On Master Links

When I went to clean the Transition for the first time I put it up on my repair stand and with some amount of struggling was able to remove the back wheel. However, when I went to put the back wheel on again it was a fight and a half.

When I built Erin (the Roubaix) and even when I replace the chain, I always ensure to put a master link in the chain. Apparently Master Links are wider than regular links, they are weaker, it is harder to change gears with master links (apparently), but I have to say, when it comes to doing repairs, cleaning the chain, or even just removing the rear wheel. The ability to rapidly remove the chain and then reattach it is worth a lot, certainly it is worth more to me to have a master link and contend with the "difficulty" of changing gears than to contend with the much more real difficulty of removing a wheel with an unbroken chain.

Anyway this evening I am going to hop on my Transition and set some land speed records. Actually its too windy, I doubt that is going to happen.

On New Rides, Upgrades and Accidents

I don't think there are too many people at this point who are not already well aware of the fact that on Monday, March 16, I was riding to work, for the first time in 2009 on Erin (that's the Roubaix for anyone not keeping track of these things). My plan was to take Dundas street from Greenwood over to River (there is a bike lane most of that way) and then go down River to Queen and finally across Queen to the office at Bay. Well at Dundas and Jones there was a red light, so I slowed right down to a crawl so I would not need to unclip, I rolled towards the light and it turned green as I came to within about three car lengths from the intersection. I did a quick scan, none of the cars had a right turn signal on, the first car went, as I started hammering, the second car a big dodge pickup, started weaving right, in horror I rechecked, no right turn signal, but he was turning alright. I screamed and slammed into the side of the truck making sure to lean into the truck so I would not fall. I continued to holler the driver aborted the turn and zoomed off, making the right turn at the next light, Pape.

Here is my list, had I been able to catch a licence plate and a look at the driver:

1. Fleeing the scene of an accident - 7 points
   
2. Careless driving - 6 points
   
3. Failing to yield right of way - 3 points
4. Improper right turn - 2 points

Total demerit points: 18 (source: Ontariotraffictickets.com). If a driver gets nine points they must appear for an interview to justify why they ought to be allowed to continue to drive, if they get 15 points their licence is suspended for 30 days, any additional points and the licence is suspended for six months. Given that the driver of that pickup nearly killed me, I think that our system of punishing reckless driving is really far too lenient.

Now that particular incident was never reported, what is there to report? Some dick is driving a dodge pickup and nearly killed a cyclist. (And in other news the World is round!) But many accidents were reported to the police, and Brent Smith of The Toronto Star put the accidents on a map. Here is a map detailing all the reported bike accidents in Toronto in 2008. I like the comment: Informally, though, accidents seem to cluster where bike lanes aren’t, and vice versa. Exceptions seem to be the College bike lane and a stretch of the Dundas St. E. bike lane west of Pape, where there is nearly one accident per block. Except my little incident was East of Pape, one block East of Pape.

Enough on the bad driving.

Back in February I bought a new saddle for Erin. It is a Specialized Toupe black with red accents. Then at the bike show I bought new tyres that seem to collect glass fragments faster than a blue box. But here are some pictures.




You can see in the above two images that I still have the training tyre on Erin. Below are the new 290 TPI Vittoria tyres.




Then this past Friday (March 27) there was a phone call from a bike store. My Transition was ready for pickup. (My wallet is not ready though.) Saturday morning I had to work in the office but Saturday afternoon my dad was kind enough to drive me to the store. So fully loaded with the new saddle bag, water bottles (and cages), dressed like I meant it, I went to the store and got my ride. And for those of you who might be wondering that bike has two speeds, HOLY #*@&! SHES FAST!!! and EVEN #$*@*! FASTER!! I just cannot go slow on her, its just not possible.

Anyway here are the pictures.








I still need a name of the new bike, the rules are, must begin with a vowel, and since her lines are femine must be a lady's name.

One of these days I am going to get busted for speeding, on a bike!

On Heros

Someone passed me a link to a website that had an animation of the ill fated US Air flight 1549 that crash landed in the Hudson River. As the guy who created the site notes, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger must have nerves of steel. I like how the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) suggests returning to Laguardia. But that is not gonna work, what about Teterboro? Oh never mind, I'll just save over a hundred lives, including my own, by making use of this conveniently located river! Later on, when pressed for interviews Captain Sullenberger refutes the claim of heroics, he's just doing his job.

Meanwhile the father of a grade school friend of mine has been convicted of white collar crime. The conviction made headlines here. When we were in grade school my friend had a pretty sweet life, his parents owned a very nice home. I never knew the father that well, but his mother I knew pretty well and his older sister, they were all very decent and surprisingly down to Earth individuals. Its not like the stories I heard about Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, they sound like positively horrible people. When someone like Black is sent to jail I don't think much of it, he had it coming, but my friend's father, well the only thing I know from jail is what I learned in the Shawshank Redemption and frankly well I hope things are not so bad for him. He was a decent guy who from the sounds of things got caught in a mess of his own accidental making. (And no, he had nothing to do with the banking industry, sub prime loans, Enron, the Bush Administration, WorldCom or anything else of that sort.) In short while he did commit crimes, the people hurt were all so disgustingly wealthy I don't feel overly sorry for his investors.

Finally on the subject of hero's some time ago I was passed a link to an article that first appeared in the New York Times. It is about the former Vice President Of The United States (V-POTUS). I am sure most of us would rather forget Dick "we will be greeted as liberators" Cheney, but some people seem to like the guy, in particular one former Senator, Alan K. Simpson said: Dick Cheney is not a guy who is bitter... He doesn’t seethe, he doesn’t brood. Well it seems to me, Cheney just shoots his buddies in the face with a shotgun and then they apologize for it!

On Complaining

I am trying to decide what is more agonizing, the time when Gerog came after me for insulting skating (or has he metaphorically put it, "his home"), or something more recent. Let me explain.

I have been cross posting the cycling relevant sections of this blog (yes nearly everything) to the BCC (Beaches Cycling Club) under the blog section of the BCC site. Obviously a lot of this content is not really BCC specific, it is more bike friendly stuff, but as such, I would argue as relevant as pretty much anything else on there. Well someone was complaining, anonymously, again. This time they complained to the guy who runs the club who in turn sent me a little note.

The irony to me, as I read over the offending post is that besides a short -well earned- tirade against drivers, my most recent post was actually fantastically useful to anyone new to cycling. Specifically it describes how I have screwed up (bad nutrition) and the importance of avoiding bonking. (It is almost verbatim the post I have right here.) Even more on topic, it includes my impressions from the previous two BCC rides I was in.

I guess the biggest irony of all to me, it's printed flipping words, for heaven's sakes, I am not forcing anybody to read any of this!! Its not like I am ranting out loud and you MUST hear what I say even if you really don't want to, all a reader need do is stop bloody reading. (Sorry for all the vulgarity there, I am sure in 20 minutes I will be deleting that, or wishing I had.) But honest to god, if you don't like what I have to say, don't read my writing. For example, lately the Toronto Star has been delivering free copies of the paper to my door, and being that I am not a particular fan of the writing in The Star, (I am a Globe and Mail person myself.) I take the paper and put it directly in the blue box, there problem solved. So what is to stop a person from just moving on to the next damned post? They don't even get ink on their fingers!

This is the part where I shake my head in a resigned state of despair.

At least now I understand why I crave positive comments, the negative comments just hurt so much, maybe even too much. It is a shame, I spend an awful lot of time, and effort, writing and really don't have much to show for it, just a lot of people who I now know, don't like what I have to say - except in at least a few cases I don't even know who they are. I must be some sort of masochist.

On Riding and GPS

My shiny new GPS crapped out on me during the Sunday ride. Which is kind of upsetting because when the guys at the BCC put pedal to the metal, so to speak, I was able to, sort of, hang on. I would rather not mention names here, but suffice it to say, two guys got the pack going fast, damn fast and then after we turned from Burnhamthorpe onto Trafalgar the two guys dropped the rest of us, I checked, when they parted with me, I was doing a steady 42, they apparently were doing 55.

At least I can draw comfort from the fact that the impact of the recent blood donation is still very obvious. It will take me at least two more weeks before I am running at full strength. Anyway because the GPS failed on me I will use language to describe the route, instead of a map. Smoother than the walls on a Vancouver leaky roof condo.

Saturday I also went for a ride. I better not say who came with, it was only one other person and he asked to go to Vivian Road. So, instead of riding out to Oakville as was planned we went North. We were doing fine up until the part where the person I was with bonked. Bonking is not a pretty thing to be around or to do. For the non-endurance types out there, assuming you run, ride or swim at about 70% of your max heart rate your body will be unable to extract enough food energy from your fat reserves to offset what your muscles are consuming, roughly two thirds of the energy you need you can get from fat, but the other third has to come from somewhere else. Now initially your body draws on energy stores in the muscles themselves, called muscle glycogens after about an hour or two your glycogens run out, and that is when you need some other energy source.

This is where supplementation comes into play, sure you need water, but you also need energy, and there is a great deal of research on this topic much of it publicly available. I mention water because the time I went to Harriston ON with Aaron and Sigrid I bonked, really hard, recovered (had a flask of gel) and then bonked even harder after the gel ran out. It was a hot day and I had plenty of water in my bottles but what I lacked was supplementation, once I had finished the two bottles instead of bringing bags of powder supplements, I simply refilled with plain tap water. Well on the ride up to Vivian road my friend had plenty of Gatorade which he finished off within the first 20% of the ride and then ran on water. Now I could insert an angry diatribe about how useless Gatorade is and how no athlete worth their weight in lard should ever even consider Gatorade as a primary fuel source (Gatorade is what you take when you ran out earlier than expected and you are in the middle of nowhere and your choice is sugar under the brand name Gatorade or sugar under the brand name coke-cola.) But the point is my friend was only bringing in energy for the first 20%, thereafter he was exhausting his muscles glycogens with nothing coming from the stomach to offset the deficit spending that was going on. Hence he bonked. He bonked so badly that even with half a bottle of electrolytes with carbs in water and half a bottle of protein with carbs in water (I keep at least one bottle of each with me on all rides now) and two granola bars (the granola bars were an added bonus I don't always keep around) my friend still could not keep up. Once you bonk, recovery is a long process that usually involves rest or at least reduced output for a good hour or so.

In other news, today I took Commissioners street on my ride to work. Commissioners is good in that there is a lot less traffic than say Dundas or Queen Street, but it is in such deplorable disrepair often I don't even consider using it. Sure a Roubaix might be designed for cobble stones, but I don't think my tyres or my rear end is so good with the potholes. Anyway I got to the light at Don Roadway and Commissioners and as the light was red I waited, as the light changed I pulled forward and as I headed off I heard someone yelling, so I turn and look, I was blocking a guy from making a right turn onto Don Roadway. I think he was yelling something about bikes not belonging on the road, I wouldn't know, I could hardly hear him what with all the noise from the hot air escaping from the large hole in his head that had lips, teeth and a tongue.

The problem with drivers in Toronto is that they are allowed to.

On Dedication

A couple days ago a trusted friend told me I was very dedicated to the sport of cycling. She meant it as a compliment and I should take it as such. But to me that seems strange, I am dedicated to my job when I burn the midnight oil, I am dedicated to a ride when I bonk hard and still get to the final destination without falling off the side and lying face down in a ditch.

Cycling in general though? To me dedication implied doing something despite not wanting to or facing adversity, but the fact is staying in bed the morning of a good ride requires a great deal more dedication then putting on my jersey and shorts and hoping my saddle. (It might help that I am incredibly vain and I think Erin is an incredibly gorgeous bike.)

I guess to me it doesn't feel like dedication because I just love riding so much.

Although this brings up a short story. A couple days ago someone asked me, after I went on yet another oral tirade against cars, drivers, fossil fuels and the auto industry in general, if I even had a licence. Yes I do. Yes I confess I am a hypocrite. I have a regular G class licence just like pretty much everyone else. Lesley and I even own a car, well it is in her name but I probably drive it as much as she does. It burns gasoline, it pollutes and releases green house gasses as well as trace amounts of dioxins and other organic polymers what we could all do without, but at least I yield to pedestrians and cyclists and I drive as little as humanly possible. Something I wish other drivers would try to do as well.

Anyway here is a picture Lesley took of me at Katz's Deli on Houston Street, on the Lower East Side. Note the high protein diet, suitable for... well lets be honest, a couple more of those pastrami sandwiches and my arteries would be so clogged a tank couldn't make it through.

On Becoming a Citizen and Other Things

Before I really get into things, I want to tout my own writing. In particular, I was just re-reading a column I wrote in August, On How to argue with a conservative if you have to, it was really well written, I mean I recognize my writing but it seems awfully well polished that day. It was as if a less jerkish, more mature version of me wrote that column, I wish I could write that well consistently, I'd probably change careers for journalism or something along that vein instead of being an IT guy.

Lesley became a Canadian citizen on Thursday, March 12, 2009, almost seven years since we married and she first applied for permanent residence status. Among the dignitaries at the ceremony were our local municipal councillor, Councillor Sandra Bussin (as well as four other councillors) and some guy with a gold chain, which was remarkable because only 60 people became citizens that day. Mayor Miller pointed out that every year some 90 thousand people become citizens who have taken up residence in Toronto, so assuming there is one such ceremony every working day and suppose there are 250 working days a year (50 weeks per year times 5 days per week) that suggests that Mayor Miller could attend only one sixth of all the ceremonies (60 times 250 is 15 thousand).

If the mayor is attending 250 citizenship ceremonies a year I'd say that is a HUGE waste of my property tax dollars, except... well some of my more meticulous readers might recall that in my previous post I mentioned that I am saving up for that dreadful day when the city realises they should charge me back property taxes for almost a year now and counting. My property is a brand new build, and as such has not yet been assessed by the highly disorganized and wonderfully random Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC).

The property has not been assessed for a number of reasons. According to one person at MPAC, my house does not exist! Someone else at MPAC believed me when I told them I live here, they just had not seen the records from the city yet. The city, thank goodness is still collecting my garbage, sewage and supplying water. So anyway the point is, while I still get to vote... at least I got to vote in the last Federal Election, I really should not complain about the city yet, since I do not pay anything for municipal services. (But we all know, one day MPAC is going to figure out I don't sleep in a hovel at the side of the road and that day I am gonna get one really big, to be paid within 30 working days, property tax bill.)

Anyway Mayor Miller made what I thought was a touching speech to the 60 new citizens, as well as their families (in a way I am rather glad my dad did not come to the ceremony, he hates David Miller and would likely start yelling obscenities). After the ceremony Lesley tried to get me to complain to the mayor about some of the things I have complained about in this blog. I did not feel right about that though, for one thing I did not have any remarks prepared, I was and can be shy, and more importantly, it just seemed wrong to be bitching to the mayor at a time when he is, rightfully, celebrating one of the great things about this country, that people from anywhere, who live any which way how, can become Canadian and even be mayor! (Mayor Miller is an immigrant, born in California, raised in England and moved to Canada. In a similar vein, our first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald was born in Scotland.)

After the ceremony I did write the mayor an email, which I reprint here:

My wife became a citizen today at City Hall and I would like to thank you for your touching story about coming to Canada. As a fourth generation Torontonian the most momentous move I ever made was from Cedarville to Cabbage Town. I would also like to thank you for restoring much of the pride I had in my home. After Mayor Lastman made a remark about his fears of going to Africa my Chinese father-in-law had quite a chuckle.

While I am writing I would like to bring your attention to something that does concern me and that is the state of the roads in Toronto. I care a great deal about the environment and so have decided to bike to work, from my home at Woodbine and Queen to my office at Bay and Richmond. I have now been biking for almost a year, right through the rain, snow, and some pretty appalling driving habits on Queen Street.

Now I realise as mayor there is nothing you can do to reform the taxis or stop the rain, but if you have ten minutes one day I would ask you to take a walk from City Hall along the south side of Queen Street East. If you could please take a look at Queen Street east bound on the right hand lane just west of Church Street, now imagine trying to ride a bike, particularly a road bike, along that section of road. The left lane is not an option, street car tracks are a fast way to the emergency room across the street. Riding a bike on a sidewalk is as dangerous for pedestrians as it is for a cyclist. Finally, besides being illegal and very dangerous riding east on the westbound side of the street does not really solve the problem because the road conditions are almost as bad as the eastbound side!

Surely with all the money Ottawa is going to be throwing around for "shovel ready projects" there must be enough in there somewhere to fix the roads in Toronto? The value of road repairs will be appreciated by more than just the automobile drivers.

Curiously the pothole repair crew who are just beginning their work around the city fixed the worst of the holes on Queen East at Church by the time I rode home that afternoon.

In other news I donated blood Friday morning, number 66 for anyone still counting, besides me. Saturday I took Erin for a spin, she wasn't shifting gears right and after a quick inspection and replacement of her front cable housing (and a new rear-deraileur cable) I took her on my first BCC ride of the season.

The first route, on Saturday, was short, I had to ride back to the office to swap out some defective hardware.

FirstRideOf2009

http://www.bikely.com/

On the BCC ride the effects of the blood donation were very clearly obvious with every single hill climb, I bailed out at the first turn, on 16'th Ave.

2009_03_15-BCC_Sunday_Ride

http://www.bikely.com/

I am embarrassed to report I did a have a small mishap on Sunday morning. As I was headed home after the ride I unclipped on the left at a red light, then I leaned to the right and fell over. Ooops! The natural reaction from a driver beside me probably matches any other reaction, he asked if I was alright. Well my pride is kinda hurt, but it will heal, my knee is a little bruised but who cares! The knee will heal too. My right side pedal and bar tape are scuffed and I am really steamed about that!

Then today something that was not my fault. I was riding along, minding my own business in the bike lane on Dundas street near Jones Ave. The light turns green and none of the cars ahead of me had a right signal on, so I start hammering and then BANG, some idiot in a big old dodge pickup truck just starts turning right, I managed to scream and turn enough that my left hand bashed into their truck hard enough that there are burn marks on my left glove (never ask why I always go full finger) but other than that I am actually no worse for wear, critically, Erin was unharmed. I did decide to buy an air-horn in honour of my little incident. So drivers do a shoulder check, and next time this happens I am taking a licence plate number. The driver of the pickup drove away too fast, litterally a hit and run.

In honour of the idiotic pickup truck, I bought a marine airhorn at Crappy Tire. I have to inflate it with a bike pump to 80psi, then when a driver pisses me off, well no more lifeguard whistle from this cyclist. I used the airhorn to tremendous stress relief today when a taxi stopped for a pickup in the middle of the road. Too bad the airhorn is only 120 dB, I want something louder damnit!

Finally I got the following email from my brother, who along with his wife (Sheri) is in Florida on vacation.

Sheri pulled up with groceries. I went out to the car to help. There were two teenage girls in the road talking on the cell phone - no big deal I thought until one of them says, there was a rocket launch. I turned around and there was the unmistakable FRESH vapour trail leading up to space. At the top of the trail you could still see the bright white burn from the rockets engine. However, the vapour trail was what really caught our eyes. It was dusk and we were facing East. The sky was a light royal blue - just beginning to fade from the baby blue it had been all day. The trail was white at the top but appeared to be on fire towards the bottom as it reflected all the colours of the setting sun - burnt yellow, orange, pink, crimson - just like clouds at sunset but so much more surreal considering that it was one thin stream stretching up from the ground to the otherwise perfect blue sky. As we watched the rocket go further into space we saw three times the bright white light of the engine fade to nothing then moments later reappear as a new bright white spot. At one point we could see the ejected early stage rockets, still alit, falling to earth. Only when we came back in and looked up launch schedules for Cape Canaveral -- two hours later -- did we learn we just saw a shuttle launch!

I want to go to Florida too! I wonder how much it would cost to hitch a ride on a Soyuz I hear the Rubble has lost a lot of value.

On Roads and Government

I am a jerk sometimes, no doubt about it. Does this fact bother me? Not a chance, I am who I am and at least nobody ever needs to wonder where they stand with me, I'm a crappy poker player and that is all there is to it. But having just sent in paper work, not for the first time, for a city approved and issued garbage can, and having just paid my water bill, and still saving up for that dreadful day when the city realises they should charge me back property taxes for almost a year now and counting. I think I am entitled to rant about the horrid condition of the roads in this city except, someone much wiser and better with the words than me already did just that. Specifically John Barber in today's Globe and Mail.

I am going to reprint the entire column right here becuase I strongly suspect that the links I have above will move, as they have many times in the past. It is a good column and worth reading.

Huge road-repair backlog needs hole new approach
March 11, 2009 Globe and Mail by John Barber

Free advice to any and all potentially serious, undeclared challengers to Mayor David Miller in the upcoming election: It's the potholes, stupid.

Any candidate who understands that will be on target to make a big dent in the socialist hegemony at city hall - and not just because fixing potholes is always the simplest, most popular offering on any municipal menu. In Toronto today, their proliferation is the visible legacy of an intentional policy to spend money on everything but roads - especially transit.

Prepared carefully and served hot, a campaign to eradicate Mayor Miller's scandalously growing road-repair backlog could be the most successful gambit since Mel Lastman sold an unaffordable municipal merger for no money down.

You could call potholes neglected infrastructure if you want. Or little political gold mines. Taken as a whole, our crumbling roads say it all about city hall - revealing its priorities in the most dramatically negative light possible.

Here is this crazy do-gooder fruitlessly trying to save the world while he lets the roads go to pot. And if you don't buy it, just read what the long-suffering transportation department has to say.

When Mr. Miller took office in 2003, transportation officials calculated the unfunded cost of bringing city roads to an acceptable standard at $155-million. A year later, the backlog price tag had grown to $235-million. Faced with outrageous demands from the transit system, city hall abandoned a half-hearted attempt to pay it down in 2006. Today, officials report, Toronto roads need $320-million of maintenance for which there are neither plans nor money available.

Last year, council authorized an extra $10-million a year in debt financing to address the backlog. Its only effect will be to prevent it from growing to $600-million by 2018, according to officials. Even with the extra spending, the backlog is expected to grow to $540-million by then. Spend an extra $20-million a year, they say - three times the current budget - and the backlog will remain level at $320-million.

I ask you, citizens: Is that good enough for Toronto? And I say no, Toronto deserves better. We must arrest this pernicious decline with a sweeping public-works program to break the back of the Miller backlog once and for all.

Here is where the political mind runs rampant: special non-union work crews with "Mayor Barber Backlog Buster" patches sewn on their crisp, neat uniforms. Billboards advertising the new pothole-repair hotline. A whole new paradigm at city hall. Balance in transportation. Blah blah blah.

Like I said, it's pure gold. But to be credible, a potential backlog buster would have to budget real money rather than promising, as previous losers never failed to do, to fund big initiatives by finding elusive "efficiencies" in other city operations. This is where the conventional challengers always fall down. The eventual winner will be the one who promises to spend real money to achieve real results.

If Conservative Stephen Harper can suddenly flood the national economy with borrowed money, why can't a local right-winger do something similar, albeit on a far smaller scale? The money Ottawa and Queen's Park are currently spending on commuter parking lots in the 905 would be enough. But because the city can't raise user fees to cover road repairs - as it is doing to fund a massive, $500-million overhaul of the entire water system - it won't do them.

And because people who are most likely to support a backlog-busting mayor are the same ones who would object most loudly to raising the debt to do the job properly, such a candidate will remain a dream.

Well as the potholes are rapidly supplanting the drivers as the most terrifying of the many obstacles to biking to work I had to reply. I sent my favourite columnist in the Globe an email, not really expecting a reply.

From: Michael J. Cole
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 11:28 AM
To: Barber, John
Subject: Re: Huge road-repair backlog needs hole new approach

I just read your column, its always been my favourite read in the paper.

I just wanted to add, that as an avid cyclist, who rides to work across Queen Street even when it was -27 in February, the Potholes are a bigger problem for me than they are for cars.

Potholes contribute to gravel, and as anyone who uses a road bike will tell you, gravel is about the fastest way to ensure an accident. Potholes also cause tube failure which at best is a pain to repair on the side of the road and at worst, on a busy road could cause a fatality. Finally potholes are dangerous to cross, the loss of stability going over uneven ground, for example south side of Queen Street just west of Church, right hand lane. Some cyclist is going to get killed there one day and as far as I can tell nobody seems to give a damn. High time somebody stood up to His Blondness and asked when we were going to get the roads repaired. I wonder if John Tory is willing to take another stab at it, I would even vote for him if he promised to fix the roads.

Remarkably Mr. Barber responded:

From: Barber, John
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:09 PM
To: Michael J. Cole
Subject: Re: Huge road-repair backlog needs hole new approach

Thx for the note! My Colleague Dr Gridlock, who knows his potholes, adds that because they form where water puddles they are more common at side of road & thus a greater hazard to cyclists.

Well I voted for Mayor Miller, twice, and you know what, I am beginning to wish I had not. Anyway I still think, actually more so now than ever before, that John Barber is about the greatest reporter in my daily read. Thanks Mr. Barber!

On Getting the Question Right

Recently I was asked to give advice to someone on what type of bike to buy, specifically Mountain or Road bike. Now to me personally the answer is obvious, Road bike of course! But seriously, what is an appropriate bike? Well here is what I said:

For type of bike you have to ask yourself a very critical question. Do you want to horse around in the mud, go for distance, speed, triathalon, or some combination? Once you know that it is easy to identify what type of bike is appropriate. (Of course nowhere is it written "thou shalt only have one type of ride". Actually I have three types, and I know guys at the club who have many types of bikes in their basement.)

How seriously do you want to take this because that answers the question, what sort of budget are you looking at?

What area of the city do you live in? - you want to join a club close to home.

Start with that, once you have those questions answered I can suggest a club close to home and probably a decent bike shop, or ten.

Well the person replied a few days later,

my budget is about 2500-3000 but hopefully the lower end of that. ive gone to two bike shops, gears in mississauga and cyclemotive on bathurst at queen near my place.

i havent really had a bike in ages. i am essentially looking for a bike that i can use on weekends for training/fitness and maybe after work or early mornings depending on how zealous i am. i was thinking road bike "LAST WEEK" until i came across a cyclocross bike at cyclemotive made by argon 18. the reason being i feel like it it may be more "practical" ie can take more of a beating and allow for a longer season. do you know much about them. i would only consider them if they would be able to handle the same rigors that a road bike can handle. also, i dont want to be limited on the type of workouts/distances/comfort of the bike.

Now if you read the email very closely you can find out the he did answer two questions. Our guy lives near Queen and Bathurst, so no problem, send him to Dukes and he joins the Lapdogs. We also know that we are steering him towards a pretty decent bike... but what kind? Well he never actually answered the most important question, a question so important I even identified it as the very critical question. The question that really enables us to find out the answer to his question, should he go Road or Mountain, or, to his credit, something else entirely. He never told me what he wanted to do with his bike.

In re-reading what he wrote I realise now that he did try, sort of, in a really poorly articulated sort of way to say kind of what he wanted. Except that he came up so short that the effort was not even worth hitting send on his email client.

In order to figure out what a person wants it is critical to determine what they see themselves doing. I did not need to ask if I should get a road or mountain because I've always been a crazy distance nut. But suppose hypothetically I were to buy a new bike today, better yet, consider the example of where I was a year ago. I was an inline skater, I loved going as far as possible, Mississauga! Oakville! Burlington! I used to bike on an old Italian steel frame road bike and loved it. So for me the answer seems pretty obvious, I was, and very much am an endurance freak. Okay no sweat, get a road bike. Specialized Allez would be logical, and actually the bikes I looked at first, but then I saw a Roubaix with a better groupo (105 vs. Tiagra or Sora on the Allez) and well the rest is history. Now suppose I loved turning up mud and going off road into the pastures, well obviously I would never have taken up inline, but also I would be getting a Cross or Mountain.

But based on what our guy said my response was in retrospect dead on the mark: from what I read, my honest impression is, you want a shinny bike that looks pretty in the store.

Not the best way to gain a friend, but I have always subscribed to the notion, better an honest enemy than a dishonest friend. So I suppose the moral here is, don't elect me to any political office, I will cause too much trouble as I would be a horrible politician. But then that is hardly news to anyone who knows me, I hope.

On Gotham

Lesley wanted to see a Chinese friend who is traveling across America and happened to be in New York for the week so we took Friday off work and Thursday evening hightailed for The Big Apple.

We stopped briefly in Rochester, to visit a friend of mine who lives there and had ribs at a local restaurant. Now Rochester is an economically depressed town, has been for years. The problem is Kodak and Xerox never saw the writing on the wall and the arrival of digital imaging brought massive job cuts to two companies who had both planted their corporate headquarters there. The people who live in Rochester are never at a loss to point out the flaws of the United States and given Rochester's liberal political bent the anger directed at Washington and Fox news was, for years and in the case of Faux News still is, palatable.

I made an observation while we were at dinner with several Rochesterians which I am going to repeat because well I am somewhat proud of what is rather obvious. I am a conservative, I believe we need to conserve our environment and natural resources. We need to ensure our governments run sensible budgets so that when times are tough there is money for rainy days. I believe in mixing religion with politics in that we, society, as embodied in Government, look after the least fortunate among us. I like government that is too small to tell a woman what she can and cannot do to her own body, or what two men, or women, who love each other can do in their own home. Yes you heard it here first, I'm a certified Republican... in the school of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. (For those of a trivia inclination the former Junior Senator of Illinois is of the same school of political thought, which may partially explain why I think so highly of President Obama.)

The evening we arrived we went for a walk down Broadway towards Times Square. I saw a couple paintings in a store window. The one on the bottom had Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Regan and both Bushes gathered around a table playing cards. The one on top had Jackson, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton doing the same thing. With the exception of Lincoln and Roosevelt I wanted to kick the bottom painting, of course in the top painting was missing The President so the store owner was willing to sell it to me for half price but I was not interested.

The next day we went first to Katz's deli on Houston Street. If ever in need of a heart attack in a meal Katz's has the advantage of Montreal deli without the lunatic Montreal snobbery. Yes there is a New York snobbery, but at least here it is justified, this is after all the greatest city in the world! (Sadly Katz's also has New York prices, $15 for a pastrami sandwich, is a far cry from food for the poor, which is what deli is supposed to be.)

I should point out at this time the reason I am slamming Montreal snobbery here is simple. When we got to Katz the waiter upon learning we were from Toronto, told us that the previous day he had served some Montrealers who told him Torontonians don't know how to tip. Now I have to wonder if the waiter said that to extract a better tip, but on the assumption that what was said is the truth, I have to ask, why do all Canadians hate Toronto? I mean I can understand the disgust with Quebecois, including Montrealers, but really, what did Toronto ever do to the rest of Canada? Last I checked we never had a Neverendum, we don't mind paying into equalization when things are good, all we ask is when things are bad we get something back to help us through the tough times, maybe a new subway? Or what about some road resurfacing? Apparently that is too much to ask for.

Anyway after Katz Lesley and I went to the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. The visit to the museum was a chance to see how harsh things really can get. (It was also my second trip to the museum, last time was in 1997.) It is a mind boggling thing to think that only four generations ago as many a family of eight or nine might share a space of 350 square feet, plus some room may have been sublet and dad might run his garment business right out of the bedroom. (Of course this was a step up from the sweatshops.) I would like to say the quality of life has improved thanks to cheap energy, but I fear the sweat shop has simply relocated, not gone away. Even more remarkable to me, although I never had family who lived at 97 Orchard Street, it occurs to me, my grandfather on my father's side grew up in conditions not all that different from the people who once lived in the Lower East Side.

We only had a chance to spend the day in the city but I still managed to see quite a few cyclists, actually hundreds of them. And bikes were parked everywhere. Bikes make a lot of sense in New York City, for one thing, parking is free for a bike, a car might pay as much as $50 per half hour plus a 18.75% city parking tax. Then bikes never need to worry about being caught in the traffic for which the city is so well known. On the other hand, the road surface quality in New York is appalling, it makes Toronto look good and don't even get me started on the miserably incompetent taxi drivers in New York. In a contest for worst cab driver, Toronto and New York loose!

On Comments, redux

The following is from The Globe and Mail, until it is moved the original can be read here.

Disagree with me, but don't be cruel by Judith Timson

‘Peeeeyoooook!” Or “barf” if you prefer. Or “almost tossed my breakfast.”

Schoolyard taunts that my children gave up around Grade 6, when they learned how much more devastating real grown-up wit could be, have found a new life on the Internet through reader posts on various media websites.

Puerile insults such as these can easily be shrugged off. Commentators should be thick-skinned. But the anger, the rudeness, the personal insults and the basic unwillingness even to engage in civil disagreement over real ideas is growing at a disturbing rate all over the Internet.

American author David Denby, in his recent book-length essay Snark, laments “a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation – a tone of snarking insult provoked and encouraged by the new hybrid world of print, television, radio and the Internet.”

The result, Mr. Denby writes, is “an enormous audience that enjoys cruelty as a blood sport.”

This cruelty is highly addictive. There's a high-school tinge to it. Take the brutish message I recently received from one reader: “You must be some lonely, desperate and (judging from your pic) old frumpy broad with wrinkles. Gross me out or what.” The guy even signed his name.

Or all the hoo-hah over red-carpet fashions at the Oscars. We now can vote on every celebrity's outfit, giving the thumbs down to, say, Reese Witherspoon's oddly strapped dress – what was she thinking? The stars primp all day, but we ordinary citizens, overweight and in our bathrobes, have the triumphant last word. Nothing harmful in that, is there?

Not really, except that merciless judgment on what, on a human or global scale, are relatively unimportant matters, is everywhere. The putdown mentality of the reality show is the major cultural ethos of our time, whether you're an obscure PTA president whose speech is mocked online by other parents, or Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who was savaged last week for his inept response to President Barack Obama's state-of-the-nation speech to Congress.

Never mind that Mr. Jindal's message – an ideological rant against government helping anyone – deserved to be skewered. His unfortunate Mr. Rogers singsong-style message was quickly compared to a hilariously pathetic television character – Kenneth the page – on the comedy series 30 Rock.

Now, his credibility as the GOP's bright new answer to Mr. Obama is in tatters, slain by one of the biggest Internet dragons of all: viral ridicule. (Rick Mercer did the same here for former Canadian Alliance leader and now Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day when he initiated an online campaign to change Mr. Day's first name to Doris. The response was overwhelming, and many people never took Mr. Day seriously again – although maybe they didn't in the first place.)

It's everywhere – the smackdown, the bitch slap, the takeout. The message is clear: Make a mistake in this climate and you are toast. You can convincingly argue that public figures and commentators are fair game. But even Tina Fey, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's comic nemesis, and the creator and star of 30 Rock, made mention of just how devastating the Internet haters can be when she accepted her Golden Globe with a tart message to her online deriders: “Suck it.”
So now we come to the difficult part. What to do about it? Mr. Denby, whose self-consciously arch book was ironically panned in many places, argues this isn't about censorship.

He's right. In a democracy, you err on the side of freedom of speech even if the message is insulting, rude and empty of any real content or idea. Not to mention misspelled and ungrammatical. But there's nothing wrong with insisting on a basic level of civility in the postings. On many media websites, including The Globe and Mail's, there is a way to flag a comment to the editor's attention if you feel it has veered into libel or hate. However, any further vigilance requires significant oversight at a time when media outlets are economically strapped and low on staff as a result.

And many of them, initially thrilled to have a lot of traffic on their websites, are now frantically dealing with hate-mongering (the CBC has been accused of allowing anti-aboriginal slurs on its website), racism, misogyny (almost a given if the news is about a prominent woman) and even ageism as readers, fuel-led by what seems to be a volcanic supply of anger, have their say.

We may have to ruefully recognize the democratization of opinion that the Internet has wrought. It's no longer the privileged purview of paid commentators to opine from on high (or down low). It's a free-for-all. Under the guise of anonymity, and with the ease of clicking “send,” anyone can have at anyone.

My plea to all Internet commentators is to at least step up to a certain level of wit and discourse when you publicly disagree, and to challenge the source of your own anger before you spew it at someone else.

But I don't think that is going too happen any time soon. People out there are having way too much fun to stop the hate.