On Riding

Over the weekend that just past I went on two rides. The first one I did on my own, I had been planning on going on a Saturday morning Steady State ride, but when I got downstairs in my bike jersey and shorts, got to the front door opened it wide and saw the rain coming down in buckets I decided to heed the weather report, went back to bed, and as promised, by noon the sun was shining. Below is my route, quite possibly the easiest route I ever drew up, Google Map from home to Hamilton, come up 2km shy, avoid highways and take Lakeshore Blvd. (I did use the MGT across downtown Toronto, but the rest of the ride was Lakeshore.) When I was deep in the heart of Oakville I noticed that my knees started hurting, thinking that I would be climbing Rattle Snake the next day I decided that no matter what at 2:00 I would turn around. At a street called Delaware and Lakeshore, in Burlington I did a 180 degree turn and made for Toronto, with a modest tail wind. Had I known:

1. that I was just over 2km from Hamilton or,
2. that I had faced a headwind the whole way South West or,
3. that the club Sunday ride would not be anywhere near Rattle Snake,

I would have kept on trucking and done Hamilton Beach and been able to prove it is possible to get to Hamilton Beach from my house without using a single drop of fossil fuels.

Due to the Gay Pride Parade and all the traffic insanity the parade implies, the Sunday ride took a different route. Someone else in the club drew up this map and I am not entirely confident in every detail, but then I am even less confident in my own memory. Here are some pictures from that ride, most courtesy of Dan Yang (the guy who runs the club).

Alright, lets just get the photo out of the way, there it is, everyone point and laugh, what an idiot! (But at least my teeth and nice and clean!)

That's me talking to Jeff, he's the guy who basically saved my sorry rear end on Tuesday when I forgot my water bottles. I don't, for the life of me remember the name of the guy in the foreground.

Ah-ha! Photographic evidence I do know how to ride a bike! I really should learn the name of the guy to my right, he lives around the corner from me.

I really ought to shave before these rides, I don't really plan on it, but it seems to me that I should be as much prepared for a photo shoot as a bike ride. Above are most of the people who went on the Sunday ride. Notice I am in the far left. There are 25 people in this picture.
The guy in the foreground is Dan Yang, this club is all his doing. (I would say nice things about him, but on the off chance he ever reads my Blog I can't let him start thinking I actually think nice things about him.)

So I was reading about oil recently. It seems Canadians are more concerned with high energy costs than with the environment. I guess when push comes to shove it is a lot like public transit. "Public transit is great and everyone else should use it." Worrying about global climate change is great and everyone else should stop driving so I can get my cheap gasoline fix. In Europe I believe gas costs in the neighbourhood of a couple bucks a litre, and we are complaining about $1.30/L! Are we nuts? (!) Stupid high expensive gas prices are exactly what we need. We need to end our love affair with the Stupid Ugly Vehicles like the Hummer, the Esclade, the Suburban and start using transit, get off our collective duff's and start riding or walking.

Meanwhile our "friends" the world's top smack dealer, the Saudi's just changed their song. For about a year just would not stop singing the same tune about market speculators driving up the price of oil and the supply is fine, not gonna increase production (even went ole' Georgie Pudding Pie Bush kissed their asses back in April) went out and announced a four hundred thousand barrel per day (400kbpd) production hike to alleviate high prices. (Guess what did nothing to alleviate high prices. Hey in a World that consumes something in the neighbourhood of 87Mbpd did anyone actually believe 0.4Mbpd would make the slightest difference?) Before I start on an environmental rant, consider how much oil, 1Mbpd is, I mean, we are talking about 42 gallons of oil in a barrel, then something between 14 and 28 gallons of gas (since between one and two thirds of a barrel of oil is gasoline), so, lets suppose 20 gallons of gas per barrel times a million barrels per day, times say, 3.8L/gal is 76 Million liters of gasoline in a million barrels, and the world is consuming over 80 million barrels a day. That's about 6.1 Billion liters of gasoline every single day that we are basically dumping into the atmosphere.

But back to the Saudi's for a second, their excuse is that market speculation is driving up the price of oil. Let me explain how the markets work. Lets suppose you own a corn farm in Iowa, and you want to sell your crop in August, so in say January you draw up a contract with someone to supply corn at a set price, now you can borrow money against the sale of corn that does not exist yet, so you can buy seeds and fertilzier and all that good stuff. Well now you have a contract for August delivery on the corn futures market.

Well oil works the same way, except that most corn and pork bellies and other commodities contracts change hands in Chicago, oil contracts are mostly traded in New York and London, but its the same arangement. Except that I only described what the producer does. What about the speculator? Well they take delievery of the corn in August and let me tell you, if you are a corn farmer who had a crappy spring, it really sucks cause now you have to run out and buy corn from someone else to meet your contractual obligations.

Anyway so the buyer buys the corn and turns around and sells it to clients who need corn for feeding their pigs which become next season's pork bellies, thus the cycle continues. But notice the speculator does not actually touch the corn? The speculator was in Chicago wearing a funny suit yelling numbers in a crowded room, he wouldn't know an ear of corn from a pork belly if you hit them over the head with a pork chop! Its the same story with oil, the speculator draws up an August contract with the Saudi's or with Syncrude or anyone else, and on a set date an amount of oil is delivered to... well the speculator wouldn't know what to do with the oil, but that does not matter, he's turned the contract over to Exxon Mobile, or maybe Royal Dutch Shell, but the point is the oil is still there, the speculator never actually used it, the demand did not increase because of a guy in a fancy office on Wall Street. All that speculation does over the long term is afford a chance to borrow money with some foreknowledge of what the product will sell for when the time comes. In short, speculators actually level the market's peaks and troughs.

Put even more bluntly, despite what the Saudi's are saying, we really really are running out of gas and the recent rise in gas prices is not some summer spike, I mean sure when the summer driving season ends things will settle down a little bit, but the inflated price of gas is the new normal and anyone who things they will see a return to $1.00/L gas in Canada is just out to lunch. We are entering the period of the Long Emergency and well frankly I'm glad I love riding so much.

To me riding is freedom, freedom I suppose in a way similar to driving was back when gas was a nickle a gallon. On skates I can see the same trail over and over and over again, but on a bike, I can go anywhere, be it Hamilton or Claredon. Unlike the car that needed $1400 in routine repairs just a couple months ago, on a bike, just a limited knowledge of bike repair is all I ever really need there is no worry about mechanical issues.

I hope we run out oil sooner than expected, I sure hate sharing the road with all the bad drivers out there.

On short rides and recovery

Saturday I bought a lockring tool from Velotique, it did not come on a nice long arm, instead I am supposed to use a wrench, but finding a wrench was a complex job, as it turns out the thing requires a 1" hex socket. Just for kicks I want to have a go of removing my cassette and putting it back on. After several days of searching I finally found the socket I need for that lockring.

Today I was renewing my auto insurance and the guy from the insurance company and I were talking about the price of gas, he rides a motorcycle and he was peeved that he had to cough up $20 for a fill up. Then we bemoaned the price of repairs. I love my bike, I have probably logged a couple thousand kilometers and haven't stopped at a gas station once! (Okay that was a really lame joke, sorry!) If there is a problem I can usually fix it, and if I cannot fix it myself, its a lot cheaper to go to Cycle Solutions than it is to go to some auto shop.

Last night I went out to Brimely and down the bluffs to the water then I climbed back up the bluffs and went home. It took an hour to cover about 21.5km. And no, I don't feel bad about my speed, climbing the Bluffs is not a trivial exercise, actually I'm not even too upset that I had to walk the last ten meters. I am upset that I forgot to downshift, because had I remembered that I was actually in a pretty high gear I probably would have taken that hill with a lot less effort. (But then I also would have missed the whole point of a steep climb.)

Today besides the rat race ride into and home from work I won't be doing any riding and tomorrow I will do a 90km ride, the Steady State Saturday ride with the Beaches Club - who else! But the nice thing about the Steady States is we go real gentle, which is a good thing because Sunday is, oh my god can we please take it easier, Psycho Sunday ride. (Not to be confused with 'Laurie, Jeezus you aren't getting my life insurance if you kill me Tuesday's'.)

I need a name for my bike, I'm sick of calling her the Roubaix, mostly because typing all that is a real pain, but it does help that she has a personality and a gender. If anyone can think of a suitable name for a speed daemon, post a comment. Although I reserve the right to completely ignore suggestions that I don't like.

Funny thing, when I started this blog I thought I'd spend a lot of time talking about skating. I have not thrown those Bonts on in ages. All the oxygen for one passion got sucked away by another passion, oh well!

On night rides

I decided to take June 25 (Wednesday) off work. I used that day to move the last of our stuff from our old home. There is, I must confess a modest amount of emotional attachment to a property we lived in for three years, but it is only a modest amount. (I guess I'm just rattled by the sight of such an empty house.)


Because I had Wednesday off, I was able to go on the 8:30 Tuesday night 'Escape from the Don' ride with the Beaches Cycle club. Here is the route:

I think my GPS showed something in the neighbourhood of 75km when everything was said and done. What my GPS will not show is that I am a total airhead sometimes!

Lesley and I had thought of seeing a movie on Tuesday after work and then I would go directly to the starting point of the ride. So I packed my water bottles (Endurox - a Recovery drink mix - and water) and went to work Tuesday morning. Our movie plans changed and I did remember to bring my water bottles home and store them in the fridge. Then when the time came to actually meet everyone naturally I forgot the water in the fridge. Someone else in the club - Jeff, if you ever read this, thanks, it was a life saver - had some spare bottled water and I kept it in my jersey pockets, but instead of 1.5L of water and recovery mix, I had 1L of straight up H2O.

I wonder, are my muscles stiff because of the lack of Endurox or are they stiff because we went so damned fast. Holy smokes were we going... well I use the wrong pronoun, I should not use the first person plural, it should be third person plural. Going full out almost from the word "Go" it was a case of thank god this isn't the Doughnut ride! I would have been dropped like third period French somewhere near the first green light and never see a rider again. As it was the guys did wait for me, more than once I am embarrassed to report, but I can draw some comfort from the fact that I was not the only person who had problems keeping up. The story that circulated that evening was that one guy, Laurie, had done very poorly - presumably by his psycho insane, holy smokes is he fast, standards - the previous Tuesday and was making up for it today... by killing me!

Never let it be said that the equipment makes the man though, Laurie is riding around on something that must be from the late 80s or Early 90s, it actually looks like his ride has the same gears as my Coppi. Although I must confess, I've been looking at Carbon frames lately... I know, I need that like I need another hole in my wallet, but damn if they aren't something to see.

I suppose I could put my Alloy frame with the old wheels and handle bars upstairs and train on it in the Winter and use a Carbon frame with new wheels, handles bars, and the Ultegra group the road. Something for me to dream about I guess.

Anyway below is a picture we took at Steels and Weston Road, I am on the far right.

As for the ride itself, it had a surprising amount of X rated content, while turning right we passed a surprised pedestrian who suffered a spontaneous bra failure. Further on some rather intoxicated young ladies were I believe expressing sexual desires towards us, but I cannot be sure, I was more worried about catching up with the blinking red lights off in the distance. I am also not very fond of night rides, it is better than skating, once the sun goes down the skates must come off, but even so, a good many potholes were experienced without ever being seen.

This morning, on the ride in to work, my legs were still stiff, so I decided to take it easy. Then some guy on a hybrid past me. Naturally I couldn't let that stand so I picked it up and caught his draft, when I passed him I thanked him for the pull. I slowed at a red light, and he caught up, he pointed out that what we were doing was probably not wise, we were rushing to work, I replied that it in my case it was especially unwise as I had stiff legs. Maybe if the guy was on a proper road bike the passing me part would not be so offensive.

Later today I am going to take my Roubaix to Cycle Solutions, I tried to remove the cassette, mostly just to see what it is all about, but I could not, I was pulling the chain whip and yanking on that wrench just as hard as I could, to no avail, hopefully I am doing something wrong and not just as pathetically weak as my slow speeds on rides would suggest.

One final thought, I was explaining my theory of bike genders to a guy at the office, he liked what I think of hybrids.

On riding too far

Saturday morning the people who built the lift in the garage finally turned the keys over at 8am. Lesley had the car at the time, she was visiting friends and did not get home until around 11 that night. After I got the keys I went to Velotique's advanced bike repair class and then as promised rode out to Maple to help a friend move. (Distance to Maple: 39.5km.) The sky looked threatening for most of the ride but besides a very light shower for about 2 minutes on 16'th between Bathurst and Dufferin things were actually pretty good.

After helping load a 14 foot U-haul with big things I left for Brampton. We agreed that if my friend does the light stuff on his own he should get to his new place about the same time I got there. It turns out that:

1. There are two really steep river valleys just West of Weston Road, riding down into the valley is a blast but climbing out after is a different story. By the time I got out of the second valley I was pretty well tired out. Except that then I still had about 20km of steady riding, with a head wind.
   
2. The U-haul truck was a POS, the battery died on the driveway in Maple, my friend only got his boost after I made camp on the front steps of his new home.
   Total Distance from the lake to Brampton by way of Maple: 75km.
   

Below is the route I took. (The North most blue blob is my friend's old place in Maple.)

It started raining as we unpacked, I decided to wait out the rain, which was such a long wait I would have been riding in the dark had I tried to ride home. My friend drove me, with the bike in the back of the truck. Every pothole the truck took scared me. To me it is shameful to drive, to drive a bike is something I frankly cannot believe I am admitting in a public place!

Sunday I went for a group ride. Here are some images of me, courtesy of Dan Yang of the Beaches Cycle Club.

Can you see me? I'm just to the right of centre, my back is turned to the camera. This picture was taken at about 6am, roughly 25km from home at the "starting point" of the ride. No I did not drive there, I rode out, which meant, of course, that I left the house just before 5 to meet up with other people who were riding to the starting point.

I swear I don't look good when I wear sun glasses, at least I should take them off when there's going to be a picture! (In case you haven't figured it out, I am wearing a Beaches Cycle Club jersey... just like everyone else! - I'm on the far right in this picture.)

Alright in the annals of goofy face shots this has to get a special mention. But at least its a full face shot.

The first three images were before we "started". At that point my GPS was either just a little more or less than 25km. This image, I'm further back, in the centre, was taken in Oakville as we returned. By this point my GPS said 108km. The other guys stopped for a while for coffee, I did not want to for a couple reasons. I had to get home by 11 and it was already 9:30, also I knew if I stopped for more than a couple minutes, I would not be able to move again. Later on, when I was just East of Leslie street, after the GPS said 151km I called Lesley to ask her to do something, I stopped for maybe 3 minutes, after that I could hardly move. Its now been 48 hours since that ride and my muscles are still a little stiff.

Total distance: 154km.

A confession: I looked at Rattle Snake point (an evil hill that is Appleby Line North bound just North of Derry Road) and dismounted. My knees were already in pain and I knew there was just no way I could do that climb that day. Below is the route we took, to the best of my memory. I am pretty confident of most of that route, except the part from Appleby and Campbelville to Trafalgar and Lakeshore that one stretch was a haze.

On Anthropomorphism and Century rides

Is it a healthy sign that I regard my bike as a near human? That may be a real indicator that I am loosing my mind, but then as is so often pointed out to me by my co-workers, all of the above presupposes I was of sound mind to begin with!

Anyway I noticed that I am getting a lot of repeat visitors who check in every day and I wouldn't want to make you wait too long to read something new. (I should suggest, guys have a look at RSS Feeds, you might find it real handy. Although it occurs to me, if you do set up an RSS feed my lame hit counter is going to become even more lame!) Here is a question, for real, am I a good writer? People tell me that but are they just trying to be nice? I often dream of writing a best selling novel, using the money to pay off the mortgage and quiting my day job so I can work in a bike shop or something equally laid back. The fact is, having a regular office job and living the rat race really sucks, guys if you can avoid becoming a cubical rat, do yourself a favour.

A friend of mine who helped Lesley and I move to our apartment, then to our condo and then to our home is moving. He lives in Maple Ontario (about 40km from my home) and is moving to Brampton (about 30km from his place in Maple and about 50 or 60km from my home.) Of course I will help him, I'd be a pretty shitty person if I didn't, but I really want to go for a long ride tomorrow and I don't care that the weather reporters are unanimous in their calls of immanent rain, they were unanimous about rain today and guess what it did not do! (Besides my Roubaix is a bike not a pair of inline skates.) So here is my plan, ride to Maple, help my friend move his stuff onto the truck then ride to Brampton, help him unload then ride home. My route to his place in Maple:

1. Up Logan, then Broadview and O'Connor
2. Across the Don Valley at Millwood to Laird
3. Up Laird to the top, then Bayview
4. Up Bayview all the way to 16
5. Across 16 to Keele
6. Up Keele past Major Mackenzie to my friend's place.
(If anyone knows of a safer route that won't require hours of memorizing I'm all ears.)

From Maple to Brampton:

1. Across Major Mackenzie to Jane
2. Down Jane to Rutherford
3. Along Rutherford which becomes Castlemore which becomes Bovaird
4. Right at Chinguacousy Rd

(I really should have printed a map when I had the chance... dammit!)

The route home is pretty simple:

1. Down Chinguacousy Rd which becomes Mavis
2. At the end of Mavis (the Queensway) go East to the East Mall
3. Take the East Mall to Evans Ave, take Evans to Royal York
4. Take Royal York to Lake Shore
5. Lake shore across the bottom home.

I imagine that there are safer routes, but I don't know the neighbourhood(s) so I have no idea what those routes are. Total expected distance: 130 ~ 140km. (Just shy of A Century.)

Sunday I ride with the Beaches Cycle Club, we are going to Milton and back. passing within meter's of my manager's home. Total distance will be about 160km.

On a related note, I was at the dentist doing a post op review, he is very pleased with my mouth, unlike Jacky Shu I suppose! (Sorry I had to say that, I just couldn't resist.) But while I was waiting for the dentist, alright the Periodontist, (I am sure someone out there just wanted me to spell that mouth full of consonants) I was reading a back issue of Maclean's Magazine. They were discussing Peak Oil and how we are for real entering a new age of expensive energy, well really its re-entering the place we were at the turn of the 20'th Century. The author predicted that suburbia will become a waste land of empty houses, travel will become a luxury, food will become expensive, and so on.

You know, if suburbia becomes an abandoned land of large empty homes, at least there will be lots of space for me to train, and I won't need to worry about all those crappy suburban drivers, they will be too busy learning how to walk to the supermarket from their high density condo that they swore they'd never live in. (Peak oil, an excuse for me to be a real smug asshole!) But the fact is, we, in Canada and the United States need overly expensive energy for our own good.

On co-ops and all nighters

Monday during the daytime we noticed that the login system for our website was unusually slow, it turned out the LDAP (password authentication) server was running a process, LSASS.exe that was spinning. I read up on the Microsoft forums and there seemed to be two suggestions, reinstall the service pack, upgrade the memory to at least 1GB. (Remember when 1MB was a big deal? The first system I saw that had one gigabyte was a pretty awesome sight, it was a Gould Mainframe that was used by Air Canada for their pilot training flight simulator.)

As both changes would require a reboot I would have to wait until off hours, 9 or 10pm to do the updates. At 10pm sharp from home I realized I forgot my password... got that mess sorted out, then, on the VPN from home still, wouldn't you know while reapplying the service pack the system blew up in my face. At 2am I gave up on repairing and in disgust, took a shower (I felt filthy from working on Microsoft crapware for the previous four hours) got on my bike and by 3am was in the office... yes I was insane I rode my bike to the office at a quarter to 3am! By 6:50am I had restored from a backup and we were back in business.


Naturally my boss gave me Tuesday off, so I took a nap for about 90 minutes, then drove Lesley to work. When I got home I decided not to go back to sleep, or my body clock would get completely buggered, instead, I ate some breakfast and went for a nice 62k ride. Here is the general route:

In fact the Don Valley trail is longer than I depicted and I made an ugly hill climb in Sunnyside Park for no reason, I thought I could exit and go East it turned out when I got to the top of the hill there was no exit to city streets. Ultimately as the map shows I went West and explored a bit. There are some very pretty houses in Etobicoke just South West of Dundas and the Humber River.

Wednesday my manager and I went to my old stomping grounds at The University of Waterloooooooser. We had to interview candidates for our role as IT Co-op. Some candidates were alright, some were appalling. If anyone wants advice for their resume, drop me a line, or just put a comment, maybe one day I'll go on some long schtick on why a resume should include work experience. (Honest to god, we had a C.V. without any work experience, turned out the candidate was actually reasonably strong, but that resume was brutal and I told her so.)

Wednesday afternoon I stopped by the office, hey I hadn't been in the office in two whole business days!, I stayed and worked for a couple hours on a big disk (SAN for you IT hacks) upgrade, we put in a new pair of Fabric Switches. I left work at about 11:50, after announcing I would take Thursday morning off (so I could go for a group ride with the Beaches Cycle Club). I got home, cleaned the cat litter and hit the sack around 1:30. At 6:15 my manager called me, there was a problem... needless to say, by 9am I was back in the office, the only ride? 7km to the office. I think I am going to call in sick on Friday. I am sick, sick of work!

On what you are reading

As I have mentioned in the past I like to go through a detailed review of who is visiting my little blog. I also look at how people get here. For the curious among you, it seems that people are recurring visitors in the North Eastern part of North America, particularly Southern Ontario, no surprise there. (Although I am getting some recurring visits from Europe and Japan, Hi Aaron and who ever it is who is visiting from Japan!)

What does boggle my mind though is the number of people hitting my blog from Google Image searches, oddly there seems to be a lot of interest in the picture Lesley took from the car when we pulled into the LBJ space flight centre in Houston that I posted on March 8, On the Toronto International Bike Show (apparently there is quite a bit of interest in the T-38 training jet). Another popular image is of the bike I thought I owned, from the March 9 post, On 2006 Specialized Roubaix Comp Triple... maybe I should go run out and find that frame so at least I really would own that bike! (Then again if I go that road why not just get a Tarmac frame and have a really sweet ride?)

I should point out I changed the survey question. With respect to the last question, unsurprisingly something like 80% of respondents, or the other four people, voted that George Walker Bush was the worst president in US History, hey he still has 7 months to really screw things up, like... oh I don't know start a nuclear war? (Maybe I shouldn't have said that.)

I believe I voted for the guy who got ten hours of sleep a night, and took afternoon naps, in the run up to the depression, that was "Cool with Cal" Calvin Coolidge. Hey anyone who could sleep through economic policy that caused the depression has to earn a special place in the pantheon of bad presidents.

This month's question though is actually a trick question, but I will explain after the voting is over. Just remember, I asked who you would like to see become the next president, not who you would like to see be elected.

I had surgery recently in my mouth, it hurts an awful lot most of the time and I cannot eat fruit, its very depressing. I have a pear I packed in my lunch that I really want to eat. Oh well, maybe I'll go get an ice cream, truth is though, I'd rather eat that pear.

On LISP

My undergraduate buddy, Tomas Benda, and I were taking CS 241 in the summer of 1999. CS 241 was, at the time, a course that involved no less than three different computer programming languages, Modula-3, DLX (a knock-off of MIPS or some similar machine level RISC architecture) and Scheme. It was around the time that we were poking around with Scheme that Tomas drew the long awaited O(1) solution to the traveling sales man problem.

Now chances are if you are reading this you probably have some computer programming experience, most likely in a type setting language like HTML, but chances are most of my readers do not have real programming, as in, I wrote an entire Operating System with context switching, time slicing, memory management and Inter Process Communications in this Language back in 2001, experience. (For those of you who might be wondering, yes I did, in the summer of 2001, Insop Song and I worked together and wrote... forget it doesn't matter and you probably wouldn't understand the terminology anyway.)

Anyway I discuss programming for one reason, as I said Tom and I were studying a horrible language called Scheme which basically works by recursion only, there are variables, but you are not supposed to use them, instead you just make a function call over and over. Scheme is so thick with recursion that any code in scheme ends up being loaded down with parenthesis, i.e. brackets "()". Well I read somewhere that Scheme was actually a knock off of LISP, the designers of Scheme had tried to remove some of the parenthesis required by LISP. When I told this to Tom he replied that LISP must stand for, Lots of Idiotic and Stupid Parenthesis.

I went for a second ride tonight, because the roads were busy and I was on my own I stuck to the bike trail where possible and let me tell you the bike trail was crowded, so in honour of Tom Benda I have a new LISP, Lots of Idiotic and Stupid Pedestrians! I want someone to explain to me, if the trail is clearly marked with the symbol for a bike to the right and a pedestrian to the left, why are there so many pedestrians on the bike trail? And if I say "on your left" why does their brain turn that into "move to your left"? No wonder serious cyclists avoid bike trails, car drivers are morons, but pedestrians are oblivious morons... wait a second, most car drivers are pretty oblivious too... well pedestrians are worse, marginally.

I want a gun, no bullets you understand, just blanks, so I can make a really loud and scary noise, maybe scare people into waking up... I doubt it would work.

I forgot to mention previously, I bought new wheels for my bike, Mavic Ksyrium SL, bought new tires too, Hutchinson Fusion2. My bike looks too good for me frankly, I feel like a bit... no a lot of a poser on her, but with those new wheels, damn if she isn't fast, and suddenly I don't feel scarred really leaning into corners.

Here's another random thought, notice my bike has picked up a pronoun. But it is definitely a woman, besides being way to light to be a guy (mountain bikes would be male and I guess hybrids are... hermaphrodites?), she is very unforgiving of mistakes and had to be handled very gently, but when everything is good with her, damn if she isn't one helluva ride. Besides, with those new wheels, my bike is way, way too sexy to be male.

On incompetent policing

Today I went for another group ride, here is the route:

According to my GPS it was actually over 78km, by my rough numbers we averaged a nice gentle 30 km/h. It rained, it shined, and on Lakeshore on the return trip there was a cop at a speed trap by the Legion Hall. (Here is a hint, if you are driving on Saturday Morning on Lakeshore, don't speed, there are speed traps up and down the road.)

The cop started waving us onto the bike trail. I yelled back that he should read the Highway Traffic Act. Here is why:

Section 1.1 clearly defines a bicycle as a vehicle, as I have written here previously. Section 76.1 then states: No person shall operate a slow moving vehicle on a highway... except that section 76.2.2 states: The following are slow moving vehicles:... Vehicles (other than bicycles, motor assisted bicycles and disabled motor vehicles in tow) that are not capable of attaining...

This language implies that there was an explicit effort to exempt bikes from requirements to avoid highways, which according to the HTA: “highway” includes a common and public highway, street, avenue, parkway, driveway, square, place, bridge, viaduct or trestle, any part of which is intended for or used by the general public for the passage of vehicles and includes the area between the lateral property lines thereof; (“voie publique”).

In fact there is an explicit provision for cyclists on highways, section 104.2.1: No person shall ride on or operate a bicycle on a highway unless the person is wearing a bicycle helmet that complies with the regulations and the chin strap of the helmet is securely fastened under the chin.

Yes, we were all wearing helmets, I think its a requirement of club, not that it needs to be in this day and age, anyone who doesn't wear a helmet, doesn't have anything worth protecting.

Its bad enough when drivers are clueless, but when the cops don't know the law that they are supposed to enforce, that is really frustrating.

On Suburban Drivers

It seems to me that drivers who live in the city know how to behave around cyclists. Drivers from the boonies have no clue, consider the following.

Yesterday I had an appointment after work, when the appointment ended, around 5:15, I had to ride home, I decided to take Queen Street from Church to Woodbine, it is a route I have taken before, I can get across Queen faster than a car and it is the most direct route home.

Well as I was riding East a Blue VW Jetta, license BBLM 728 bought from Cedarbrae in Scarborough literally started to crowd me out of the lane I was riding in… twice! (Once around Parliament Street, and a second time around Broadview.) I caught up with the Jetta at Leslie and when I confronted the occupants, there was a passenger as well as a driver, they were upset that I had the audacity to… wait for it… touch their car. When I pointed out they almost killed me, the passenger’s response, was the thoroughly clichéd line “who cares?” Well not being one to miss a chance for a good cliché, I walked my bike to the front of their vehicle and pointed at the license plate and said “BBLM 728, I’ll see you in court.”

My next stop was the local police station where I filed a full report. In the spirit of over used lines: Let the word ring forth, from this time and this place, you are a driver and you put my life at risk, you can explain yourself to an Ontario Justice of the Peace in traffic court! That does not quite have the ring of Kennedy’s “bare any burden in the defense of liberty” line does it?

The part about that whole ordeal that really bother’s me? The fact that to the people in that car, my life meant less to them then the exterior finish of their vehicle. They yelled four letter words at me and told me what they thought using language that has no place in polite, or any other society for that matter, and when I pointed out that they put my life at risk it did not dawn on them that the is a difference between the paint job on a low end VW and the life of a human being.

The truth is, some people love their cars too much. I wonder what such people are going to do when the gas runs out.

On being wrong

I made a couple mistakes lately, here they are:

1. In my previous post I wrote: If the need for oil was not so great would there be a need to keep 14 permanent military bases in Iraq, as well as the occupation of Baghdad? That number, 14 permanent military bases, was based on statements by Chalmers Johnson in the movie Why We Fight. According to an article published yesterday by The McClatchy Wires, the US is negotiating a SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) with Iraq for 58 military bases.



2. And totally unrelated to oil or geopolitics, I do not have a Specialized Roubaix Comp Triple from 2006, oops! I have a Specialized Roubaix from 2006. I should have had a closer look at the Specialized Archives and I would have known a lot earlier. See here is the Comp Triple:

Notice the black (carbon) frame and the Ultegra rear derailleur? Well okay you can't see the make of the derailleur but here are the specs for the Comp Triple:

FRAME Specialized FACT 6r carbon, triple monocoque construction, compact design, Zertz seatstay inserts
FORK Specialized FACT carbon monocoque construction with Zertz inserts
HEADSET Specialized Mindset, 1 1/8" integrated threadless, sealed cartridge bearings, carbon 20mm cone with two 5mm alloy spacers
STEM Specialized Pro-Set lightweight stem, 3D forged alloy, 4-bolt 31.8mm bar clamp, 4- position adjustable
HANDLEBARS Specialized Zertz Pro handlebar, racing drop, 31.8 clamp
TAPE Body Geometry Bar Phat, cork ribbon with 2.5mm gel padding
FRONT BRAKE Shimano 105
REAR BRAKE Shimano 105
BRAKE LEVERS Shimano 105, 10-speed, STI, flight deck compatible
FRONT DERAILLEUR Shimano Ultegra, 10-speed, 31.8mm clamp, bottom pull
REAR DERAILLEUR Shimano Ultegra, 10-speed, long cage
SHIFT LEVERS Shimano 105, 10-speed, STI, flight deck compatible
CASSETTE Shimano 105, 12-27t
CHAIN Shimano 105, 10-speed
CRANKSET FSA SL-K MegaExo, 2-piece carbon crankset
CHAINRINGS 53x39x30T
BOTTOM BRACKET FSA integrated, alloy exterior cartridge bearings
PEDALS Composite-body test ride pedals
RIMS Alex ALX 298R alloy double wall rim, stainless eyelets, machined sidewalls
FRONT HUB Alex ALX 298R, two cartridge bearings, 20 hole, QR
REAR HUB Alex ALX 298R, 24 hole, aluminum freehub body, four cartridge bearings, QR
SPOKES Stainless 14g
FRONT TIRE Specialized All Condition Pro, 700 x 23c, aramid bead, 120TPI
REAR TIRE Specialized All Condition Pro, 700 x 23c, aramid bead, 120TPI
TUBES Specialized presta tube
SADDLE Body Geometry Avatar, microfiber cover, gel padding
SEAT POST Specialized Pavé FACT carbon seatpost with Zertz insert, 27.2mm
SEAT BINDER Specialized CNC, Alloy
NOTES Chain stay protector, reflectors, clear coat, owners manual

I just figured the store I bought my bike from had downgraded it to lower the price, I was wrong, the bike I own is this:

Of course I've already done some pretty significant upgrades and there are still some big upgrades coming down the pipeline, but here are the factory specs:

FRAME Specialized E5, Columbus SLX fully manipulated tubing, compact design, FACT carbon seatstays with Zertz inserts
FORK Specialized FACT carbon monocoque fork with Zertz
HEADSET Specialized Mindset, 1 1/8" integrated threadless, sealed cartridge bearings, carbon 20mm cone with two 5mm alloy spacers
STEM Specialized Pro, 3D forged alloy, 31.8mm bar clamp, 4- position adjustable
HANDLEBARS Specialized Zertz Comp handlebar, racing drop, 31.8 clamp (upgraded - carbon fibre, don't have the name or model handy)
TAPE Body Geometry Bar Phat, cork ribbon w/2.5mm gel padding (upgraded - old tape replaced when the Aerobar was installed)
FRONT BRAKE Dual pivot, forged alloy, w/cartridge multi-condition pads
REAR BRAKE Dual pivot, forged alloy, w/cartridge multi-condition pads
BRAKE LEVERS Shimano 105, 9-speed, STI, flight deck compatible
FRONT DERAILLEUR Shimano 105, 9-speed, 31.8mm clamp, bottom pull
REAR DERAILLEUR Shimano 105, 9-speed, long cage
SHIFT LEVERS Shimano 105, 9-speed, STI, flight deck compatible
CASSETTE Shimano HG50, 12-25t
CHAIN Shimano HG73, 9-speed
CRANKSET FSA Gossamer MegaExo, 2-piece crankset
CHAINRINGS 52x42x30T
BOTTOM BRACKET FSA integrated, exterior cartridge bearings, alloy
PEDALS Composite-body test ride pedals (upgraded - Shimano 105s, never used with test ride pedals)
RIMS Alex AT400, 700c double wall rim, machined sidewalls, spoke eyelets or Shimano WH560 (Will upgrade wheels later today, to something really nice, if possible.)
FRONT HUB Specialized forged alloy, 28 hole, double sealed bearings, QR (see Rims above)
REAR HUB Specialized forged alloy, 28 hole, double sealed bearings, cassette, QR (see Rims above)
SPOKES Stainless 14g (see Rims above)
FRONT TIRE Specialized All Condition Pro, 700 x 23c, aramid bead, 120TPI
REAR TIRE Specialized All Condition Pro, 700 x 23c, aramid bead, 120TPI
TUBES Specialized standard presta tube, 0.9mm thickness (not anymore, both have had to be replaced... saw that comming!)
SADDLE Body Geometry Avatar, microfiber cover, gel padding (upgraded to Specialized Toupe)
SEAT POST Specialized Pavé, FACT carbon seatpost with Zertz insert, 27.2mm
SEAT BINDER Specialized CNC, alloy
NOTES Chain stay protector, reflectors, chain catcher, clear coat, owners manual (cough, cough, BULL SHIT!! Chain stay protector is a cheap plastic film that I covered completely with a carbon fibre protector, I ripped the reflectors off within hours of getting the bike home and never saw an owners manual.)

As noted above, I am upgrading the wheels tonight if I get a chance and I have obtained through my nefarious means a Shimano Ultegra Sl 6603-G triple road group which I will upgrade shortly, includes, 11-23 cassette and a 52/39/30 chain rings. I will take some pretty pictures when all the upgrades are completed. (Yes I know upgrading the group was a pretty dumb thing to do, but hey the economics in this case were pretty compelling - I did a full cost benefit analysis.)

On rantings

It had been my intention to rant about the horrendous drivers in this city. I was going to cite specific examples of just how bad drivers in Toronto really are. I even started writing, I managed to get a couple examples down then I went for a ride and got a couple more, then another ride and a few more, and so on. The fact is I just cannot stop finding examples of how idiotic some people are. Drivers need to come to terms with a few very serious points:

• I have as as much right to the road as any car driver has. As I have pointed out in more than one post, the Highway Traffic Act is very clear, cyclists are vehicles and as such are supposed to fill an entire lane of road.


• I am just as, if not faster, on a bike than a car is on a regular arterial downtown road. Honest to god, I lost count of how many cars I passed - that never caught up with me on Queen Street, as I rode home from work on Sunday afternoon (I had to do some paper work at the office).


• I am not cocooned in one or two tons of Detroit (or Tokyo) steel, if I hit a car, the car might get scratched, the driver will be unharmed. If a car hits me, I will be lucky if I don't get killed.


• Every time someone buys gas they are helping to justify the killing of innocent Iraqis and they are sponsoring Al Queda's war on America. Like any good geopolitics this one is complicated, and in two parts. Consider Bush Jr second war in Iraq to be an oil war. If the need for oil was not so great would there be a need to keep 14 permanent military bases in Iraq, as well as the occupation of Baghdad? In addition by consuming gas, we consume oil, thus creating demand, as demand goes up, price goes up - simple supply and demand economics. Much new demand for oil is being met by the elephant fields in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. Much of the royalties paid to these oil kleptocracies are turned over - by high level leaders of these countires - to Al Queda. (This is not news, its well known that Bin Laden's biggest supports are big time muckers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.) Thus everytime we use oil we are helping to fund the guys who attacked the World Trade Centre on Tuesday September 11, 2001.

Now I am not saying everyone should leave their car at the side of the road and never drive again. Rather, what I am saying is, if you need to drive, go ahead, but consider, do you really need to? Can you car pool? Take public transit? Walk? Skate? Ride a bike? Get an electic bike? Drive a sub compact? I'm not even saying don't own a car, from time to time, everybody needs to drive somewhere, saddly our cities, in North America, were designed almost from day one, for cars, not people. But ask yourself as you reach for the car keys, do I really really need to drive where I am going? And before you answer yes, ask yourself a second time, is riding or the bus not an option? And if the answer is still yes, please remember there are an awful lot of people like me who aren't driving and we have cars, so if you are obnoxiuous to us, why should we be any different when you smarten up and your on the bike and I'm driving to the supermarket?

In other unrelated news, Sunday I went for an amazing group ride with the Beaches Cycling Club. Here is the route:

We started as a group of about 30 or so in light rain that was predicted to last all day. As we got on to Don Mills from Eglington we started doing an Echlon drill just like at Scooters, but unlike scooters instead of doing laps around a track we did a lap around Toronto! (Oddly I managed to be the lead cyclist just as we hit a red light, the first time I was lead was at around Finch - red light, then again around steels - red light, then again around Highway 7.) Somewhere around York Mills the pack split in half, not wanting to be left behind I made sure to stay with the lead, not knowing there were a good 15 or 20 people behind me in the slow pack.

North of 16 Leslie became a two lane road and we stopped doing Echlon and started just routine pack riding in a single file. I did not really pay attention, I just tried to keep up with the leaders so when the decision was made to go on to New Market and do the 100km loop or turn at Stoufville and I saw who was doing the 100k I figured I better turn or I'd get dropped like third period French. (As it turned out the slow group was quite a distance behind and had I gone for the 100k I very like would have ended up riding by myself all the way home.) Instead I landed with a group who were very comperable ability to myself which was a very good thing, we all pushed each other harder and harder. Ultimately we did that 75k ride in about 2 hours, which means, of course, an average speed of about 37~38km/h. Considering we had red lights, and some pretty brutal hills it was an altogeather very satisfatory ride for me. My only complaint is I can't go this Sunday becuase its Father's day and Lesley and I promised my parents we would have father's day brunch with them. I really, really, love riding!

On riding with skaters

Yesterday (Wednesday) was overcast and the sky looked ripe and ready to dump at any time. As I had to have the gas line inspected at the house I had to remain home until 7pm. Ultimately I could have joined the Beaches Cycle Club, but I did not know they had a group ride on Wednesdays. So the moral here is, check the website early and check often. As traffic was still bad on Woodbine when I was ready to ride I decided to take the lakeshore trail to avoid city streets, had I been with a group or had traffic not been so bad I probably would have avoided the lakeshore as its just too easy, no hills and too many lights.

As I rode West through the trail towards the Humber river I saw a skater with good form going the opposite direction. Still mindful of my wipeout from about a month ago, I made sure to turn the bike around carefully and then had to pedal hard, it turned out I was chasing Morgan Williams and I had to push myself all the way to Legion Hall Hill to catch up with him. Morgan drafted off me into the wind towards Ontario Place where we maxed out at about 40 km/h and then on the return we maxed out a little faster, perhaps 42 km/h. On the return pass we ran into Jay Brown and both Jay and Morgan drafted off me back to Ontario place again.

We averaged about 35km/h going across the trail from the lighthouse to Ontario Place. Ironically I don’t think either Jay or Morgan planned to skate so hard, but that’s always what happens, no one actually starts hard but someone starts to accelerate and nobody wants to get left behind. If I were coaching skaters from my bike, it occurs to me I would have to setup some sort of alarm on my GPS so if the speed fell outside a very tight range I would know to speed up or slow down.

In other news, tonight Lesley and I are going to go for a bike ride together, and hopefully we will go for a nice picnic out on Port Credit on Saturday. I have also decided that going forward, Tuesdays I will become a regular at the Beaches Cycle Club. Maybe if Lesley ever works late on a Thursday I’ll ride to a TISC practice and skate some laps, but the fact is going around and around in circles really is pretty boring stuff. There is something to be said for a road ride across the city, you get a change of scenery and you get to learn about your home from an angle few of us would otherwise see it from.

One final note, baring an assassination, here is my prediction, 98% chance President Barrack Obama, I give one chance in fifty that Americans get suckered into reelecting that Son-of-a-Bush, George John Walker McBushCain.

On Short Rides

Lately I've been running on less sleep than normal, I've caught myself nodding off at the office a few times. To be honest it is mostly my fault. On Tuesday May 27 we conditionally sold our home.

Now allow me to digress for a second, for those of you who have never taken part in a agreement of purchase and sales (for a home) in Ontario the process is pretty straight forward if very legal and tedious. Suppose that I have a home that I wish to sell, first I call a real-estate agent who is (we hope) not a crook - although that is unlikely. Now the real-estate agent’s job is to market the home, to make it sell quickly for as much money as possible - typically agents will suggest a listing price, put the home on the Multiple List Service system, and so on. Now the buyer comes, sees the home, decides to put in an offer. A bargain is reached without the buyer ever meeting the seller face to face, instead the buyer's agent presents an offer, typically put together by the agent, to the seller. The seller in turn crosses off parts of the offer they don't like and send it back to the buyer who makes their own changes. Often the sticking point is the price and it seems from my experience that while both the buyer and seller agree on the big digits, i.e. three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand, or one point two million vs. one point three million, it’s the stupid numbers that cause the most trouble, three hundred forty six thousand, five hundred, vs. three hundred four six thousand even. (Yes less than a third of a percent one way or the other can – and often does - break the deal.) By the time a deal is reached its usually pretty late in the evening and naturally I had to wake up early the next morning for work.

On a related aside, for those of you who are curious, there were two conditions, as it was a condo, the status certificate (condo board records establishing that the condo corporation is in good shape). The other condition was the buyer getting financing secured from a lender. To date the buyer has waived the financing – someone will loan them the money – but they are still waiting on the status certificate, my condo property manager is a little slow… in more ways than one.

Anyway after having a sleep deprived week, I woke up early on Saturday and went for a group ride out to Mississauga Road at Dundas, and back. It started nice and gentle, about 25km/h, but by the time we got out to Mavis some of the keeners were really pushing, we had been gradually accelerating to a reasonable 30 ~ 35km/h, but the 40km/h on an uphill was more than difficult. Ultimately the keeners broke from the pack and raced across lakeshore on their own. I will say this, those keeners forced me to have a pretty good workout.

I should add it rained Saturday early in the morning, it stopped eventually which was nice, but when I got home from my ride I decided to clean my bike from top to bottom. Actually I’ve been told that after any rain clean the bike chain. Well later that day I had to go for a quick ride, again, this time to the office, on the way home I decided to get some more chain cleaner. Foolishly I stopped at a bike store close to home, instead of locking my bike up at home and walking to the store. By the time I left it was pouring, again! Two cleanings, in one day.

Sunday I went for another ride (actually two, first the Ride for Heart, then a nice little 40k), this time on my own, here is my route:

On Warden as I was going up the 401 over-pass I encountered a red light, so I down shifted to the smallest of my three chain rings. Once the light turned green I had no trouble starting but when I decided to up shift to a real gear the chain would not click into the larger rings and I spun helplessly for only a few seconds, but long enough to get really scared as cars whipped past me. Eventually the chain did engage and I completed my little 40k with out much more excitement. Later I played chase with a car on Kingston Road on the way home, I was keeping right beside him until a parked car forced me to slow down.

Monday I went for another ride, this time I took the Martin Goodman Trail in an effort to find my old friends from the skate club. Since none were around I used Lakeshore to get from Parklawn all the way back to Queens Quay. Thanks to a strong tail wind I was able, with only a modest effort, to maintain a steady 40km/h on a 100~110 pedal cycles per minute. (Going the other way was a real killer let me tell you.) As I got near home I decided to bike around side streets, Kingston Road, Woodbine, etc, until I crossed 43km, it took a really long time. I am beginning to think my GPS is not entirely accurate.
Towards the end of that ride I ran into another cyclist and we raced for a little while, but he was better than me, and within only about 5km was quite a distance ahead. I made strategic errors as well as just not being fast enough (and I am terrified of railway tracks having wiped out on some 13 years ago). Clearly I have room for improvement.