy's face alongside a yellow Chevrolet and a piece of cake.

"The face was from Kennedy's campaign poster. I was very interested at that time in people who advertised themselves," Rosenquist said. "Why did they put up an advertisement of themselves? So that was his face. And his promise was half a Chevrolet and a piece of stale cake." Another popular piece was F-111, which superimposes a Vietnam War fighter-bomber on images of children and consumer goods.

Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Rosenquist resisted comparisons to his contemporaries Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

"I'm not like Andy Warhol," he said. "He did Coca-Cola bottles and Brillo pads. I used generic imagery - no brand names - to make a new kind of picture. People can remember their childhood, but events from four or five years ago are in a never-never land. That was the imagery I was concerned with - things that were a little bit familiar but not things you feel nostalgic about. Hot dogs and typewriters - generic things people sort of recognize."