I spent December 25 cleaning my road bike, Erin.
Now in truth there is some vanity involved in cleaning a bike, after all a clean bike will not ride faster or steer truer than a dirty bike, but, cleaning a bike forces a person to go over every part of the bike very carefully, so if there are any hairline fractures you can see them and, well in my case foolishly do nothing about them. But cleaning certain parts of a bike are critical, in particular the drive train.
If the drive train is left to build up dirt what happens is, besides rust, the parts wear, and as they wear they begin to lose their fitting. For example, the bits and pieces of a chain become more and more loose and the chain itself begins to "stretch" - it is not that the chain is elastic, but the parts of the chain are looser so the chain does not fit together so well anymore. Enough chain stretch can wear down the cassette to the point where a replacement chain won't even fit the old cassette. Even more stretch can have the same effect on the chain rings. Eventually the chain will just break wide open, at which point not only do you need to buy new chain rings, cassette and chain (all in, can cost between about one hundred fifty and one thousand dollars) but you will either have to buy new shoes, or pay a fortune to a taxi driver to get you home. By contrast, I have never seen a high end chain for more than ninety dollars, and by keeping your drive train clean, you can probably almost double the life of your chain.
Sorry the slide show is rather annoyingly fast, but if you are interested in cleaning your own bike it might be best to read the captions. Next time I do this I should get a photographer to take pictures. The problem is I spent the entire time handling some pretty nasty stuff, varsol, a citrus cleaner with petro chemicals, rags saturated with dirt picked up from the side of the road, and so on, as a result it was a big pain to stop, scrub my hands and take a picture.
While washing Erin outside I noticed there was a dull roar like the sound of an expressway. I thought nothing of it, until I realised the nearest expressway is about 2km away, then I looked to the south to the beach and saw monster white caps, so after I brought Erin back into the house I went for a walk to the beach and took some pictures. This has nothing to do with bike repair, but it was an awesome sight all the same.
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Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
On More Cost Benefit Analysis
I got quite a bit of positive feedback from my analysis of the motivation of drivers to use the bike/bus/taxi lane on Bay Street. (For people outside Toronto, the right lane is reserved, the left lane is for general use.)
In my post I noted that for a driver the calculation proceeds along the following line, assume the chance of getting caught and ticketed is say X, now assume the ticket value plus lost time waiting for the cop to write up the ticket, plus hike in auto insurance premiums is say, $Y. The "cost" for using the bike lane is logically simply $XY (or X times Y). Now using this 'right' lane is obviously faster than the left on Bay street, assume the drivers time is worth say, $T/hour and assume the driver estimates they will save H time (measured in hours, or fractions thereof), if we compute say V = $(TH - XY) we get the savings from driving illegally in the bike lane. If the number, V, is negative it does not make economic sense to put a cyclist (including me) at risk of death by 2 ton blunt instrument, but if the number is positive, well a driver would be foolish to drive anywhere other than the bike lane.
Of course if you are driving, illegally, in the bike lane and you see a cop the natural thing to do would probably be to get into that left lane, since X has just gone way up. Except, it turns out, and here is a dirty little secret, X, recall, is the chance of getting caught and ticketed, well the value for X is a big fat plump juicy ZERO no matter how many police are out there.
I was riding south to work, on Bay and I saw a cop at a red light, on Friday Dec. 18. I asked him if he was going to ticket the car behind me on account of the fact that the car was in the bike lane. The cop responded: "what bike lane?" I answered: "right here!" Then the light changed to green. In retrospect I should not have taken advantage of the green light, but argued my point.
I believe I am entitled to get to work, by bike, without taking my life into my hands. We all know the lyrics sing along, bikes do not pollute, they cause considerably less wear on roads, they are responsible for far fewer fatalities, than cars. Use of a bike does not enrich Osama Bin Laden or Mister Richard B. Cheney, but a bike will cause the rider to loose fat and gain muscle. So I want it explained to me, why is it that police so religiously enforce the no left turn on Bay Street southbound to Richmond Street west, but won't pop their head around the corner and enforce the bike, bus and taxi lane not 30m away?
In unrelated news, tomorrow is December 25, this day is significant to some as International Jewish* Movie Day. Others, followers of a Joshua son of Joseph, celebrate Joshua's birthday this day (despite the fact that he was probably born in the spring). I will be cleaning Erin, I will post images and give a detailed explanation while I work, hopefully anyone I haven't just offended will find it helpful.
* Okay I should probably call it Muslum or Hindu Movie Day, but a friend of mine in high school called it International Jewish Movie Day and that's worked pretty well, but lets be honest, its basically Internation Movie Day from what even Christians tell me.
In my post I noted that for a driver the calculation proceeds along the following line, assume the chance of getting caught and ticketed is say X, now assume the ticket value plus lost time waiting for the cop to write up the ticket, plus hike in auto insurance premiums is say, $Y. The "cost" for using the bike lane is logically simply $XY (or X times Y). Now using this 'right' lane is obviously faster than the left on Bay street, assume the drivers time is worth say, $T/hour and assume the driver estimates they will save H time (measured in hours, or fractions thereof), if we compute say V = $(TH - XY) we get the savings from driving illegally in the bike lane. If the number, V, is negative it does not make economic sense to put a cyclist (including me) at risk of death by 2 ton blunt instrument, but if the number is positive, well a driver would be foolish to drive anywhere other than the bike lane.
Of course if you are driving, illegally, in the bike lane and you see a cop the natural thing to do would probably be to get into that left lane, since X has just gone way up. Except, it turns out, and here is a dirty little secret, X, recall, is the chance of getting caught and ticketed, well the value for X is a big fat plump juicy ZERO no matter how many police are out there.
I was riding south to work, on Bay and I saw a cop at a red light, on Friday Dec. 18. I asked him if he was going to ticket the car behind me on account of the fact that the car was in the bike lane. The cop responded: "what bike lane?" I answered: "right here!" Then the light changed to green. In retrospect I should not have taken advantage of the green light, but argued my point.
I believe I am entitled to get to work, by bike, without taking my life into my hands. We all know the lyrics sing along, bikes do not pollute, they cause considerably less wear on roads, they are responsible for far fewer fatalities, than cars. Use of a bike does not enrich Osama Bin Laden or Mister Richard B. Cheney, but a bike will cause the rider to loose fat and gain muscle. So I want it explained to me, why is it that police so religiously enforce the no left turn on Bay Street southbound to Richmond Street west, but won't pop their head around the corner and enforce the bike, bus and taxi lane not 30m away?
In unrelated news, tomorrow is December 25, this day is significant to some as International Jewish* Movie Day. Others, followers of a Joshua son of Joseph, celebrate Joshua's birthday this day (despite the fact that he was probably born in the spring). I will be cleaning Erin, I will post images and give a detailed explanation while I work, hopefully anyone I haven't just offended will find it helpful.
* Okay I should probably call it Muslum or Hindu Movie Day, but a friend of mine in high school called it International Jewish Movie Day and that's worked pretty well, but lets be honest, its basically Internation Movie Day from what even Christians tell me.
Monday, December 14, 2009
On Slush
On Thursday November 20 2008 I rode to work. Nothing unusual so far I confess, but on the 19th it snowed, starting in the late afternoon and continued unabated for several hours. At the time the Coppi had no fenders and was still running an ancient friction down tube shift with a six speed free wheel. About the only thing, besides the frame, that I have not changed since then were the pedals that Jeff (from Rochester) and I attached on November 14.
By the time I got to the office, I was covered in slush and mud, head to toe. (The slush was so bad I still remember the date it happened, I did not even need to look it up.) More than a year later I rode that Coppi to work again on December 9, 2009 and like that awful November 20, December 9 had a major snowfall the night before. Only this time the snow turned to sleet by the time I got out the door. Thank goodness for fenders, I got wet but at least the wet was clean precipitation not mud kicked up by the back wheel.
Now despite the fenders this ride was no bed of roses, there was so much slush that it got into my cassette (the advantages of the modern ten speed cassette) and gummed everything up. The slush was so bad I could feel the chain slide over the sprockets with only the most modest power transfer to the hub, if I did torque things up the chain would just slide right over the gears. On the other hand drivers were, for the most part, more respectful. I think the realization that anyone who would bike in this weather is someone worthy of respect, or more likely someone insane enough to bike in this weather is not the sort of guy you want to annoy, whatever the reason drivers were modestly better. Still the ones that cut into my lane and soaked me by kicking up a huge puddle, well couldn't they wait until they had clearly passed me before going right?
At least riding in slush is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Even better, I am still hammering out the miles outside when the roads are dry. On December 12 I went for a ride, I ended up doing 80km in an unimpressive 3 hours (GPS, which auto pauses at under 4.8km/h, i.e. when I am about to stop for a light, said I averaged 27 km/h.) Of course my speed was limited by the hypothermia I got on the way home and the brutal head wind on the way out.
In other news, Trek has published the new Team Radio Shack bikes. Oh my god! There are several artists, and a clothing designer who have no taste whatsoever. Of course since the great and mighty Lance will be riding with The Shack bet your knickers we are about to get saturation coverage of those sinfully ugly Madone-6s all over Versus. I like team CSC/Saxo-Bank, not only because they are decent guys, but they have the good taste, sense, to keep things subdued.
Now I will grant the SRAM Red levers and deraileurs are, to my thinking a lot better than the Shimano Dura-Ace, but the drive train itself, well I guess if SRAM is sponsoring Lance & Co, then Lance better be happy with a pure Red groupo.
Here are some images so you can see, I haven't lost my mind, which is more than I can say for Mike Pfalzgraff (Trek's Design Director).
By the time I got to the office, I was covered in slush and mud, head to toe. (The slush was so bad I still remember the date it happened, I did not even need to look it up.) More than a year later I rode that Coppi to work again on December 9, 2009 and like that awful November 20, December 9 had a major snowfall the night before. Only this time the snow turned to sleet by the time I got out the door. Thank goodness for fenders, I got wet but at least the wet was clean precipitation not mud kicked up by the back wheel.
Now despite the fenders this ride was no bed of roses, there was so much slush that it got into my cassette (the advantages of the modern ten speed cassette) and gummed everything up. The slush was so bad I could feel the chain slide over the sprockets with only the most modest power transfer to the hub, if I did torque things up the chain would just slide right over the gears. On the other hand drivers were, for the most part, more respectful. I think the realization that anyone who would bike in this weather is someone worthy of respect, or more likely someone insane enough to bike in this weather is not the sort of guy you want to annoy, whatever the reason drivers were modestly better. Still the ones that cut into my lane and soaked me by kicking up a huge puddle, well couldn't they wait until they had clearly passed me before going right?
At least riding in slush is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Even better, I am still hammering out the miles outside when the roads are dry. On December 12 I went for a ride, I ended up doing 80km in an unimpressive 3 hours (GPS, which auto pauses at under 4.8km/h, i.e. when I am about to stop for a light, said I averaged 27 km/h.) Of course my speed was limited by the hypothermia I got on the way home and the brutal head wind on the way out.
In other news, Trek has published the new Team Radio Shack bikes. Oh my god! There are several artists, and a clothing designer who have no taste whatsoever. Of course since the great and mighty Lance will be riding with The Shack bet your knickers we are about to get saturation coverage of those sinfully ugly Madone-6s all over Versus. I like team CSC/Saxo-Bank, not only because they are decent guys, but they have the good taste, sense, to keep things subdued.
Now I will grant the SRAM Red levers and deraileurs are, to my thinking a lot better than the Shimano Dura-Ace, but the drive train itself, well I guess if SRAM is sponsoring Lance & Co, then Lance better be happy with a pure Red groupo.
Here are some images so you can see, I haven't lost my mind, which is more than I can say for Mike Pfalzgraff (Trek's Design Director).
Sunday, December 13, 2009
On A Late Season Ride
Aside, sorry this entry took so long to post. In fact I have almost finished writing up the next entry already! I have just been awfully busy, so while I can still steal the few minutes each day to write and tweak my entries, the actual time it takes to post these things is just not there anymore. (Notice I am posting at 1am on Sunday!)
The weather in 2009, in Toronto, has been, to put things mildly, bizarre. In July it was so wet and cold they could have renamed that month April, version 2.0. August was hardly any better. Then September was the driest month in something like 40 years! After the rain that was the summer of 2009 I spent so much time on Erin in September that by the time I crashed I could hardly keep my eyes open I was so exhausted. In one very small sense, the crash was a good thing, it forced me to catch up on my sleep.
October was warm, possibly warmer than July and right though what ought to be a very rainy November I was enjoying rides almost every day. Even on my Birthday I rode Erin to work, now granted it has become cool but the weather is still pretty decent. Occasional rain I can handle, but the weather in July was enough to drive me insane. Although I cannot complain now, what riding I missed early I made up for late. That I am still riding Erin in December is remarkable, amazing even.
Anyway a couple days ago I was riding home from work on Lower Simcoe. Now normally Lower Simcoe is a great road, there is a bike lane, very little traffic and well the only other options to cross the railway tracks near the lake suck. But this day the Buffalo Bills were playing a "home" game at the Sky Dome, excuse me, Rogers Centre. Traffic on Lower Simcoe was a disaster, complete with an abundance of lousy taxi drivers. Question, what is up with cab drivers? Are they physically incapable of not driving aggressively, or yielding now and then?
Well one cabbie was driving in the bike lane. And I don't mean, he was about to make a right turn and he cut into the lane, no, he advanced a good 50m in the bike lane before I managed to get around his vehicle, bang on his windshield and scream blue murder at him. An ugly exchange with a great deal of swearing followed with a call by me to 911, sadly I do not expect anything was actually done. But I so inconvenienced the taxi driver, I stopped directly in front of him and stood my ground, that I suspect he did not use the bike lane for the rest of that hour (it was about five minutes to 5.)
The next day I was driving, don't ask what I was thinking, I honestly do not remember my excuse for using the killing machine. Anyway there was a green light, a four lane one way road and due to construction only two open lanes, one lane had a parked car. Well to make the green light I pulled into the parked car lane, made it through the intersection and well into the next block where there was a long train of taxi's, and not one of them would let me in just to get around the parked car. So I simply forced my way in and got... A lot of honking and swearing from a cabbie, I made the biggest toothiest grin I could and waved back at him. Then, on the next green light, the car in front of me though hardly moved, managed to get just far enough for me to squeeze around the parked car, but in honour of the honking taxi behind me I just sat still and finally moved off and made my right turn when I felt good and ready - and my pulse had slowed. For all I know that cabbie is still, I hope, where he cannot hurt anyone, trapped in a horrific traffic jam.
The fact is there ought to be a war, a war on taxi drivers. They are reckless and aggressive. They have no respect for the rules of the road or the people they must share the road with. I would love to see better enforcement of motor vehicle legislation against cabbies, but somehow I just don't think that is going to happen soon, which is worse than a shame. Just over a year ago a taxi driver took a man's legs off, and somehow I don't think this gong show, that is driving in Toronto, is going to end anytime soon.
The weather in 2009, in Toronto, has been, to put things mildly, bizarre. In July it was so wet and cold they could have renamed that month April, version 2.0. August was hardly any better. Then September was the driest month in something like 40 years! After the rain that was the summer of 2009 I spent so much time on Erin in September that by the time I crashed I could hardly keep my eyes open I was so exhausted. In one very small sense, the crash was a good thing, it forced me to catch up on my sleep.
October was warm, possibly warmer than July and right though what ought to be a very rainy November I was enjoying rides almost every day. Even on my Birthday I rode Erin to work, now granted it has become cool but the weather is still pretty decent. Occasional rain I can handle, but the weather in July was enough to drive me insane. Although I cannot complain now, what riding I missed early I made up for late. That I am still riding Erin in December is remarkable, amazing even.
Anyway a couple days ago I was riding home from work on Lower Simcoe. Now normally Lower Simcoe is a great road, there is a bike lane, very little traffic and well the only other options to cross the railway tracks near the lake suck. But this day the Buffalo Bills were playing a "home" game at the Sky Dome, excuse me, Rogers Centre. Traffic on Lower Simcoe was a disaster, complete with an abundance of lousy taxi drivers. Question, what is up with cab drivers? Are they physically incapable of not driving aggressively, or yielding now and then?
Well one cabbie was driving in the bike lane. And I don't mean, he was about to make a right turn and he cut into the lane, no, he advanced a good 50m in the bike lane before I managed to get around his vehicle, bang on his windshield and scream blue murder at him. An ugly exchange with a great deal of swearing followed with a call by me to 911, sadly I do not expect anything was actually done. But I so inconvenienced the taxi driver, I stopped directly in front of him and stood my ground, that I suspect he did not use the bike lane for the rest of that hour (it was about five minutes to 5.)
The next day I was driving, don't ask what I was thinking, I honestly do not remember my excuse for using the killing machine. Anyway there was a green light, a four lane one way road and due to construction only two open lanes, one lane had a parked car. Well to make the green light I pulled into the parked car lane, made it through the intersection and well into the next block where there was a long train of taxi's, and not one of them would let me in just to get around the parked car. So I simply forced my way in and got... A lot of honking and swearing from a cabbie, I made the biggest toothiest grin I could and waved back at him. Then, on the next green light, the car in front of me though hardly moved, managed to get just far enough for me to squeeze around the parked car, but in honour of the honking taxi behind me I just sat still and finally moved off and made my right turn when I felt good and ready - and my pulse had slowed. For all I know that cabbie is still, I hope, where he cannot hurt anyone, trapped in a horrific traffic jam.
The fact is there ought to be a war, a war on taxi drivers. They are reckless and aggressive. They have no respect for the rules of the road or the people they must share the road with. I would love to see better enforcement of motor vehicle legislation against cabbies, but somehow I just don't think that is going to happen soon, which is worse than a shame. Just over a year ago a taxi driver took a man's legs off, and somehow I don't think this gong show, that is driving in Toronto, is going to end anytime soon.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
On Riding and Writing
Happy Birthday to me! Anyway, I wrote this a little while ago but decided to proof read it a few times to make sure it was not quite as bad as some recent posts.
I know my last post positively stunk. The only thing I can say by way of an apology is that it was a lot better when it was still in my head before fingers touched keyboard.
Anyway my red cell count is down, probably something between eight and ten percent and the weather is iffy, at best, so I am back on the saddle! But in much worse shape than just ten days ago. There was a study an Italian doctor believes he has found a therapy for MS, it is still in the early stages, but if this works in larger study populations MS might become a thing of the past. I bring this up because the therapy involved reducing iron build up, ironic, MS patients have too much iron, right about now I could use an anvil in my stomach.
I have been developing a novel in my head, well it is more the background, the characters, the plot, all that good stuff. The problem is while I have decided on the issue my protagonist will face I have yet to settle the underlying motive. Look for the book sometime this spring! (Not!)
I would like to try my hand at writing, I think I can be good, sometimes, and to be honest it would make a nice change to do some fiction as opposed to all the stuff I do in my day job. Don't get me wrong I do like what I do, but my creative streak needs an outlet, that is partly why this blog exists, and writing a short novel seems like a pretty harmless way to express my creativity.
Other than that, I should report that Toronto drivers are setting ever deeper lows. Today a guy turning right did not bother to check the bike trail as I nearly slammed into him (good thing I had new tyres on, the ground was wet, with older tyres I would have gone through his side window for sure.) Yesterday on a four lane road a minivan driver blasted his horn at me, I had the audacity to "hog" the entire right lane, there was no traffic in the left lane. Eventually our horn tooting minivan passed me honking all the way as s/he ran a pedestrian cross walk, where pedestrians who had the right of way, were waiting to cross.
Other than riding I recently wrote up a product review of Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 brake/shift levers. What a disappointment the 7900 groupo has been eh? (If you don't have Dura-Ace don't get jealous, it is totally not worth it.)
First of all the new Dura-Ace master link is so bad it does not just suck, it actually swallows! I mean here is something that is supposed to help the roadie salvage a busted chain roadside, well a couple weeks ago I was cleaning Erin and I went to take the chain off. After struggling with that link for a good 30 minutes I finally get, well very black hands, but I do get the link off and loose one of the pins in the process. I have switched to KMC links, cheaper and easier, a lot easier. Next chain will be SRAM, they have a sensible master link, even use a different colour to make it easier to find, isn't that helpful?
Or how about this, I sold an old pair of levers, the ones that had been in the crash. I replaced a dinky plastic cover plate on them, it was purely aesthetic, totally unnecessary, but would make the levers more sellable, cost of the plate? $27 wholesale, $54 MSRP! It is a 1 gram piece of frigging plastic!
Of course over priced parts and well thought out master links are unimportant if the part works as advertised, which is why Dura-Ace is really over priced. To change a gear you have to heave the shift lever so far over that one might as well dismount and change gears the old fashioned way, by changing wheels! I had a chance to test ride some SRAM Red levers recently, I was a Shimano guy, but not so much anymore, one quick click and I've changed gears, a longer click and I change two gears, it really cannot get much better than that, especially at the bottom of a steep hill climb or the top of a steep decent.
Dura-Ace is pretty, but the short of it is, if this is Shimano's top of the line product for roadies then Shimano should stick to fishing rods. In a fair side-by-side comparison Campi and SRAM should put Shimano out of business.
I know my last post positively stunk. The only thing I can say by way of an apology is that it was a lot better when it was still in my head before fingers touched keyboard.
Anyway my red cell count is down, probably something between eight and ten percent and the weather is iffy, at best, so I am back on the saddle! But in much worse shape than just ten days ago. There was a study an Italian doctor believes he has found a therapy for MS, it is still in the early stages, but if this works in larger study populations MS might become a thing of the past. I bring this up because the therapy involved reducing iron build up, ironic, MS patients have too much iron, right about now I could use an anvil in my stomach.
I have been developing a novel in my head, well it is more the background, the characters, the plot, all that good stuff. The problem is while I have decided on the issue my protagonist will face I have yet to settle the underlying motive. Look for the book sometime this spring! (Not!)
I would like to try my hand at writing, I think I can be good, sometimes, and to be honest it would make a nice change to do some fiction as opposed to all the stuff I do in my day job. Don't get me wrong I do like what I do, but my creative streak needs an outlet, that is partly why this blog exists, and writing a short novel seems like a pretty harmless way to express my creativity.
Other than that, I should report that Toronto drivers are setting ever deeper lows. Today a guy turning right did not bother to check the bike trail as I nearly slammed into him (good thing I had new tyres on, the ground was wet, with older tyres I would have gone through his side window for sure.) Yesterday on a four lane road a minivan driver blasted his horn at me, I had the audacity to "hog" the entire right lane, there was no traffic in the left lane. Eventually our horn tooting minivan passed me honking all the way as s/he ran a pedestrian cross walk, where pedestrians who had the right of way, were waiting to cross.
Other than riding I recently wrote up a product review of Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 brake/shift levers. What a disappointment the 7900 groupo has been eh? (If you don't have Dura-Ace don't get jealous, it is totally not worth it.)
First of all the new Dura-Ace master link is so bad it does not just suck, it actually swallows! I mean here is something that is supposed to help the roadie salvage a busted chain roadside, well a couple weeks ago I was cleaning Erin and I went to take the chain off. After struggling with that link for a good 30 minutes I finally get, well very black hands, but I do get the link off and loose one of the pins in the process. I have switched to KMC links, cheaper and easier, a lot easier. Next chain will be SRAM, they have a sensible master link, even use a different colour to make it easier to find, isn't that helpful?
Or how about this, I sold an old pair of levers, the ones that had been in the crash. I replaced a dinky plastic cover plate on them, it was purely aesthetic, totally unnecessary, but would make the levers more sellable, cost of the plate? $27 wholesale, $54 MSRP! It is a 1 gram piece of frigging plastic!
Of course over priced parts and well thought out master links are unimportant if the part works as advertised, which is why Dura-Ace is really over priced. To change a gear you have to heave the shift lever so far over that one might as well dismount and change gears the old fashioned way, by changing wheels! I had a chance to test ride some SRAM Red levers recently, I was a Shimano guy, but not so much anymore, one quick click and I've changed gears, a longer click and I change two gears, it really cannot get much better than that, especially at the bottom of a steep hill climb or the top of a steep decent.
Dura-Ace is pretty, but the short of it is, if this is Shimano's top of the line product for roadies then Shimano should stick to fishing rods. In a fair side-by-side comparison Campi and SRAM should put Shimano out of business.
Friday, November 20, 2009
On Oil
I donated blood today. I don’t even know how many donations I have made, I would have to look at my donor card and see what the count is. I think it is more than 65 donations to date. So I will not be doing any riding for a while and as fall turns to winter (a year ago today was the first snow fall of the fall/winter of 2008-’09) I fear my days of riding are just about over until next season.
Talk of seasonal change brings to mind a dream, I think it was a dream, possibly an experience from my late high school years. It must have been a late August night, I am driving with friends in the car, I am pretty sure down the Don Valley Parkway under the bright yellow sodium lights, with the music on loud and the windows and roof open, enjoying that bitter sweet last gasp of warmth and freedom that is a teenagers life in the summer. The freedom of being able to drive too fast with the wind in my face, is an experience I have tried to repeat a couple times in the years since. But I want to come back to this notion of the bitter sweet pleasures that must come to an end.
We live in a dream world I’m afraid. We need to come to terms with the fact that the amount of energy in a Liter of gasoline is about 32MJ/L or about 150 kBTU/Gallon (US). Put another way, there are about 7 million calories of potential chemical energy in a Liter of gas, now 7 million calories would get me nearly 300 round trips to Rochester NY by bicycle (based on my 12 Kilocalorie effort last time), 7 million calories can also be used to drive the 2001 Audi sedan that Lesley owns perhaps 8 to 10 kilometers in Toronto.
Can I be more blunt than the mathematics here? The fact is driving hugely, phenomenally, unbelievably, wasteful. We as a society need to recognize a few facts about the way we live:
With respect to the first point, peak oil is not something I think I need to rehash. It is fact, there is only so much ground beneath us, and only so much of that ground contains oil. It stands to reason, as we tap the oil, there will be less and as the amount of oil runs out, getting more will become harder and harder. The total global production of oil is about 83 million barrels a day, yet every year the amount of oil existing wells produce drops by about 4 million barrels a day. Just to maintain existing oil production figures, every single year 4 million net new barrels a day of production must come on stream around the world. So the recently discovered elephant field in the Gulf of Mexico, which is under thousands of feet of water and earth and contains 15 billion barrels of oil? If it could produce 4 million barrels a day, or 46 barrels a second, it would still only keep our production flat lined for a whole ten years before running dry. Of course we need production to increase. Little wonder oil was selling for $146 a barrel prior to the recession and is now nearly $80 despite the massive contraction in demand for oil.
With respect to the second point, consider by the time your typical American (or Canadian) child turns four years old they have consumed as much energy as your average Somali will consume in their lifetime. A Somali village of 40 needs as much energy as I do! We dump our garbage off their shores because they cannot police their own waters, their fishermen in desperate need for food or money to sustain the family resort to piracy. It is now believed that Osama Bin Laden got his start with support to the Somali war lords, little wonder, they probably are as disgusted by our own decadence as we are.
In Vice President (President Elect) Al Gore’s presentation that was made into the movie An Inconvenient Truth, he shows a cartoon where there is a balance, the decision is bars of gold or the planet Earth. The former next president points out that gold isn’t really worth all that much if the planet we live on is dead.
We have been living in a dream, energy so easy to get, all you really need to do is punch a hole in the ground, wait for the oil to burst out and, if you name is Rockefeller collect your billions. But as I have tried to show, this way of living, with machines that use far too much energy, and with lifestyles that are far too wasteful, is coming to an end. I fear the next act for the human race will be to learn how to make do with a lot less just as we did one hundred years ago.
Talk of seasonal change brings to mind a dream, I think it was a dream, possibly an experience from my late high school years. It must have been a late August night, I am driving with friends in the car, I am pretty sure down the Don Valley Parkway under the bright yellow sodium lights, with the music on loud and the windows and roof open, enjoying that bitter sweet last gasp of warmth and freedom that is a teenagers life in the summer. The freedom of being able to drive too fast with the wind in my face, is an experience I have tried to repeat a couple times in the years since. But I want to come back to this notion of the bitter sweet pleasures that must come to an end.
We live in a dream world I’m afraid. We need to come to terms with the fact that the amount of energy in a Liter of gasoline is about 32MJ/L or about 150 kBTU/Gallon (US). Put another way, there are about 7 million calories of potential chemical energy in a Liter of gas, now 7 million calories would get me nearly 300 round trips to Rochester NY by bicycle (based on my 12 Kilocalorie effort last time), 7 million calories can also be used to drive the 2001 Audi sedan that Lesley owns perhaps 8 to 10 kilometers in Toronto.
Can I be more blunt than the mathematics here? The fact is driving hugely, phenomenally, unbelievably, wasteful. We as a society need to recognize a few facts about the way we live:
- Our lifestyle is unsustainable
- Our lifestyle provokes animosity from the sort of people who would commit acts of terror against us.
- Our lifestyle is destroying our very habitat.
With respect to the first point, peak oil is not something I think I need to rehash. It is fact, there is only so much ground beneath us, and only so much of that ground contains oil. It stands to reason, as we tap the oil, there will be less and as the amount of oil runs out, getting more will become harder and harder. The total global production of oil is about 83 million barrels a day, yet every year the amount of oil existing wells produce drops by about 4 million barrels a day. Just to maintain existing oil production figures, every single year 4 million net new barrels a day of production must come on stream around the world. So the recently discovered elephant field in the Gulf of Mexico, which is under thousands of feet of water and earth and contains 15 billion barrels of oil? If it could produce 4 million barrels a day, or 46 barrels a second, it would still only keep our production flat lined for a whole ten years before running dry. Of course we need production to increase. Little wonder oil was selling for $146 a barrel prior to the recession and is now nearly $80 despite the massive contraction in demand for oil.
With respect to the second point, consider by the time your typical American (or Canadian) child turns four years old they have consumed as much energy as your average Somali will consume in their lifetime. A Somali village of 40 needs as much energy as I do! We dump our garbage off their shores because they cannot police their own waters, their fishermen in desperate need for food or money to sustain the family resort to piracy. It is now believed that Osama Bin Laden got his start with support to the Somali war lords, little wonder, they probably are as disgusted by our own decadence as we are.
In Vice President (President Elect) Al Gore’s presentation that was made into the movie An Inconvenient Truth, he shows a cartoon where there is a balance, the decision is bars of gold or the planet Earth. The former next president points out that gold isn’t really worth all that much if the planet we live on is dead.
We have been living in a dream, energy so easy to get, all you really need to do is punch a hole in the ground, wait for the oil to burst out and, if you name is Rockefeller collect your billions. But as I have tried to show, this way of living, with machines that use far too much energy, and with lifestyles that are far too wasteful, is coming to an end. I fear the next act for the human race will be to learn how to make do with a lot less just as we did one hundred years ago.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
On Joy Rides
You know it occurs to me that that bit of Tolkien I quoted in the last post could be taken as some sort of attempt on my part to equate myself with Aragorn the king of Gondor. Obviously nothing could be further from the truth, I was just thinking of the scene in Return of the King when the sword gets reforged from the broken blades, much as Erin was rebuilt. (Something rather pathetic, read the Wikipedia article I reference, I think someone needs to be told that The Lord of the Rings is not a text book, and I thought I was bad because I named my bike.)
I better insert a second disclaimer here, I read The Lord of the Rings, long before the Peter Jackson mega blockbuster came out, before I came to know Lesley even, truth is, I'm not much of a fan for fantasy, including Tolkien. I'm sure I've upset a legion of boys (if they read my blog) but I just never liked reading a thousand pages about an impossible World where impossible things happened and people lived impossibly long lives. I need my fiction to be grounded in reality. (Sorry children, but having a Wikipedia article about Lord Aragorn that reads as if the king were real does not make his story any more enticing.)
In other news, ever since I got Erin back up I have been riding her as much as I possibly can. And what a delight it is to be on a light bike. Suddenly hills that in the past seemed difficult are now a place to drop the rest of the club as I hammer on by.
Recently I rode through 16th Avenue from Kennedy across to Keele St, whatever appeal there is in 16, also known as Carrville and Rutherford and possibly other things, is beyond me. There was a huge amount of motor vehicle traffic. But one thing I found ironic and disgusting at the same time, as I passed Leslie I encountered a Dewbourne then a Spadina Ave. Now having grown up in Cedarvale I lived one block from Dewbourne and remember riding my Coppi up and down Spadina. Only up North of 16 the roads got these names by a frantic effort of developers (Question: why are all efforts by a developer frantic?) to sell homes to the nostalgic children of Forrest Hill and Cedarvale residents. Children who had to have the two car parking and had succumb to the seduction of the automobile.
The seduction of the automobile, reminds me of the scene in the movie Oh What a Lovely Little War. The beautiful woman on stage (representing war) singing to the boys telling them to 'take the ticket', but when the boys jump on stage she turns out to be an ugly hag, but of course by then it is too late, the boys are rushed to the trenches to fight or more realistically, to die. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "Owning a car, is like holding a wolf by the ears, you don't like it but you don't dare let it go." Well some people like to own cars and drive, I don't understand that type of person but I know they exist, personally I still remember getting our car, it was an exciting way to blow a lot of money, but after eight years it is amazing how ugly the hag of car ownership truly is.
In other thoughts, recently someone published on the BCC web site the following in a comment: "...at Bloomington, and together we had a nice spin to the Starbucks. I only hit 65km/h on Kennedy. Next year, I vow to break the speed limit." Now I checked and in fairness nowhere did I write that I have had, for a long time, a goal of exceeding the posted speed limit of 70km/h on Kennedy Road southbound below Bloomington. I recall some time ago a BCC ride to Goodwood, QB was training for the Iron Man and after reaching Goodwood had decided to do a second lap up the town line road or perhaps 9'th or 10'th line. I tried to catch QB but he is just so damn fast, I ended up turning for home on Kennedy and discovered how easy it was to hit 60km/h, I realised with a little effort I could exceed the speed limit and maybe even get busted if I was not careful. Thereafter I set a goal of getting busted for speeding there. I have not yet achieved this goal, but I have said I want to do that for some time. Now I may not have written that I want to get busted for speeding on Kennedy but, I know I have told near everyone that I've had that goal and one day I will achieve it. That said, on August I did say the following: "Max speed: 59.27km/h (damnit didn’t bust the speed limit… gotta keep trying)" I know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but imitation without attribution is something else entirely. I know sometimes I repeat what other people say, but I try to acknowledge that person, or at the very least acknowledge the fact that the remark was not my idea, and I know I should not get all hot and bothered about it, but on the other hand it is not the first time I have had an idea and someone has tried to steal the credit. At least this time the theft of an idea will not result in reward, a silly goal, a laugh or two, but nothing serious. The last stolen idea was work related and a vendor tried to claim the credit, thank goodness my manager was on the same conference call with that vendor when I conceived the idea, I just wish my manager was on the second conference call when the vendor tried to publicly take the credit for my idea.
I better insert a second disclaimer here, I read The Lord of the Rings, long before the Peter Jackson mega blockbuster came out, before I came to know Lesley even, truth is, I'm not much of a fan for fantasy, including Tolkien. I'm sure I've upset a legion of boys (if they read my blog) but I just never liked reading a thousand pages about an impossible World where impossible things happened and people lived impossibly long lives. I need my fiction to be grounded in reality. (Sorry children, but having a Wikipedia article about Lord Aragorn that reads as if the king were real does not make his story any more enticing.)
In other news, ever since I got Erin back up I have been riding her as much as I possibly can. And what a delight it is to be on a light bike. Suddenly hills that in the past seemed difficult are now a place to drop the rest of the club as I hammer on by.
Recently I rode through 16th Avenue from Kennedy across to Keele St, whatever appeal there is in 16, also known as Carrville and Rutherford and possibly other things, is beyond me. There was a huge amount of motor vehicle traffic. But one thing I found ironic and disgusting at the same time, as I passed Leslie I encountered a Dewbourne then a Spadina Ave. Now having grown up in Cedarvale I lived one block from Dewbourne and remember riding my Coppi up and down Spadina. Only up North of 16 the roads got these names by a frantic effort of developers (Question: why are all efforts by a developer frantic?) to sell homes to the nostalgic children of Forrest Hill and Cedarvale residents. Children who had to have the two car parking and had succumb to the seduction of the automobile.
The seduction of the automobile, reminds me of the scene in the movie Oh What a Lovely Little War. The beautiful woman on stage (representing war) singing to the boys telling them to 'take the ticket', but when the boys jump on stage she turns out to be an ugly hag, but of course by then it is too late, the boys are rushed to the trenches to fight or more realistically, to die. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "Owning a car, is like holding a wolf by the ears, you don't like it but you don't dare let it go." Well some people like to own cars and drive, I don't understand that type of person but I know they exist, personally I still remember getting our car, it was an exciting way to blow a lot of money, but after eight years it is amazing how ugly the hag of car ownership truly is.
In other thoughts, recently someone published on the BCC web site the following in a comment: "...at Bloomington, and together we had a nice spin to the Starbucks. I only hit 65km/h on Kennedy. Next year, I vow to break the speed limit." Now I checked and in fairness nowhere did I write that I have had, for a long time, a goal of exceeding the posted speed limit of 70km/h on Kennedy Road southbound below Bloomington. I recall some time ago a BCC ride to Goodwood, QB was training for the Iron Man and after reaching Goodwood had decided to do a second lap up the town line road or perhaps 9'th or 10'th line. I tried to catch QB but he is just so damn fast, I ended up turning for home on Kennedy and discovered how easy it was to hit 60km/h, I realised with a little effort I could exceed the speed limit and maybe even get busted if I was not careful. Thereafter I set a goal of getting busted for speeding there. I have not yet achieved this goal, but I have said I want to do that for some time. Now I may not have written that I want to get busted for speeding on Kennedy but, I know I have told near everyone that I've had that goal and one day I will achieve it. That said, on August I did say the following: "Max speed: 59.27km/h (damnit didn’t bust the speed limit… gotta keep trying)" I know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but imitation without attribution is something else entirely. I know sometimes I repeat what other people say, but I try to acknowledge that person, or at the very least acknowledge the fact that the remark was not my idea, and I know I should not get all hot and bothered about it, but on the other hand it is not the first time I have had an idea and someone has tried to steal the credit. At least this time the theft of an idea will not result in reward, a silly goal, a laugh or two, but nothing serious. The last stolen idea was work related and a vendor tried to claim the credit, thank goodness my manager was on the same conference call with that vendor when I conceived the idea, I just wish my manager was on the second conference call when the vendor tried to publicly take the credit for my idea.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
On Being Reborn, Redux
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,-J. R. R. Tolkien
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
A quick aside: sorry this took so long, I've been horribly busy with work lately.
Well first things first, I owe a great big shout out to Barry Cohen for a first rate pain job, Erin's scuffs can still be found, but not easily. Second but no less gratitude to Malcolm Munro of Bisegeal for being without qualification the most skilled bike mechanic I have ever crossed paths with. His fine work has enabled me to get Erin back into fighting form with no more than a new pair of shift leavers, new cables and guides. (In truth I could have reused the cables and guides if the ninnies at a store not to be named here had not cut all that perfectly good stuff up in a bout of lazy vandalism.) Oh of course I need new bar tape too, but the short of it is, for a ride that I was mourning just a few weeks ago, I am delighted, elated even, to say she is back! Below are some pictures of her reconstruction.
Before I got Erin rebuilt I was riding the Coppi in a bike lane and beside me was a motor cycle. I was not really thinking about it when I hammered past the motor cycle, he has a speedometer, I have to ask people the time of day on the Coppi (read: I don't have any stats). So passing a motor vehicle whilst in the bike lane of a 40 zone is no big deal to me, but the guy on the motor cycle was impressed. He told me it wasn't fair that I passed him, I replied that I didn't need gas either. (I am not used to motor vehicle operators saying nice things to me.) Lesley had a better line when I told her, she said I should have point to my legs and said "six litres of displacement!"
I have had a chance to ride Erin once now, on the BCC Sunday November 8 ride, I was much faster that day than I have been in some time. Here are some pictures of that ride.
In other news, I read recently that Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) has made new guidelines banning unsafe driving in advertising. In short car makers must produce ads that do not promote reckless driving by suggesting cars should be driven too fast or handled too dangerously. One advertiser lamented the new regulations: "It's going to present a challenge to brands …which are built on characteristics of power and speed.” The number of objections I have to almost everything I just wrote, although factual. It seems to me that automobiles promote a level of obesity, obscenity and obstinacy, from the behaviour they encourage in drivers to the way oil rich politicians lack any decency. To my way of thinking, the best automobile was the one that was never made, the best automobile ad is the one that was never aired and the best automobile driver is the one who threw away the keys and never looked back.
If it were up to me, and I am sure there are autoworkers and Alberta politicians who would sigh with relief that it is not up to me (they would care if they read my blog that is), advertisements for automobiles would be banned outright. All cars would be, by law, an ugly shade of yellow or orange, so they can easily be seen night or day, fuel economy would be at least 40 mpg (about 5.9 L/100km) and it would be clearly mandated that by say 2015 fuel economy would be 60 mpg (about 3.9 L/100 km). Engines would be required to auto stop when the vehicle was not moving and there would be no separate category for "light trucks". Heavy trucks would have their own fuel economy standards but a heavy truck would require very robust licenses. In fact all drivers would have to get a routine licence retest every three to five years, maybe when it is time for a new license photo? Any individual who does not meet very robust reflex, hand eye coordination and good vision and hearing would loose their licence. In short, driving really is a privilege, not a right, and people should not bother with the hassle unless they really *really* need it. Given the desperate state of the North American Auto Industry, why politicians do not see things my way is beyond me.
When you think about it, the reason we make driving so easy is as much as anything to secure factory jobs, but as fewer and fer cars are made on our shores here in North America (and as the quality of those jobs suffer, decreased pay, reduced benefits, etc) I have to wonder, shouldn't we at some point stop pandering to Detroit?
Friday, October 30, 2009
On Cost Benefit Analysis
The 777 is an airplane built by Boeing, it is not the largest aircraft or the fastest, but it is a well engineered airplane. During its design phase PBS made a documentary about the aircraft and being that I always have been a total aerospace geek I watched the documentary with rapt attention.
I recall very clearly an engineer noting that the safest airplane design possible would have emergency exits at every row. Such a design "feature" would add a huge amount of weight to the airplane, so much in fact the thing might not be able to clear the runway and if it did get wheels up the fuel economy would be appalling. So a cost benefit analysis is done. Factor in the probability of a crash times the chance of survival with n number of exit doors, how many lives are saved? Assign a monetary value to a human life and it becomes trivial to determine how many doors to install. Most people find the notion of assigning a monetary value to their life distasteful, to put things mildly, but then we do it all the time, it is called Life Insurance.
Anyway here is an even simpler calculation, assign a monetary value to your time, now subtract the probability of being busted by a member of Toronto's Finest for a moving violation, like say driving a car in the bike lane of Bay Street, times the cost of a ticket and potential hike in auto insurance, if you come out with a positive number it makes sense to put my life (as a cyclist who uses Bay Street) at risk. This calculation is something that drivers do subconsciously all the time, often to my personal detriment.
I have an idea. The city should hire one hundred new police officers who are required to bust, say an average 25 moving violations a day, 20 days a month, or 6000 tickets per cop/year, roughly one in six people would have a ticket a year in a population of three million drivers. Such a ratio would quickly put a stop to a lot of the dangerous driving I see every day. There would be 100 police standing around thus reducing police response time and probability of crime. Finally a cash strapped city collecting on say one in ten tickets (probably, by personal observation, closer to one in two but let's be conservative) and further assume each ticket nets say, $50, that works out to $3 million a year in net new money. It would piss off drivers, but then didn't you hear? Drivers are at war with everyone already anyway.
I recall very clearly an engineer noting that the safest airplane design possible would have emergency exits at every row. Such a design "feature" would add a huge amount of weight to the airplane, so much in fact the thing might not be able to clear the runway and if it did get wheels up the fuel economy would be appalling. So a cost benefit analysis is done. Factor in the probability of a crash times the chance of survival with n number of exit doors, how many lives are saved? Assign a monetary value to a human life and it becomes trivial to determine how many doors to install. Most people find the notion of assigning a monetary value to their life distasteful, to put things mildly, but then we do it all the time, it is called Life Insurance.
Anyway here is an even simpler calculation, assign a monetary value to your time, now subtract the probability of being busted by a member of Toronto's Finest for a moving violation, like say driving a car in the bike lane of Bay Street, times the cost of a ticket and potential hike in auto insurance, if you come out with a positive number it makes sense to put my life (as a cyclist who uses Bay Street) at risk. This calculation is something that drivers do subconsciously all the time, often to my personal detriment.
I have an idea. The city should hire one hundred new police officers who are required to bust, say an average 25 moving violations a day, 20 days a month, or 6000 tickets per cop/year, roughly one in six people would have a ticket a year in a population of three million drivers. Such a ratio would quickly put a stop to a lot of the dangerous driving I see every day. There would be 100 police standing around thus reducing police response time and probability of crime. Finally a cash strapped city collecting on say one in ten tickets (probably, by personal observation, closer to one in two but let's be conservative) and further assume each ticket nets say, $50, that works out to $3 million a year in net new money. It would piss off drivers, but then didn't you hear? Drivers are at war with everyone already anyway.
Monday, October 26, 2009
On Italian Steel
As I have written earlier I experienced an incident which caused quite a bit of damage to Erin. Now as I work towards replacing parts that are broken beyond repair and repairing everything else I am most assuredly not giving up on my passion, even temporarily.
Although not nearly as nice a ride as Erin I have been adding mileage to my legs with my tried and true Coppi.
I was out for a short joy ride on a Sunday (October 18) afternoon when some guy on a carbon Pinerallo hammered past me going down a hill. Not to shame my Italian steel as soon as the path widened and leveled off I let fly everything I had and was probably cranking out over 50km/h into the wind (sorry no computer on the Coppi) when I passed the Pinerallo. I kept hammering just as hard as possibly could and probably reached something near 60km/h before I stopped spinning, the trail was narrowing and there was a curve coming up. When I finally looked back to find the Pinerallo it was so far behind me I couldn't see bike or rider even with my prescription sun glasses.
Its a nice feeling, to know I pack the acceleration to blow some carbon fiber beauty into the dust with an old steel frame. Now in fairness I have taken the old Ultegra groupo off Erin and put it on the Coppi, but still on a long flat trail it is not the bike, its the engine and well I think that Sunday I earned the right to gloat for a whole paragraph or two!
Anyway as the weather begins to turn ugly I find myself dreaming of rides for next year. The second trip to Lake Simcoe was clearly the high point of the season. Andrew, Ian, Thi and I had one awesome hammerfest that I would surely love to repeat next year. But what routes to take? Rattlesnake is not my cup of tea, it is, like all West routes, pancake flat until a crazy steep hill then it is completely flat again. Going East is roller heaven, but so heavily built up with dreaded bedroom communities and all the car traffic that implies I'd really rather not go there. Of course South is Lake Ontario. That leaves only one option, North!
Next year, none of this silly double imperial century crazy, just lots of hammering. Probably an ITT or three and a new goal, average speed of 32km/h from say Elgin Mills and Woodbine to Simcoe and back to Elgin Mills and Warden or Kennedy. This is not to say I would ever dream of driving a bike to the start of a ride, rather starting the clock at home will mean the numbers I have reflect my willingness to run red lights instead of my ability to ride fast.
Although I have to wonder, why do so many people drive their bike? Okay, I understand something a long the lines of, there is a race in a town two or three hundred kilometers away so drive to the race. But I see people load their bikes into the car just to drive their ride a few kilometers to the nearest trail. Such people have it all wrong, they should use the bike to support the car, not the other way around. Consider, in Serbia during the 90s as a result of the war with neighbouring states an embargo caused the price of gas to sky rocket. It got to the point that if you wanted gasoline you had to find your local black market retailer who would sell you a 1L (typically Pierre Water) bottle of liquid green house gasses for about the equivalent of $10 (USD). Driving was no luxury it just did not happen, at all, people parked the car and stopped driving. Apparently the air quality in Belgrade was quite a bit better for some time as a direct result.
I like the idea that Lesley would come to me and say, I need to load up on groceries, so I go down the street, by bike, pickup a bottle of gas and have just enough for Lesley to make it to the supermarket and back. In short, we can make do without the car, but without the bike there would be real problems. Better yet, I like the idea that with expensive gasoline the supermarket goes belly up and we return to buying our foods from the local shops in our neighbourhood. I wonder what they will do with all the abandoned homes in suburbia?
One final though, the city of Toronto may very well soon have a 315 unit condo in downtown with 9 parking spots for car-share rentals and 315 spaces for bicycles! (No space is being allocated for unit owners to have their own car.) About damn time if you ask me, just think if Lesley and I got rid of our car, that would mean space for something in the neighbourhood of 8 or 10 bikes, and the savings in auto insurance alone, we could afford to have 8 or 10 bikes... hmmmm.
Although not nearly as nice a ride as Erin I have been adding mileage to my legs with my tried and true Coppi.
I was out for a short joy ride on a Sunday (October 18) afternoon when some guy on a carbon Pinerallo hammered past me going down a hill. Not to shame my Italian steel as soon as the path widened and leveled off I let fly everything I had and was probably cranking out over 50km/h into the wind (sorry no computer on the Coppi) when I passed the Pinerallo. I kept hammering just as hard as possibly could and probably reached something near 60km/h before I stopped spinning, the trail was narrowing and there was a curve coming up. When I finally looked back to find the Pinerallo it was so far behind me I couldn't see bike or rider even with my prescription sun glasses.
Its a nice feeling, to know I pack the acceleration to blow some carbon fiber beauty into the dust with an old steel frame. Now in fairness I have taken the old Ultegra groupo off Erin and put it on the Coppi, but still on a long flat trail it is not the bike, its the engine and well I think that Sunday I earned the right to gloat for a whole paragraph or two!
Anyway as the weather begins to turn ugly I find myself dreaming of rides for next year. The second trip to Lake Simcoe was clearly the high point of the season. Andrew, Ian, Thi and I had one awesome hammerfest that I would surely love to repeat next year. But what routes to take? Rattlesnake is not my cup of tea, it is, like all West routes, pancake flat until a crazy steep hill then it is completely flat again. Going East is roller heaven, but so heavily built up with dreaded bedroom communities and all the car traffic that implies I'd really rather not go there. Of course South is Lake Ontario. That leaves only one option, North!
Next year, none of this silly double imperial century crazy, just lots of hammering. Probably an ITT or three and a new goal, average speed of 32km/h from say Elgin Mills and Woodbine to Simcoe and back to Elgin Mills and Warden or Kennedy. This is not to say I would ever dream of driving a bike to the start of a ride, rather starting the clock at home will mean the numbers I have reflect my willingness to run red lights instead of my ability to ride fast.
Although I have to wonder, why do so many people drive their bike? Okay, I understand something a long the lines of, there is a race in a town two or three hundred kilometers away so drive to the race. But I see people load their bikes into the car just to drive their ride a few kilometers to the nearest trail. Such people have it all wrong, they should use the bike to support the car, not the other way around. Consider, in Serbia during the 90s as a result of the war with neighbouring states an embargo caused the price of gas to sky rocket. It got to the point that if you wanted gasoline you had to find your local black market retailer who would sell you a 1L (typically Pierre Water) bottle of liquid green house gasses for about the equivalent of $10 (USD). Driving was no luxury it just did not happen, at all, people parked the car and stopped driving. Apparently the air quality in Belgrade was quite a bit better for some time as a direct result.
I like the idea that Lesley would come to me and say, I need to load up on groceries, so I go down the street, by bike, pickup a bottle of gas and have just enough for Lesley to make it to the supermarket and back. In short, we can make do without the car, but without the bike there would be real problems. Better yet, I like the idea that with expensive gasoline the supermarket goes belly up and we return to buying our foods from the local shops in our neighbourhood. I wonder what they will do with all the abandoned homes in suburbia?
One final though, the city of Toronto may very well soon have a 315 unit condo in downtown with 9 parking spots for car-share rentals and 315 spaces for bicycles! (No space is being allocated for unit owners to have their own car.) About damn time if you ask me, just think if Lesley and I got rid of our car, that would mean space for something in the neighbourhood of 8 or 10 bikes, and the savings in auto insurance alone, we could afford to have 8 or 10 bikes... hmmmm.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
On Foot Dragging
We took the train from London to Paris, via the Chunnel. Although the Chunnel has now been around for about half my lifetime it still blows me away that we can get from Kingscross to Gare Nord without leaving our seats.
Paris has many similarities to Montreal, I suspect Montreal's copied Paris, right down to the use of inflated rubber tyres on the Metro. Why do the French speaking set do that? Surely rubber inflated tyres cost more to maintain and operate as well they seem noisier and probably require more energy than conventional train wheels. Anyway the newer trains seem to use conventional technology, but even so the system in Paris does not seem geared towards truly mass transit. Only four or five cars comprise a typical train, compared with six or so in London and eight to ten in Toronto. Stops are frequent and close, whereas the gap between say King and Queen in Toronto is unusual in that it is so small, this would be an unusually long gap between stations in Paris. And just like Montreal, there is graffiti all over the place, I have to wonder don't Parisians take any pride in their public spaces?
I believe the French pride themselves on their open and tolerant culture, which would be great, if only Jean-Marie Le Pen were a figment of my imagination. But the tolerance to let things slide, well unlike my experience at UK customs which really weren't that bad, just a petty nuance, the issue I have with French attitude is a real problem.
Paris is a filthy city, there is garage everywhere and nobody seems at all bothered by it. Buildings often look slipshod and haphazard. Today there is a pretty baroque thing beside a parking lot, next thing you know some gwad awful steel and glass hulk is throwing its shadow across the facade of our old building. In short there is no effort to achieve architectural conformity. Actually, it turns out that is note entirely true, out hotel was across the street from the "only" sky scraper in the city. (If you somehow discount our 30 storey hotel from the realm of sky scrapers I guess?) But at some point the French did come to their senses and put a stop to the shoe box construction before it got way out of hand.
It took Paris for me to learn architecture is important, if for no other reason than to protect the charm of a place.
Our first evening in Paris we took a bike tour, it rained. Riding in the rain sucks. Riding in the rain in Jeans, instead of athletic clothing is positively dreadful. Enough said. Sadly that first evening seemed to set the standard for most of our stay. When we went for traditional French food we were, to put things mildly, disappointed. The fact is the French restaurants in Toronto are far superior to the overpriced stuff that the waiters bring to the table at meal time. Ultimately we did have a very nice Indian dinner one evening, - yes we had Indian in London too - it seems if you can stomach Indian and are looking for a decent meal that won't leave you in the poor house one could do worse than Indian. Using the logic that former colonists will know how to make the food of those whom they have colonized (hey it works in England) we had Vietnamese, it was alright, but I can do better in Toronto at a fraction the price.
Obviously we went to The Louvre, there are about a half million works in those buildings. I did not know that at the time, I also did not know that if I went to the Louvre and examined every work for one minute and took no breaks, for sleep, eating, washroom and whatever else, it would still take almost a year to review all the art in the Louvre. Put simply the Louvre is not reasonable, it is too big. Which is sort of cool I suppose, but upsetting. An art tourist who came to Paris with the intention of spending say, 10 days, in just the Louvre still would only since a small fraction of a percentage of what is there. Someone pointed out all the other paintings in the room with the Mona Lisa are almost never even looked at, well that's probably the case for most art in the building it just cannot be seen. I tried to take in as much as I could but noticed by and by that like everyone else, I was shuffling my feet (hence the title of this blog post), I had museum fatigue! That said I did see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, although neither was really a goal I set for myself. I was more interested in finding all the paintings that glamorized Napoleon. Fact, old Boney was a short fellow, and when he rode across the Alps he did it on the back side of a donkey, not a horse. Now go to the Louvre but remember not to laugh too hard at the paintings, that Napoleon was never made a saint is beyond me "is the great love the general gender bear him", hey Joan D'Arc was sainted. When we went to the Tomb of Napoleon all I could think was: 'Yes Napoleon brought many of the ideas of democratic government, invented by the English to Central and Eastern Europe a full century before Nazism, but the English brought those ideas to India and America, someone remind me how those experiments in democracy turned out?')
We went to the Rodin Museum, it was a beautiful place, the garden in the fall as the leaves change colours is quite nice. But in some respects the museum is very melancholy, the work Rodin did is very upsetting and the grey skies coupled with usual decline in the weather that is fall's staple can bring down even the sunniest disposition.
The Museum D'Orsey is a fine place with many great works, this time I had the good sense to pace myself. I absorbed about two hours of art than took a break and read about Ugolino, on the blackberry, starving to death sounds like a positively dreadful way to go. Yet for some reason Ugolino frequently appears in statue around Paris.
Lesley and I toured Montmartre, it was a very nice area but the experience was spoiled to some extent by the rain. We also went to the Cathedral Norte Dame de Paris while beautiful seemed, frankly uninteresting next to Westminster Abby. One has the oldest door in England and the very chair that William the conqueror was crowned king on. The other, well it has the crown of thorns that Jesus wore at his crucification, but given the period between Jesus' execution and the deathbed conversion of Constantine Christianity was almost unpracticed, who saved the thorns for the first 300 years?
Leaving London was a melancholy moment for me, but I was elated to be leaving Paris.
Paris has many similarities to Montreal, I suspect Montreal's copied Paris, right down to the use of inflated rubber tyres on the Metro. Why do the French speaking set do that? Surely rubber inflated tyres cost more to maintain and operate as well they seem noisier and probably require more energy than conventional train wheels. Anyway the newer trains seem to use conventional technology, but even so the system in Paris does not seem geared towards truly mass transit. Only four or five cars comprise a typical train, compared with six or so in London and eight to ten in Toronto. Stops are frequent and close, whereas the gap between say King and Queen in Toronto is unusual in that it is so small, this would be an unusually long gap between stations in Paris. And just like Montreal, there is graffiti all over the place, I have to wonder don't Parisians take any pride in their public spaces?
I believe the French pride themselves on their open and tolerant culture, which would be great, if only Jean-Marie Le Pen were a figment of my imagination. But the tolerance to let things slide, well unlike my experience at UK customs which really weren't that bad, just a petty nuance, the issue I have with French attitude is a real problem.
Paris is a filthy city, there is garage everywhere and nobody seems at all bothered by it. Buildings often look slipshod and haphazard. Today there is a pretty baroque thing beside a parking lot, next thing you know some gwad awful steel and glass hulk is throwing its shadow across the facade of our old building. In short there is no effort to achieve architectural conformity. Actually, it turns out that is note entirely true, out hotel was across the street from the "only" sky scraper in the city. (If you somehow discount our 30 storey hotel from the realm of sky scrapers I guess?) But at some point the French did come to their senses and put a stop to the shoe box construction before it got way out of hand.
It took Paris for me to learn architecture is important, if for no other reason than to protect the charm of a place.
Our first evening in Paris we took a bike tour, it rained. Riding in the rain sucks. Riding in the rain in Jeans, instead of athletic clothing is positively dreadful. Enough said. Sadly that first evening seemed to set the standard for most of our stay. When we went for traditional French food we were, to put things mildly, disappointed. The fact is the French restaurants in Toronto are far superior to the overpriced stuff that the waiters bring to the table at meal time. Ultimately we did have a very nice Indian dinner one evening, - yes we had Indian in London too - it seems if you can stomach Indian and are looking for a decent meal that won't leave you in the poor house one could do worse than Indian. Using the logic that former colonists will know how to make the food of those whom they have colonized (hey it works in England) we had Vietnamese, it was alright, but I can do better in Toronto at a fraction the price.
Obviously we went to The Louvre, there are about a half million works in those buildings. I did not know that at the time, I also did not know that if I went to the Louvre and examined every work for one minute and took no breaks, for sleep, eating, washroom and whatever else, it would still take almost a year to review all the art in the Louvre. Put simply the Louvre is not reasonable, it is too big. Which is sort of cool I suppose, but upsetting. An art tourist who came to Paris with the intention of spending say, 10 days, in just the Louvre still would only since a small fraction of a percentage of what is there. Someone pointed out all the other paintings in the room with the Mona Lisa are almost never even looked at, well that's probably the case for most art in the building it just cannot be seen. I tried to take in as much as I could but noticed by and by that like everyone else, I was shuffling my feet (hence the title of this blog post), I had museum fatigue! That said I did see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, although neither was really a goal I set for myself. I was more interested in finding all the paintings that glamorized Napoleon. Fact, old Boney was a short fellow, and when he rode across the Alps he did it on the back side of a donkey, not a horse. Now go to the Louvre but remember not to laugh too hard at the paintings, that Napoleon was never made a saint is beyond me "is the great love the general gender bear him", hey Joan D'Arc was sainted. When we went to the Tomb of Napoleon all I could think was: 'Yes Napoleon brought many of the ideas of democratic government, invented by the English to Central and Eastern Europe a full century before Nazism, but the English brought those ideas to India and America, someone remind me how those experiments in democracy turned out?')
We went to the Rodin Museum, it was a beautiful place, the garden in the fall as the leaves change colours is quite nice. But in some respects the museum is very melancholy, the work Rodin did is very upsetting and the grey skies coupled with usual decline in the weather that is fall's staple can bring down even the sunniest disposition.
The Museum D'Orsey is a fine place with many great works, this time I had the good sense to pace myself. I absorbed about two hours of art than took a break and read about Ugolino, on the blackberry, starving to death sounds like a positively dreadful way to go. Yet for some reason Ugolino frequently appears in statue around Paris.
Lesley and I toured Montmartre, it was a very nice area but the experience was spoiled to some extent by the rain. We also went to the Cathedral Norte Dame de Paris while beautiful seemed, frankly uninteresting next to Westminster Abby. One has the oldest door in England and the very chair that William the conqueror was crowned king on. The other, well it has the crown of thorns that Jesus wore at his crucification, but given the period between Jesus' execution and the deathbed conversion of Constantine Christianity was almost unpracticed, who saved the thorns for the first 300 years?
Leaving London was a melancholy moment for me, but I was elated to be leaving Paris.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
On London
England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,
A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepealed,
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
I have been to Asia, North America and as I write these words, Europe, well London for the very first time. Now much of what I know from Europe is stuff I read in books or saw on television. London is, or so my narrative instructed, a run down city, warehouse of first rate history in a nation of people who have zero culinary ability and no sense of fashion, exhausted completely in their effort to take down Hitler.
Holy smokes we shouldn't generalize that fast batman! That there is a monster treasure chest of really first rate history is not up for dispute. But from my very brief touring of London I can say the anti English sentiments, oddly I most frequently perceive from the English them self, are not fair at all.
Now before I talk about the routine surprises of London I need to comment on something more petty. The head of state for Canada is Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the second. ER2 is on our money, our passport reads The minister of Foreign Affairs requests, in the name of Her Majesty The Queen..., when Lesley became a citizen she had to swear allegiance to The Queen, as is usually the case when The Queen is not present The Queen's representative in Canada, The Governor General, holds the highest rank in the land, if you go to a place where there is no Canadian embassy or consulate your passport instructs you to turn to the British for help, and so on. So I want it explained to me, when Lesley and I entered Great Britain we were in the "Non EU or GB citizen" lineup, as opposed to someone from say, France, a country that was at war or near war state for pretty much the entire history of England since the Norman Conquest to the invention of the telegraph! Or what about say, a German? Or a Czech? Surely the fact that my great uncle served and died in defense of the Empire (he was a front upper gunner on a Lancaster that was shot down over Bochum Germany in 1944, a fact that landed him in the city of Toronto's roll of honour) should land me a more favoured access to commonwealth nations, if my frequent and very un-American use of the letter "u" doesn't do the trick? For heaven's sakes after the American Revolution George Washington declared he would never set foot on English soil again. Canada's first Prime Minister ran on a campaign of "A subject of the crown I was born and loyal I shall die." Of course Sir John Alexander MacDonald was in fact born in Scotland but back in those days as a Canadian you were either proudly British, wished you were British or were Quebecois. For that matter it still seems quite true, Toronto's current mayor, David Miller, was also born in Scotland. I am not sure if we could elect an American born Canadian as mayor, but I am sure we will elect someone from the mother country any time.
The whole thing smacks of a mother who wishes to cut relations and abandon her adult children for the sexy man with the French, or is it Spanish or perhaps German accent? Gee mum, I really feel the love, next time you call on me to help out, maybe in Iraq?, don't expect me to jump to attention.
Anyway once I cleared the customs silliness one of the first things I noticed was the rail in England, I think I have seen one episode of Top Gear too many and had come to believe the English nurse the same idiotic notions about driving that we maintain in the Americas. But the trains in England are fast, efficient and clean. Unlike Canada where air travel is a more cost effective way to get from A to B, taking the train is a completely rationale way to get around England.
When we got to London I must admit I had some difficulty with the tube at first, it is such a complex network one pretty much needs to study a map prior to heading out no matter how many times you ride the underground. I suppose a regular commuter would not have these problems, but I strongly suspect that if you threw even a native Londoner off their regular route by so much as a few lines they would need to consult a map just to find their way home again. I should as a warning to Canadians who think we pronounce Glouster correctly, apparently we do not. I would like to think I speak one language well, that is the English language, but when I asked someone who's uniform clearly identified him as an employee of the London Underground if this was the correct platform for Glouster station he gave me that same befuddled look of the Shanghai taxi drivers when I ask for Xin Tien Di.
Another remarkable break from the expected was the food situation. When it comes to cooking, us Northern European stock (and as a fourth generation Toronto boy I think I count as Northern European) can only depend on importing good food from spicy regions, and I suppose partly as capital of the greatest empire the World has ever known, Londoners have access to some really first rate food. Now I will grant that I do believe Toronto is more diverse in its composition, but then Toronto may very well be the most culturally diverse city on Earth. None-the-less London puts on a strong showing beside hog town.
After a surprisingly good lunch at an Asian place called Wegamama Lesley and I went to Kensington Park. In the park is Kensington palace, Kensington palace is where Queen Victoria was born and where I had a chance to get a good laugh at the statue of King William III, a gift from a certain King William II of Germany, grandson of Queen Victoria. Of course astute students of history will recall that Kaiser William (pronounced Vill-helm) the second was as responsible as anyone can be for World War I, and William III, or King William of Orange? He brought the invention of modern credit to England, this credit would allow a small fog shrouded Isle to carve out the greatest maritime empire the world has ever known. Of course ultimately this credit, in the hands of former English colonists in America would cause the great credit crisis of 2008.
Just past Kensington palace, was a large pond. Around the pond were a number of chairs, there was no notice on them so Lesley and I enjoyed the sunshine at length in a beautiful English garden. Only later on did I learn one is supposed to rent the chairs for a cost of £2 for four hours. Which frankly seems rather exorbitant but then most things in London are pretty expensive.
Dinner that evening was a formal Italian affair. It was exceedingly formal and exceedingly good. English food may be awful but the cooks the English have sure play a good game at the cook top.
The day after we arrived Lesley and I took a bike tour of the borough Westminister. Bike tours are a great way to see an area of town. Instead of burning out your feet or having a very restricted radius of sight seeing, you can ride a bike and see about as much as you can from a bus without the environmental impact of driving and with a greater appreciation of the pedestrian aspects of city life.
We, that is to say the bike group, went to a pub for lunch, this was not exactly a BCC Tuesday night hammer feast insanity ride, although speaking of Hammerfeast, there is such a place, it is a town in the far north of Norway, no word on what sort of bike tours are done there. Anyway we went to a reasonably inexpensive pub near Trafalgar Square where I made sure to have the London staple, Cod and chips. How anyone built an empire on that greaseopolza in their belly is beyond me. But I have gone to England and had fish and chips at an English pub, not worth repeating.
We resumed our tour and saw more gardens and memorials. At this point I want to state something that ought to be blindingly obvious but somehow escaped too many people in North America, cities are for people to live in. It seems to me that all to often we seem to forget that and make cites a place where cars can roam freely at the expense of people, remember the pedestrians? I recall searching for a supermarket in Phoenix last year and all I saw were cars, for ten or fifteen blocks not a single pedestrian, it was unsettling to say the least. Well London, at least Kensington and Westminister, don't seem to suffer any confusion. You want to drive, you are going to pay, through the nose, for the privilege.
As we rode through Hyde park we saw the mounted guards on horse back match down the road after the changing of the guard. What was mind boggling to me was that the cars stuck behind the soldiers did not attempt to pass or even honk. Respect for the monarchy runs deep.
Over the following days we went to Cambridge where our poor tour guide although well aware of the history had a very limited knowledge of physics and it showed. At one point she mentioned how an Australian born physicist named Rutherford had split the atom (ooops!) And done a lot of work at Cambridge. (Actually Rutherford's greatest achievement was the discovery of the atomic nucleus, which he made at McGill University in Montreal. A high school friend of mine was made to consider McGill by his father, a McGill alma mater, my friend told me the area where Rutherford worked is now boarded off, it is so radioactive!) Although it is true Rutherford did work for a time at Cambridge. The guide also mentioned how a certain professor Stephen Hawking is now the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, as was a certain Professor Issac Newton. She neglected such luminaries as the guy who first theorized antimatter, Paul Dirac. You would think with all the attention antimatter has received since that Dan Brown book, Angles and Demons, Cambridge would want to capitalize on some of the fame. Then again more Nobel prize winners at Cambridge than... Oh the United States! I guess they can afford to throw guides who don't understand such things at us.
We also went to Westminster Abby. If English history is not your cup of tea then I guess this is not a good place to visit. As for me, well I could have been locked up in there for a week with water and food and not been bored. The Abby is a place of prayer, and also the place where the monarchs have been crowned since William I (William the Conqueror). In fact when William was to be crowned King in 1066 they made a chair for the occasion. That chair is in Westminster and preserved for the same function to this very day! (Yes that chair was last used in 1952 when a young lady by the name of Elizabeth Mountbatten was crowned Queen.) In fact according to our guide that chair is in the Guinness Book of Records for oldest piece of furniture still serving the purpose for which it was originally built. Near the chair is the tomb of King Henry V. The very same fellow who besides having a silver tongue whipped the French on St. Crispins Day, 1415 at Agincourt, as the scope of the battle is beyond the scope of this entry I will refer the interested reader to the play Henry V by a playwright of some repute from Standford on the Avon River, for the details.
Near the tomb of Henry V is the tomb of Elizabeth and Mary, half sisters who hated each other in life. Right next to the two ladies there is the memorial to the boys who served and died in the RAF. In Westminster is Chaucer's tomb, as is Newton and Darwin. Just off to the side is a door, there are no jams, the door has a note, "this door was built in 1050, it is the oldest door in England". I might be alive when that door celebrates it's thousandth birthday!
A little way from Westminster Abby is the national portrait gallery. When I see the gallery in England and think of all the silliness around our own lack of a gallery I think, maybe we should give the English our portraits and ask them for a new BNA act. Clearly they win, portraits in their collection include Kings, Queens, scientists, philosophers, a number of them done by none other than Joshua Reynolds, do we have even one painting by Reynolds in all of Canada? Don't even get me started on the National Gallery, it isn't the Louvre, but it is nothing to shrug off. Put plainly Westminister and Trafalgar Square are awesome. At least the Canadian Embassy is at Trafalgar square, maybe we could make it the residence of the colonial representative to Westminster and do away with the whole national sovereignty thing. Would the Brits take us back? Please!
We also went to The Tower of London. Yes I saw the crown jewels, they look very nice. We also such ominous places as traitors gate and the bloody tower (so named by Elizabeth, first Queen of that name.) If you go to the tower, a good place to see, get a guided tour by one of the Beefeaters, the British sense of humour alone makes the trip to London worthwhile. But because the tour will include children read the punishment that Guy Fawkes received on Wikipedia before hand. Just try not to think about it too much after.
Of course observant readers will notice I missed some of the greatest museums of all, for example the war cabinet. That will have to come on our second visit which Lesley and I had already started dreaming about before we had even left.
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,
A Senate--Time's worst statute unrepealed,
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
Holy smokes we shouldn't generalize that fast batman! That there is a monster treasure chest of really first rate history is not up for dispute. But from my very brief touring of London I can say the anti English sentiments, oddly I most frequently perceive from the English them self, are not fair at all.
Now before I talk about the routine surprises of London I need to comment on something more petty. The head of state for Canada is Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the second. ER2 is on our money, our passport reads The minister of Foreign Affairs requests, in the name of Her Majesty The Queen..., when Lesley became a citizen she had to swear allegiance to The Queen, as is usually the case when The Queen is not present The Queen's representative in Canada, The Governor General, holds the highest rank in the land, if you go to a place where there is no Canadian embassy or consulate your passport instructs you to turn to the British for help, and so on. So I want it explained to me, when Lesley and I entered Great Britain we were in the "Non EU or GB citizen" lineup, as opposed to someone from say, France, a country that was at war or near war state for pretty much the entire history of England since the Norman Conquest to the invention of the telegraph! Or what about say, a German? Or a Czech? Surely the fact that my great uncle served and died in defense of the Empire (he was a front upper gunner on a Lancaster that was shot down over Bochum Germany in 1944, a fact that landed him in the city of Toronto's roll of honour) should land me a more favoured access to commonwealth nations, if my frequent and very un-American use of the letter "u" doesn't do the trick? For heaven's sakes after the American Revolution George Washington declared he would never set foot on English soil again. Canada's first Prime Minister ran on a campaign of "A subject of the crown I was born and loyal I shall die." Of course Sir John Alexander MacDonald was in fact born in Scotland but back in those days as a Canadian you were either proudly British, wished you were British or were Quebecois. For that matter it still seems quite true, Toronto's current mayor, David Miller, was also born in Scotland. I am not sure if we could elect an American born Canadian as mayor, but I am sure we will elect someone from the mother country any time.
The whole thing smacks of a mother who wishes to cut relations and abandon her adult children for the sexy man with the French, or is it Spanish or perhaps German accent? Gee mum, I really feel the love, next time you call on me to help out, maybe in Iraq?, don't expect me to jump to attention.
Anyway once I cleared the customs silliness one of the first things I noticed was the rail in England, I think I have seen one episode of Top Gear too many and had come to believe the English nurse the same idiotic notions about driving that we maintain in the Americas. But the trains in England are fast, efficient and clean. Unlike Canada where air travel is a more cost effective way to get from A to B, taking the train is a completely rationale way to get around England.
When we got to London I must admit I had some difficulty with the tube at first, it is such a complex network one pretty much needs to study a map prior to heading out no matter how many times you ride the underground. I suppose a regular commuter would not have these problems, but I strongly suspect that if you threw even a native Londoner off their regular route by so much as a few lines they would need to consult a map just to find their way home again. I should as a warning to Canadians who think we pronounce Glouster correctly, apparently we do not. I would like to think I speak one language well, that is the English language, but when I asked someone who's uniform clearly identified him as an employee of the London Underground if this was the correct platform for Glouster station he gave me that same befuddled look of the Shanghai taxi drivers when I ask for Xin Tien Di.
Another remarkable break from the expected was the food situation. When it comes to cooking, us Northern European stock (and as a fourth generation Toronto boy I think I count as Northern European) can only depend on importing good food from spicy regions, and I suppose partly as capital of the greatest empire the World has ever known, Londoners have access to some really first rate food. Now I will grant that I do believe Toronto is more diverse in its composition, but then Toronto may very well be the most culturally diverse city on Earth. None-the-less London puts on a strong showing beside hog town.
After a surprisingly good lunch at an Asian place called Wegamama Lesley and I went to Kensington Park. In the park is Kensington palace, Kensington palace is where Queen Victoria was born and where I had a chance to get a good laugh at the statue of King William III, a gift from a certain King William II of Germany, grandson of Queen Victoria. Of course astute students of history will recall that Kaiser William (pronounced Vill-helm) the second was as responsible as anyone can be for World War I, and William III, or King William of Orange? He brought the invention of modern credit to England, this credit would allow a small fog shrouded Isle to carve out the greatest maritime empire the world has ever known. Of course ultimately this credit, in the hands of former English colonists in America would cause the great credit crisis of 2008.
Just past Kensington palace, was a large pond. Around the pond were a number of chairs, there was no notice on them so Lesley and I enjoyed the sunshine at length in a beautiful English garden. Only later on did I learn one is supposed to rent the chairs for a cost of £2 for four hours. Which frankly seems rather exorbitant but then most things in London are pretty expensive.
Dinner that evening was a formal Italian affair. It was exceedingly formal and exceedingly good. English food may be awful but the cooks the English have sure play a good game at the cook top.
The day after we arrived Lesley and I took a bike tour of the borough Westminister. Bike tours are a great way to see an area of town. Instead of burning out your feet or having a very restricted radius of sight seeing, you can ride a bike and see about as much as you can from a bus without the environmental impact of driving and with a greater appreciation of the pedestrian aspects of city life.
We, that is to say the bike group, went to a pub for lunch, this was not exactly a BCC Tuesday night hammer feast insanity ride, although speaking of Hammerfeast, there is such a place, it is a town in the far north of Norway, no word on what sort of bike tours are done there. Anyway we went to a reasonably inexpensive pub near Trafalgar Square where I made sure to have the London staple, Cod and chips. How anyone built an empire on that greaseopolza in their belly is beyond me. But I have gone to England and had fish and chips at an English pub, not worth repeating.
We resumed our tour and saw more gardens and memorials. At this point I want to state something that ought to be blindingly obvious but somehow escaped too many people in North America, cities are for people to live in. It seems to me that all to often we seem to forget that and make cites a place where cars can roam freely at the expense of people, remember the pedestrians? I recall searching for a supermarket in Phoenix last year and all I saw were cars, for ten or fifteen blocks not a single pedestrian, it was unsettling to say the least. Well London, at least Kensington and Westminister, don't seem to suffer any confusion. You want to drive, you are going to pay, through the nose, for the privilege.
As we rode through Hyde park we saw the mounted guards on horse back match down the road after the changing of the guard. What was mind boggling to me was that the cars stuck behind the soldiers did not attempt to pass or even honk. Respect for the monarchy runs deep.
Over the following days we went to Cambridge where our poor tour guide although well aware of the history had a very limited knowledge of physics and it showed. At one point she mentioned how an Australian born physicist named Rutherford had split the atom (ooops!) And done a lot of work at Cambridge. (Actually Rutherford's greatest achievement was the discovery of the atomic nucleus, which he made at McGill University in Montreal. A high school friend of mine was made to consider McGill by his father, a McGill alma mater, my friend told me the area where Rutherford worked is now boarded off, it is so radioactive!) Although it is true Rutherford did work for a time at Cambridge. The guide also mentioned how a certain professor Stephen Hawking is now the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, as was a certain Professor Issac Newton. She neglected such luminaries as the guy who first theorized antimatter, Paul Dirac. You would think with all the attention antimatter has received since that Dan Brown book, Angles and Demons, Cambridge would want to capitalize on some of the fame. Then again more Nobel prize winners at Cambridge than... Oh the United States! I guess they can afford to throw guides who don't understand such things at us.
We also went to Westminster Abby. If English history is not your cup of tea then I guess this is not a good place to visit. As for me, well I could have been locked up in there for a week with water and food and not been bored. The Abby is a place of prayer, and also the place where the monarchs have been crowned since William I (William the Conqueror). In fact when William was to be crowned King in 1066 they made a chair for the occasion. That chair is in Westminster and preserved for the same function to this very day! (Yes that chair was last used in 1952 when a young lady by the name of Elizabeth Mountbatten was crowned Queen.) In fact according to our guide that chair is in the Guinness Book of Records for oldest piece of furniture still serving the purpose for which it was originally built. Near the chair is the tomb of King Henry V. The very same fellow who besides having a silver tongue whipped the French on St. Crispins Day, 1415 at Agincourt, as the scope of the battle is beyond the scope of this entry I will refer the interested reader to the play Henry V by a playwright of some repute from Standford on the Avon River, for the details.
Near the tomb of Henry V is the tomb of Elizabeth and Mary, half sisters who hated each other in life. Right next to the two ladies there is the memorial to the boys who served and died in the RAF. In Westminster is Chaucer's tomb, as is Newton and Darwin. Just off to the side is a door, there are no jams, the door has a note, "this door was built in 1050, it is the oldest door in England". I might be alive when that door celebrates it's thousandth birthday!
A little way from Westminster Abby is the national portrait gallery. When I see the gallery in England and think of all the silliness around our own lack of a gallery I think, maybe we should give the English our portraits and ask them for a new BNA act. Clearly they win, portraits in their collection include Kings, Queens, scientists, philosophers, a number of them done by none other than Joshua Reynolds, do we have even one painting by Reynolds in all of Canada? Don't even get me started on the National Gallery, it isn't the Louvre, but it is nothing to shrug off. Put plainly Westminister and Trafalgar Square are awesome. At least the Canadian Embassy is at Trafalgar square, maybe we could make it the residence of the colonial representative to Westminster and do away with the whole national sovereignty thing. Would the Brits take us back? Please!
We also went to The Tower of London. Yes I saw the crown jewels, they look very nice. We also such ominous places as traitors gate and the bloody tower (so named by Elizabeth, first Queen of that name.) If you go to the tower, a good place to see, get a guided tour by one of the Beefeaters, the British sense of humour alone makes the trip to London worthwhile. But because the tour will include children read the punishment that Guy Fawkes received on Wikipedia before hand. Just try not to think about it too much after.
Of course observant readers will notice I missed some of the greatest museums of all, for example the war cabinet. That will have to come on our second visit which Lesley and I had already started dreaming about before we had even left.
Friday, October 2, 2009
On Getting Enough Sleep
As I mentioned earlier I had a crash on Erin as a result of a cracked fork. In fact the crash was significantly less harmful than I first thought. It turns out that while scuffed Erin's frame is at least, okay to ride. I still need to spend a significant amount, replacing bars, leavers and such, but I will be able to ride Erin, probably gently, for years still. In short rumors of Erins untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated. This is good and bad, well almost entirely good news, except I really better not push her too hard. She did endure a horrible crash and I don't want to find out for example, that the right chain stay cracked while zooming along at 70km/h down Kennedy Road at Bloomington (around 50km from home). Still, a bike is a horrible thing to waste, sort of like a car being a horrible thing to make!
At this point I really should make a shout out to Malcolm. Quite possibly the most unknown yet most competent bike mechanic in Toronto, Malcolm the owner of Biseagal, used to race, he told me once of a race he did from Montreal to Quebec city (about 300km). Because UCI rules require that races not exceed 238km the start was rolling and the race did not officially commence for about 50km, up to that point there was a pace car in front doing about 45km/h. The pelaton, about 250 strong - in a single, very long pace line - did a steady +50km/h. At one point Malcolm stopped for a natural break. He was able to get back in before the last support car passed, and after 11 minutes of steady 60km/h managed to catch up with the last guy in the pack. Ultimately he came in 27th place overall.
Okay, so Malcolm is fast. He is also about the most anal retentive mechanic I have ever met. It took the two of us about five hours to upgrade Erin from Ultegra to Dura-Ace, not that he is slow when he is off the saddle, just very meticulous. Frankly when I am hammering down a hill at 80km/h I don't want to wonder, "will my brake caliper snap off when I reach the bottom?" In that sense Malcolm is a great mechanic to know and after no small amount of searching I feel I have finally found someone who I can trust to perform those jobs that we take for granted until suddenly our lives depend on their handiwork (actually all too often we take the work of a skilled mechanic for granted even when we put our lives in their hands, a sharp turn taken at speed, an emergency stop and so on.)
I won't mention names here but when I say the fork broke let me elaborate a little on Erin's recent history. Several months ago I noticed that the bolt in Erin's top cap was recessed quite a bit. I decided to take Erin to a bike shop in the east end that deals with Specialized a lot, I figured, Erin is Specialized, better to get someone who specializes in Specialized to fix a Specialized! (I have just decided, specialized is a cacophonous term!)
Anyway I show Erin to the store manager, he removes the top cap and tells me her fork is cracked, I need a new fork. Alright, I am about to spend a lot of money so I haggle with the guy and he gives me a new stem as well, all carbon fiber. On repairing Erin the mechanic at the store determines my head set is toast, bearings, top cap, the works, so I'm set back a new head set as well as a fork, stem and labour.
About a month later I notice a small scratch on the left hand side of Erin's new fork, running perhaps a centimeter from the point where the fork meets the head tube and stearing tube down towards the brake callipers. No big deal, probably just a scuff from the mechanic who installed the fork. Those guys work too fast and generally make a mess of things. A few weeks later Erin goes to Malcolm who installs a shiny new Dura-Ace 7900 group with me watching, learning what I can. We get to the front brake, I try to remove the old washer that held the calliper in, I cannot. Malcolm tries to remove the washer and cannot. Eventually he says to me, "well it doesn't really matter which washer you use, and that one is not going anywhere, just leave the washer in and attach the new brake to the old washer".
After Erin's fork broke, I took the remains back to the store in the east end. Later they told me that the busted fork would not be covered by warranty because I installed the front washer improperly.
For anyone who needs a bike mechanic, I am very happy to recommend Biseagal, in a huge warehouse on the west side of Carlaw between Dundas and Gerrard. (No I am not getting any sort of kick back, Malcolm does not need that, neither do I.) But if you want a job done right see someone who knows what they are doing, not someone who acts like they know what they are doing.
Finally the UCI has announced the schedule for the 2010 road racing season, there will be two events in Canada both in Quebec, both late in the season. If next year is like this year I will feel sorry for the guys that compete. The race will be like the Paris-Roubaix, cold and wet, but without all the history, oh well, I guess more glory for the winner.
At this point I really should make a shout out to Malcolm. Quite possibly the most unknown yet most competent bike mechanic in Toronto, Malcolm the owner of Biseagal, used to race, he told me once of a race he did from Montreal to Quebec city (about 300km). Because UCI rules require that races not exceed 238km the start was rolling and the race did not officially commence for about 50km, up to that point there was a pace car in front doing about 45km/h. The pelaton, about 250 strong - in a single, very long pace line - did a steady +50km/h. At one point Malcolm stopped for a natural break. He was able to get back in before the last support car passed, and after 11 minutes of steady 60km/h managed to catch up with the last guy in the pack. Ultimately he came in 27th place overall.
Okay, so Malcolm is fast. He is also about the most anal retentive mechanic I have ever met. It took the two of us about five hours to upgrade Erin from Ultegra to Dura-Ace, not that he is slow when he is off the saddle, just very meticulous. Frankly when I am hammering down a hill at 80km/h I don't want to wonder, "will my brake caliper snap off when I reach the bottom?" In that sense Malcolm is a great mechanic to know and after no small amount of searching I feel I have finally found someone who I can trust to perform those jobs that we take for granted until suddenly our lives depend on their handiwork (actually all too often we take the work of a skilled mechanic for granted even when we put our lives in their hands, a sharp turn taken at speed, an emergency stop and so on.)
I won't mention names here but when I say the fork broke let me elaborate a little on Erin's recent history. Several months ago I noticed that the bolt in Erin's top cap was recessed quite a bit. I decided to take Erin to a bike shop in the east end that deals with Specialized a lot, I figured, Erin is Specialized, better to get someone who specializes in Specialized to fix a Specialized! (I have just decided, specialized is a cacophonous term!)
Anyway I show Erin to the store manager, he removes the top cap and tells me her fork is cracked, I need a new fork. Alright, I am about to spend a lot of money so I haggle with the guy and he gives me a new stem as well, all carbon fiber. On repairing Erin the mechanic at the store determines my head set is toast, bearings, top cap, the works, so I'm set back a new head set as well as a fork, stem and labour.
About a month later I notice a small scratch on the left hand side of Erin's new fork, running perhaps a centimeter from the point where the fork meets the head tube and stearing tube down towards the brake callipers. No big deal, probably just a scuff from the mechanic who installed the fork. Those guys work too fast and generally make a mess of things. A few weeks later Erin goes to Malcolm who installs a shiny new Dura-Ace 7900 group with me watching, learning what I can. We get to the front brake, I try to remove the old washer that held the calliper in, I cannot. Malcolm tries to remove the washer and cannot. Eventually he says to me, "well it doesn't really matter which washer you use, and that one is not going anywhere, just leave the washer in and attach the new brake to the old washer".
After Erin's fork broke, I took the remains back to the store in the east end. Later they told me that the busted fork would not be covered by warranty because I installed the front washer improperly.
For anyone who needs a bike mechanic, I am very happy to recommend Biseagal, in a huge warehouse on the west side of Carlaw between Dundas and Gerrard. (No I am not getting any sort of kick back, Malcolm does not need that, neither do I.) But if you want a job done right see someone who knows what they are doing, not someone who acts like they know what they are doing.
Finally the UCI has announced the schedule for the 2010 road racing season, there will be two events in Canada both in Quebec, both late in the season. If next year is like this year I will feel sorry for the guys that compete. The race will be like the Paris-Roubaix, cold and wet, but without all the history, oh well, I guess more glory for the winner.
- 19.01.2010 24.01.2010 Tour Down Under, Australia
- 07.03.2010 14.03.2010 Paris - Nice, France,
- 10.03.2010 16.03.2010 Tirreno-Adriatico, Italy
- 20.03.2010 20.03.2010 Milano-Sanremo, Italy
- 22.03.2010 28.03.2010 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Spain
- 28.03.2010 28.03.2010 Gent - Wevelgem, Belgium
- 04.04.2010 04.04.2010 Ronde van Vlaanderen / Tour des landres, Belgium
- 05.04.2010 10.04.2010 Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, Spain
- 11.04.2010 11.04.2010 Paris - Roubaix, France
- 18.04.2010 18.04.2010 Amstel Gold Race, Netherlands
- 21.04.2010 21.04.2010 La Flèche Wallonne, Belgium
- 25.04.2010 25.04.2010 Liège - Bastogne - Liège, Belgium
- 27.04.2010 02.05.2010 Tour de Romandie, Switzerland
- 08.05.2010 30.05.2010 Giro d'Italia, Italy
- 06.06.2010 13.06.2010 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, France
- 12.06.2010 20.06.2010 Tour de Suisse, Switzerland
- 03.07.2010 25.07.2010 Tour de France, France
- 31.07.2010 31.07.2010 Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian - San Sebastian, Spain
- 01.08.2010 07.08.2010 Tour de Pologne, Poland
- 15.08.2010 15.08.2010 Vattenfall Cyclassics, Germany
- 17.08.2010 24.08.2010 Eneco Tour, Belgium
- 22.08.2010 22.08.2010 GP Ouest France - Plouay, France
- 28.08.2010 19.09.2010 Vuelta a España, Spain
- 10.09.2010 10.09.2010 Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec
- 12.09.2010 12.09.2010 Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal
- 16.10.2010 16.10.2010 Giro di Lombardia, Italy
Saturday, September 26, 2009
On Fast Rides
For anyone living in a cave, or not following the Pro Cyclists, Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank (formerly team CSC) cleaned up at the Men’s Elite Individual Time Trial in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Here is is an article about the win that I suspect Specialized will be in no hurry to pull from their website.
Now Cancellara pulled his +50km/h average speed on a Specialized S-Works Shiv TT, which looks something like this:
Now Cancellara pulled his +50km/h average speed on a Specialized S-Works Shiv TT, which looks something like this:
Now near as I can tell, your average consumer cannot buy a Shiv, the best us mortals can hope to piss away our hard earned on is one of these.
Someone in the club asked what was downgraded from what Fabian had to what I have, mainly he has more deep dishes in his aero wheels, and his seat post tube leading edge is straight, mine obviously is curved. Oh yeah, Fabian Cancellara is on the Shiv, that's probably the biggest difference!
Anyway for anyone who is wondering, my goal next year is to do a OCA sanctioned UCI rules ITT average of at least 45km/h over no less than a 35km distance. I need to get Alex sized perfectly, and I am now accepting donations for a TT saddle and helmet.
Friday, September 25, 2009
On Food and US Politics
I have another post in the works, it is almost done actually, but I came across this piece, in The Huffingtonpost by Bill Maher. Anyway I think this goes a long way towards explaining the screwed up likes of Glen Beck and Bill O'Reilly.
Ever since I started biking I've paid really close attention to what I eat, at the same time Faux news has gone from annoying to downright nutty. Well suddenly it all makes sense. Bill Maher for President... or if he moved to Canada maybe we could persude him to oust Iggy and become leader of The Liberals?
That's the ultimate sign of our lethargy: millions thrown out of their homes, tossed out of work, lost their life savings, retirements postponed - and they just take it. 30% interest on credit cards? It's a good thing the Supreme Court legalized sodomy a few years ago.
Why can't we get off our back? Is it something in the food? Actually, yes. I found out something interesting researching last week's editorial on how we should be taxing the unhealthy things Americans put into their bodies, like sodas and junk foods and gerbils. Did you know that we eat the same high-fat, high-carb, sugar-laden shit that's served in prisons and in religious cults to keep the subjects in a zombie-like state of lethargic compliance? Why haven't Americans arisen en masse to demand a strong public option? Because "The Bachelor" is on. We're tired and our brain stems hurt from washing down French fries with McDonald's orange drink.
Ever since I started biking I've paid really close attention to what I eat, at the same time Faux news has gone from annoying to downright nutty. Well suddenly it all makes sense. Bill Maher for President... or if he moved to Canada maybe we could persude him to oust Iggy and become leader of The Liberals?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
On Riding too far and riding fast.
On Saturday September 5 I did an 8km time trial. My performance was not the best of everyone there, but it was pretty damned impressive considering my TT bike (Alexandra) was never sized correctly. (For anyone who cares about such things, of the 20 or so people who did the time trial, I came in third place, 12 minutes 10 seconds.) Anyway here is a nerdy thought, the front nose (or what used to be a rivet back in the glory days when only Europeans won The Tour) of a saddle on a time trial bike must come no further forward than 5cm behind a vertical line that extends down through the centre of the bottom bracket. I keep this rule in mind because Alexandra is in direct violation of that rule. The nose of her saddle comes within about 2.5cm of the line. Now if there exists someone who can explain to me why such a rule would have slightest consequence to someone at my level of cycling, I would very much like to hear that someone do their explaining. Frankly pissing away $200 on a time trial saddle was not part of my plans for a fun weekend.
Still 8km in 12:10, not bad for someone who only a year and a few months ago was proud to get to Burlington and back (100km) in one ride.
On Sunday, September 13, was the Ride for Karen. The ride raises money to send children with cancer to summer camp. I made a discovery in fund raising efforts, always select the box that says: I will raise the minimum amount required to waive the entrance fee. I did not think I could raise $250 in under a week that I had (I was going to do the ITT in Plattsville except like I wrote above my TT bike is not legal). As it turns out I raised the required $250 in under a day. Except that since I had already paid the $100 entrance fee I was now stuck without so much as a tax receipt. (In truth all I wanted was for the $100 I paid to go towards my total raised, make my contribution seem a little less paltry.)
As for the ride itself, I went for the 160km route with the medium paced (30km/h) pack. I had to ride to the starting line, about 40km from home and thanks to an inability on my part to read, actually I simply misread the electronic guide, I was 90 minutes early.
I arrived at the starting line to a sunny yet windy and cold morning. By and by other BCC club members showed up. By 9am there were, if I remember right six of us. All quite content to do 30km/h for 100miles. We headed out, among a pack of what must have been over 100 strong, police volunteers even blocked traffic, we rolled through red lights and stops signs with a bliss all to infrequent for cyclists.
In the initial 20 or 30km the wind was a light cross wind and the pack made easy progress towards Brampton, but then we turned north and things became a lot more difficult. I was pulling at the turn, along side none other than Peter Oyler! For a brief hiccup I tried to keep up with Peter, after all sure he's probably about a million times stronger than I, but hey he had that horrible kidney thing that forced him to abort at about 1000 miles into the RAAM... Sorry Peter, 1556 miles (yes he wouldn't let me cheat him of those 556 miles on Sunday either!)
Peter was able to sustain the torturous pace far longer than I could so I dropped back. I gradually rolled forward again to find... Peter Oyler still pulling! After a few more minutes of slogging I dropped back again and progressed forward a third time, Peter was still pulling!
Eventually Peter did stop pulling, but whereas I might have pulled for two or three miles he pulled for twenty or thirty miles! The eventual right turn to the east and out of the wind was one of the most pleasant turns I have ever taken. Shortly after we stopped for a water break, there were cookies, fruit, water, and the Costco branded Gatorade knock off. A note for future reference, leave the bike leaned up against something, then get fluids, enough said. Oh yes, the table with food was set up right in the mud, I should have gone Cyclocross there was so much mud in my cleats after that stop.
We continued east through the Holland Landing, when I was young it was a rule as we drove to my grandparents cottage near the north end of Lake Simcoe, dad had to explain that this is the best soil in North America. Every time! I don't think he, or I, ever imagined I would bike through it.
Our pack that shrunk at the water break to just the BCCers gradually picked up some stragglers and on Steve's suggestion we started an echelon drill. We kept the echelon going for some time. Just west of Woodbine was the lunch stop which differed from the water stop in one key respect, there were sandwiches.
Now anyone who knows me, knows I avoid most solid foods when training, stomach distress sucks! I had half a turkey sandwich and hated myself for the next 30 minutes. Shortly after lunch Lesley called, I had to get home for an appointment. One small problem, home was about 60km away, and all I had was Erin, my road bike and my legs that had already done over 160km (100 miles). Well with a bit of grinding at a lot of admiring the beautiful paint job on Erin's top tube I hammered home in under two hours.
All in all, an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
On Thursday September 17 I went for another ride, I had the day off. I was hammering up a hill on beautiful Roubaix, Erin of course!, when her fork snapped in half. The subsequent crash was horrible, Erin was totaled! She was a good girl, but she's dead now. I need a new road bike... I need money... Is anyone looking for a part time computer guy?
I think it best if I observe a moment of silence for a pretty little Roubaix who covered several thousand miles with me, including two trips to Rochester, several to Lake Simcoe, a bunch of climbs up Rattle Snake point and a trip out to Harriston ON. Erin was an amazing little bike and for all her annoying quirks, head set issues mostly, I will miss her. If there is a bike heaven I would like to think that there are a bunch of Italians fighting over who gets to ride her. (No that's not a shot at Italians, quite the contrary, it is a compliment of their bike building and riding abilities.)
One final thing, last post I equated, or attempted to equate the lunacy of "the war on the car" concept with the lunacy of World War One. I thought I would get a response from a few angry motorists, I guess I am less widely read than I had believed (hopped). I will say this, in the course of finding references for my post, I happened upon this article in Spacing magazine. The author has one hell of an obvious point, well its not obvious until you think about it and then realize the author is genius, for seeing the obvious. There is no "war on the car", motorists have been in a civil war for years, that is the war. The cycling thing is minor, comparatively, but at least drivers can come after those idiot cyclists instead of all the other idiot drivers. After all, if all other drivers are idiots it stands to reason, all drivers are idiots therefore if you drive... Anyway by being angry at cyclists, drivers can vent their spleen without coming to the sad conclusion that they are themselves the morons! I feel for car drivers, then they swerve into the bike lane and I don't feel sympathetic anymore.
Still 8km in 12:10, not bad for someone who only a year and a few months ago was proud to get to Burlington and back (100km) in one ride.
On Sunday, September 13, was the Ride for Karen. The ride raises money to send children with cancer to summer camp. I made a discovery in fund raising efforts, always select the box that says: I will raise the minimum amount required to waive the entrance fee. I did not think I could raise $250 in under a week that I had (I was going to do the ITT in Plattsville except like I wrote above my TT bike is not legal). As it turns out I raised the required $250 in under a day. Except that since I had already paid the $100 entrance fee I was now stuck without so much as a tax receipt. (In truth all I wanted was for the $100 I paid to go towards my total raised, make my contribution seem a little less paltry.)
As for the ride itself, I went for the 160km route with the medium paced (30km/h) pack. I had to ride to the starting line, about 40km from home and thanks to an inability on my part to read, actually I simply misread the electronic guide, I was 90 minutes early.
I arrived at the starting line to a sunny yet windy and cold morning. By and by other BCC club members showed up. By 9am there were, if I remember right six of us. All quite content to do 30km/h for 100miles. We headed out, among a pack of what must have been over 100 strong, police volunteers even blocked traffic, we rolled through red lights and stops signs with a bliss all to infrequent for cyclists.
In the initial 20 or 30km the wind was a light cross wind and the pack made easy progress towards Brampton, but then we turned north and things became a lot more difficult. I was pulling at the turn, along side none other than Peter Oyler! For a brief hiccup I tried to keep up with Peter, after all sure he's probably about a million times stronger than I, but hey he had that horrible kidney thing that forced him to abort at about 1000 miles into the RAAM... Sorry Peter, 1556 miles (yes he wouldn't let me cheat him of those 556 miles on Sunday either!)
Peter was able to sustain the torturous pace far longer than I could so I dropped back. I gradually rolled forward again to find... Peter Oyler still pulling! After a few more minutes of slogging I dropped back again and progressed forward a third time, Peter was still pulling!
Eventually Peter did stop pulling, but whereas I might have pulled for two or three miles he pulled for twenty or thirty miles! The eventual right turn to the east and out of the wind was one of the most pleasant turns I have ever taken. Shortly after we stopped for a water break, there were cookies, fruit, water, and the Costco branded Gatorade knock off. A note for future reference, leave the bike leaned up against something, then get fluids, enough said. Oh yes, the table with food was set up right in the mud, I should have gone Cyclocross there was so much mud in my cleats after that stop.
We continued east through the Holland Landing, when I was young it was a rule as we drove to my grandparents cottage near the north end of Lake Simcoe, dad had to explain that this is the best soil in North America. Every time! I don't think he, or I, ever imagined I would bike through it.
Our pack that shrunk at the water break to just the BCCers gradually picked up some stragglers and on Steve's suggestion we started an echelon drill. We kept the echelon going for some time. Just west of Woodbine was the lunch stop which differed from the water stop in one key respect, there were sandwiches.
Now anyone who knows me, knows I avoid most solid foods when training, stomach distress sucks! I had half a turkey sandwich and hated myself for the next 30 minutes. Shortly after lunch Lesley called, I had to get home for an appointment. One small problem, home was about 60km away, and all I had was Erin, my road bike and my legs that had already done over 160km (100 miles). Well with a bit of grinding at a lot of admiring the beautiful paint job on Erin's top tube I hammered home in under two hours.
All in all, an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
On Thursday September 17 I went for another ride, I had the day off. I was hammering up a hill on beautiful Roubaix, Erin of course!, when her fork snapped in half. The subsequent crash was horrible, Erin was totaled! She was a good girl, but she's dead now. I need a new road bike... I need money... Is anyone looking for a part time computer guy?
I think it best if I observe a moment of silence for a pretty little Roubaix who covered several thousand miles with me, including two trips to Rochester, several to Lake Simcoe, a bunch of climbs up Rattle Snake point and a trip out to Harriston ON. Erin was an amazing little bike and for all her annoying quirks, head set issues mostly, I will miss her. If there is a bike heaven I would like to think that there are a bunch of Italians fighting over who gets to ride her. (No that's not a shot at Italians, quite the contrary, it is a compliment of their bike building and riding abilities.)
One final thing, last post I equated, or attempted to equate the lunacy of "the war on the car" concept with the lunacy of World War One. I thought I would get a response from a few angry motorists, I guess I am less widely read than I had believed (hopped). I will say this, in the course of finding references for my post, I happened upon this article in Spacing magazine. The author has one hell of an obvious point, well its not obvious until you think about it and then realize the author is genius, for seeing the obvious. There is no "war on the car", motorists have been in a civil war for years, that is the war. The cycling thing is minor, comparatively, but at least drivers can come after those idiot cyclists instead of all the other idiot drivers. After all, if all other drivers are idiots it stands to reason, all drivers are idiots therefore if you drive... Anyway by being angry at cyclists, drivers can vent their spleen without coming to the sad conclusion that they are themselves the morons! I feel for car drivers, then they swerve into the bike lane and I don't feel sympathetic anymore.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
On The War on the Car
To hear some Toronto politicians tell it, car drivers are a pretty oppressed bunch. Apparently red light running cyclists and their allies in the corner offices of City Hall are busily scheming up new ways of inflicting, quel horreur, a longer commute on motorists.
Apparently life is so bad for the Toronto car driving set that the risk cyclists take every day, that is the risk of being killed by a reckless driver (or an oblivious one), pales next to the anguish suffered in the daily oil powered commute.
From my reading of the daily paper and the letters to the editor, as well as the insults (and refuse) drivers hurl at me on the saddle, it would seem the recent untimely passing of one Darcy Allen Sheppard was the spark that lit the fuse, just as the untimely demise of one Archduke Franz Ferdinand lit a fuse some 95 years ago. Consider, both men were in or grabbing onto motor vehicles when they perished, both died violent deaths. Yet I must confess the comparison doesn’t really work for me, but let me back track for a second for readers from abroad who are not aware of the full story.
On the evening of Monday August 31 the Toronto Police detained a drunken Darcy Allen Sheppard briefly where upon they discovered he had a number of minor charges (mostly property crimes) against him in Alberta. The Edmonton police were not interested in sending anyone to Toronto to retrieve a petty thief and so the Toronto police let Darcy go. His girlfriend asked the police to drive him home as he was in no condition to ride, the Toronto police do not provide a taxi service and refused. Sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 in the evening Sheppard, in a drunken state left his girl friend apparently with the intention of returning to his apartment, by bike about seven and a half kilometers away. In a posh area of the city often called The Mink Mile Sheppard had an altercation with a motorist, Michael Bryant, who happens to be the former attorney general and was at that time the head of a new agency called “Invest Toronto”. Over the course of the altercation Bryant had good reason to fear for his and his wife’s safety and tried to drive away, Sheppard grabbed hold of Bryant’s vehicle (a convertible) and would not let go. Bryant drove on the wrong side of the road, jumped the curb and smashed up against a mail box and a tree in an apparent effort to brush Sheppard off his car. Ultimately Sheppard did let go and was subsequently run over by the back wheel of Bryant’s car. Sheppard died an hour later in hospital. In short, and this is coming from an avid cyclist there is blame enough to go around, Sheppard’s girl friend could have allowed him to stay at her place, the police could have driven Sheppard home, of course Bryant, and Sheppard all behaved in a manner that contributed to Sheppard’s unfortunate demise.
What happened to Sheppard was a tragedy top to bottom. I don’t deny that. But getting back to my little essay, nobody has satisfactorily explained what Sheppard has in common with the Archduke besides the fact that their deaths escalated an already alarmingly dangerous situation.
In the case of World War One a common cry heard from Germany in the years and months leading up to that fateful summer of 1914 was that of encirclement. Germans had come to the bizarre conclusion the democracies of the World work colluding with the Cossacks to confine Germany and prevent her from her rightful expansion as a European mega-power. So great was this fear of encirclement that the Germans would build the finest war machine the world had seen up to that time. I have not heard encirclement from a motorist (or right leaning municipal politician) yet, but I strongly suspect that build another bike lane on Jarvis Street or perhaps enforce the existing bike/bus/taxi only lane on Bay Street and it’s just a matter of time before motorists start building a Navy and sign treaties with Austrians.
I suppose now is not a particularly good time to remind my readers that the World War was the most horrible and violent affair in the history of the world. (Many modern historians consider both World War One and Two to be one continuous war with an twenty one year lull while the Europeans manufactured a new generation of boys to send to the slaughter.) I don’t believe this War on the Car will be so violent, not for the motorists, however for those who the motorists face off against, it will be like the Cossacks who rode their horses into the German machine guns and heavy artillery. Those who might logically make war on the car, would need to be insane to actually consider such a course of action. Yet it does seem to me, as I dodge a driver in his two ton steel yacht on his cell phone or another driver in her mammoth SUV busily applying makeup that perhaps the Cossacks had the right attitude, better to die fighting than live with this insanity.
Apparently life is so bad for the Toronto car driving set that the risk cyclists take every day, that is the risk of being killed by a reckless driver (or an oblivious one), pales next to the anguish suffered in the daily oil powered commute.
From my reading of the daily paper and the letters to the editor, as well as the insults (and refuse) drivers hurl at me on the saddle, it would seem the recent untimely passing of one Darcy Allen Sheppard was the spark that lit the fuse, just as the untimely demise of one Archduke Franz Ferdinand lit a fuse some 95 years ago. Consider, both men were in or grabbing onto motor vehicles when they perished, both died violent deaths. Yet I must confess the comparison doesn’t really work for me, but let me back track for a second for readers from abroad who are not aware of the full story.
On the evening of Monday August 31 the Toronto Police detained a drunken Darcy Allen Sheppard briefly where upon they discovered he had a number of minor charges (mostly property crimes) against him in Alberta. The Edmonton police were not interested in sending anyone to Toronto to retrieve a petty thief and so the Toronto police let Darcy go. His girlfriend asked the police to drive him home as he was in no condition to ride, the Toronto police do not provide a taxi service and refused. Sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 in the evening Sheppard, in a drunken state left his girl friend apparently with the intention of returning to his apartment, by bike about seven and a half kilometers away. In a posh area of the city often called The Mink Mile Sheppard had an altercation with a motorist, Michael Bryant, who happens to be the former attorney general and was at that time the head of a new agency called “Invest Toronto”. Over the course of the altercation Bryant had good reason to fear for his and his wife’s safety and tried to drive away, Sheppard grabbed hold of Bryant’s vehicle (a convertible) and would not let go. Bryant drove on the wrong side of the road, jumped the curb and smashed up against a mail box and a tree in an apparent effort to brush Sheppard off his car. Ultimately Sheppard did let go and was subsequently run over by the back wheel of Bryant’s car. Sheppard died an hour later in hospital. In short, and this is coming from an avid cyclist there is blame enough to go around, Sheppard’s girl friend could have allowed him to stay at her place, the police could have driven Sheppard home, of course Bryant, and Sheppard all behaved in a manner that contributed to Sheppard’s unfortunate demise.
What happened to Sheppard was a tragedy top to bottom. I don’t deny that. But getting back to my little essay, nobody has satisfactorily explained what Sheppard has in common with the Archduke besides the fact that their deaths escalated an already alarmingly dangerous situation.
In the case of World War One a common cry heard from Germany in the years and months leading up to that fateful summer of 1914 was that of encirclement. Germans had come to the bizarre conclusion the democracies of the World work colluding with the Cossacks to confine Germany and prevent her from her rightful expansion as a European mega-power. So great was this fear of encirclement that the Germans would build the finest war machine the world had seen up to that time. I have not heard encirclement from a motorist (or right leaning municipal politician) yet, but I strongly suspect that build another bike lane on Jarvis Street or perhaps enforce the existing bike/bus/taxi only lane on Bay Street and it’s just a matter of time before motorists start building a Navy and sign treaties with Austrians.
I suppose now is not a particularly good time to remind my readers that the World War was the most horrible and violent affair in the history of the world. (Many modern historians consider both World War One and Two to be one continuous war with an twenty one year lull while the Europeans manufactured a new generation of boys to send to the slaughter.) I don’t believe this War on the Car will be so violent, not for the motorists, however for those who the motorists face off against, it will be like the Cossacks who rode their horses into the German machine guns and heavy artillery. Those who might logically make war on the car, would need to be insane to actually consider such a course of action. Yet it does seem to me, as I dodge a driver in his two ton steel yacht on his cell phone or another driver in her mammoth SUV busily applying makeup that perhaps the Cossacks had the right attitude, better to die fighting than live with this insanity.
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