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.
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Friday, October 30, 2009
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
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