Yes I stole the title of today's post from the title of a song by Moby. But here are the recent news items I have been tracking, starting with the local and moving outward.
1. Do not trust police. During the recent G20 convention in police went completely overboard arresting nearly everything that moved. The police detained people for hours, laid false charges (that were subsequently dropped without explanation), and assaulted innocent bystanders. Of course a personal favourite, they incorrectly employed a World War II era law that was intended to protect industry in Ontario against Nazi sabotage, when this issue was recently brought up by the Ontario Ombudsman, a police spokesman vilified the Ombudsman on the radio.
2. Police cannot be trusted with weapons. So it turns out Tasers can kill people, Taser International does not say so on their website, as of yesterday, but there are all sorts of lists of people who have died while getting tasered. And I am not just talking about Robert Dziekanski. I am frankly of the opinion that Tasers should be handed out to protesters at major conventions so they can protect themselves from the police hoodlums who seem to do more damage than the protesters. Someone should remind these brutal thugs that if protecting my rights means disobeying the Canadian Charter then I might as well not have a charter of rights at all!
3. Oil prices are going right back to the place that started this horrible recession we still have not recovered from. There are a lot of economists out there who seem to think Jeff Rubin is completely wrong, but I do not understand how these economists can possibly explain where the next hundred years of cheap oil is going to come from. The fact is, we have run out of easy to find and access oil, now we have to look under thousands of feet of water, and then miles of clay under that, or look to tarry gunk in the subarctic, just to meet current demand. Meanwhile every year existing production drops by 5% because of depletion, yet we still have not found a way to power our economies without this goo.
The eternal city of Rome was founded, according to legend April 21, 753 BCE, it was sacked seven times. Ultimately, most historians would be inclined to agree the empire itself came crumbling down on September 4, 476 when the Germanic chief Odoacer forced the last Roman emperor in the west, Romulus Augustus, to abdicate. Rome as an ancient seat of power lasted 1230 years, how long will our little empire last?
Note content in italics in the paragraph above quoted directly from Wikipedia.
Search with Google
Custom Search
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
On Physics and Driving
As a cyclist I don't much like rain, it's cold, it makes my sweet ride dirty, (and being that I am both vain and anal a dirty bike is simply a bike that needs to be brought into the house for a good proper cleaning that ought to take at least 8 or 10 hours). But one good thing about a bike in the rain, the narrow (23mm wide) tyre slices through water and has plenty of grip.
Cars are a different matter. Tuesday I was driving to work in what I would call white knuckle driving. The rain was coming down in buckets and the expressways had some pretty hefty flooding. The roads felt slick and I was sure the car was going to spin out somewhere, yet all around me the motorists on the parkway were roaring along at a million and six miles an hour (well more like 10 to 20% over the posted limit).
I think this is a good place to review what happens when a car tyre is on a wet road. Water builds up in front of the tyre. A narrow bike tyre does not have this problem, and since bikes go slower than cars, the water has time to migrate around the tyre, which is more than I can say for the car. As the car roars along a lip of water in front of the tyre forms, if the car then accelerates just the tiniest bit the car can literally jump onto that lip and now the car is said to be hydroplaning. That is to say, the car is now floating on the surface of the water, there is zero contact between the rubber and the road.
I guess I should not be so surprised, after all these are Toronto drivers we are talking about. Sigh.
Cars are a different matter. Tuesday I was driving to work in what I would call white knuckle driving. The rain was coming down in buckets and the expressways had some pretty hefty flooding. The roads felt slick and I was sure the car was going to spin out somewhere, yet all around me the motorists on the parkway were roaring along at a million and six miles an hour (well more like 10 to 20% over the posted limit).
I think this is a good place to review what happens when a car tyre is on a wet road. Water builds up in front of the tyre. A narrow bike tyre does not have this problem, and since bikes go slower than cars, the water has time to migrate around the tyre, which is more than I can say for the car. As the car roars along a lip of water in front of the tyre forms, if the car then accelerates just the tiniest bit the car can literally jump onto that lip and now the car is said to be hydroplaning. That is to say, the car is now floating on the surface of the water, there is zero contact between the rubber and the road.
I guess I should not be so surprised, after all these are Toronto drivers we are talking about. Sigh.
Monday, November 15, 2010
On Blowing Up and Burning Out
So as I mentioned previously I did a lot of riding last week. I rode every day from Saturday November 6 (63km) though until (and including) Saturday November 13, 85km. My shortest day was November 6 at 63km, my longest was Sunday the 7'th at 125km. The total distance was 674km in eight days, which does not sound all that impressive I suppose, except, pulling eight consecutive rides in November, and averaging almost 85km/day this time of year is something that is worthy of a blog post.
My ride on Saturday (November 13, 85km) was a strange one. First it was not raining, just very misty, foggy one might say. But from the house the road looked dry and visibility was pretty good to a few hundred meters so I figured I'd be fine for a ride. Then I hit the road and almost immediately visibility dropped to under 50m. Having ridden every single day for the previous week I was feeling pretty enfeebled and with the lousy visibility I was seriously tempted to just abort and head home, but, I soldiered on. As I rode North the fog started to lift and with the clearing of the sky my head cleared as well and I started to really enjoy the ride. Car drivers were bizarrely exceedingly courteous and frankly the ride up Royal York was little more than a big love feast. Not that I mind, I wish more drivers would behave the same way around cyclists as the motorists on Royal York.
I rode east across Steeles for a while, Steeles is a lot better ever since the city resurfaced almost the entire length of the road, except just past every major intersection the right lane is undergoing road work for about ten meters. I wish they would hurry that road work up, there is nothing worse than being squeezed into a tight lane with cars that are in the post red light rush to the next red.
In frustration I gave up on Steeles and took a side road just east of Bathurst. Just after the turn a blue hatchback Mazda with an empty bike rack passed me. (No big deal so far. ) Then without signalling or looking the Mazda made a right turn at an intersection (no stop required) and had it not been for decent reflexes and outstanding brakes (thank goodness for Malcolm Munroe and Shimano Dura-Ace) I would have been either t-boned or plowed into the Mazda. I yelled at the driver, something along the lines of questioning his intelligence and some other choice expressions and continued on my way. A block later I encountered the Mazda again and the driver tried to engage me in some sort of conversation, now talking to someone who nearly kills me is not my idea of a good time. I tried to get away as fast as I could. (It took a few tries, but eventually I managed to escape the idiot in the blue Mazda.) Irony, besides the bike rack, he was wearing some sort of high-tech long sleeve jersey, like he had just done some outdoors activity, maybe he was going to reprimand me for riding?
Thanks go the mist at the start of the ride Jordan was covered in mud by the time I got her home. I am doing another one of my uber cleaning jobs on her - good timing, I am on call this week and cannot go for a ride.
My ride on Saturday (November 13, 85km) was a strange one. First it was not raining, just very misty, foggy one might say. But from the house the road looked dry and visibility was pretty good to a few hundred meters so I figured I'd be fine for a ride. Then I hit the road and almost immediately visibility dropped to under 50m. Having ridden every single day for the previous week I was feeling pretty enfeebled and with the lousy visibility I was seriously tempted to just abort and head home, but, I soldiered on. As I rode North the fog started to lift and with the clearing of the sky my head cleared as well and I started to really enjoy the ride. Car drivers were bizarrely exceedingly courteous and frankly the ride up Royal York was little more than a big love feast. Not that I mind, I wish more drivers would behave the same way around cyclists as the motorists on Royal York.
I rode east across Steeles for a while, Steeles is a lot better ever since the city resurfaced almost the entire length of the road, except just past every major intersection the right lane is undergoing road work for about ten meters. I wish they would hurry that road work up, there is nothing worse than being squeezed into a tight lane with cars that are in the post red light rush to the next red.
In frustration I gave up on Steeles and took a side road just east of Bathurst. Just after the turn a blue hatchback Mazda with an empty bike rack passed me. (No big deal so far. ) Then without signalling or looking the Mazda made a right turn at an intersection (no stop required) and had it not been for decent reflexes and outstanding brakes (thank goodness for Malcolm Munroe and Shimano Dura-Ace) I would have been either t-boned or plowed into the Mazda. I yelled at the driver, something along the lines of questioning his intelligence and some other choice expressions and continued on my way. A block later I encountered the Mazda again and the driver tried to engage me in some sort of conversation, now talking to someone who nearly kills me is not my idea of a good time. I tried to get away as fast as I could. (It took a few tries, but eventually I managed to escape the idiot in the blue Mazda.) Irony, besides the bike rack, he was wearing some sort of high-tech long sleeve jersey, like he had just done some outdoors activity, maybe he was going to reprimand me for riding?
Thanks go the mist at the start of the ride Jordan was covered in mud by the time I got her home. I am doing another one of my uber cleaning jobs on her - good timing, I am on call this week and cannot go for a ride.
Friday, November 12, 2010
On Riding, A Report
I am swamped at work. But at least I have managed to squeeze a few good rides in, as I mentioned earlier, Saturday was a 63km day, Sunday was 125km, Monday was only 78km, but Tuesday was 80, then Wednesday was 84 and Thursday was 79, I suspect Friday will be about 100km, to make a nice even 609km... I guess I better do 101km today... or maybe 191? Oh 750 is a nice round number, 241km? Damn shame I have to work today.
Anyway back to the treadmill.
Anyway back to the treadmill.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
On Good Long Rides
In my last post from Thursday (November 4) I noted that I planed to do core exercises. Then that annoying concept, the thing I do to pay for the house and food, and critically bike and related accessories, you know, the eight hours a day (well more like ten hours a day) five (six) days a week? Starts with a J... like Job... yes that's it my day job, it got in the way. Well as much as it could my job got in the way, but I my little diesel conspired to get me back on the saddle, the starter motor on my diesel car is dying.
Now granted in an ordinary gas car it is possible to get the engine rolling without a starter motor, just park on some flat ground and push the car until its rolling fast enough and jump behind the wheel. Diesel's are a little more difficult, because the engine has no spark plugs, ignition is achieved by knocking, so it takes a lot more torque to roll the engine over. I did take the car to my neighborhood mechanic and while replacing the starter is not the hardest job ever, sourcing a starter motor for a nine model-year-old small diesel engine quite possibly is.
So my car is at the mechanic, and the days while cold are sunny and dry. As if I needed another reason not to drive, Lesley was sent to Ottawa by her job, (yes I officially hate all day jobs!) Lesley decided to drive her truck... land yacht... big black gas guzzling behemoth.
So Saturday I rode, only 63km - but then I did only drive about 15km, Sunday I rode, 125km then Lesley wanted to get some lunch and instead of using a sesnible mode of transportation we drove to lunch, another 10km. Yesterday I rode to work and then drove the car to the mechanic (78km by bike and 2km by car). Today I expect to ride about 80km (to and from work) and, well, cannot drive at all. Of course that leaves, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, which luckily, the weather is looking good. So I guess I'm stuck riding, oh the humanity!
Actually I do want to mention the 125km I did on Sunday. Now I admit, by my standards 125km is nothing special, but this ride sure was, the route is below. From around Dufferin and Teston all the way back to King Vaughan was nothing but rollers, some rather steep. At one point on Jane Street there was a nice tail wind with a fairly steep decesent and I was hammering away in the 53/11 or maybe 53/12 when some car whips past me, now I was doing 64.5km/h (by the GPS) and it is a 70km/h zone, but if that car passed me at anything less than 30km/h I ought to retake physics 121. But other than some really bad drivers, this was a wonderful route and left me with the really nice pain. I hope the weather is nice so I can ride this thing again this Sunday.
And here is a group photo, from Keele, just south of Kettleby.
Now granted in an ordinary gas car it is possible to get the engine rolling without a starter motor, just park on some flat ground and push the car until its rolling fast enough and jump behind the wheel. Diesel's are a little more difficult, because the engine has no spark plugs, ignition is achieved by knocking, so it takes a lot more torque to roll the engine over. I did take the car to my neighborhood mechanic and while replacing the starter is not the hardest job ever, sourcing a starter motor for a nine model-year-old small diesel engine quite possibly is.
So my car is at the mechanic, and the days while cold are sunny and dry. As if I needed another reason not to drive, Lesley was sent to Ottawa by her job, (yes I officially hate all day jobs!) Lesley decided to drive her truck... land yacht... big black gas guzzling behemoth.
So Saturday I rode, only 63km - but then I did only drive about 15km, Sunday I rode, 125km then Lesley wanted to get some lunch and instead of using a sesnible mode of transportation we drove to lunch, another 10km. Yesterday I rode to work and then drove the car to the mechanic (78km by bike and 2km by car). Today I expect to ride about 80km (to and from work) and, well, cannot drive at all. Of course that leaves, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, which luckily, the weather is looking good. So I guess I'm stuck riding, oh the humanity!
Actually I do want to mention the 125km I did on Sunday. Now I admit, by my standards 125km is nothing special, but this ride sure was, the route is below. From around Dufferin and Teston all the way back to King Vaughan was nothing but rollers, some rather steep. At one point on Jane Street there was a nice tail wind with a fairly steep decesent and I was hammering away in the 53/11 or maybe 53/12 when some car whips past me, now I was doing 64.5km/h (by the GPS) and it is a 70km/h zone, but if that car passed me at anything less than 30km/h I ought to retake physics 121. But other than some really bad drivers, this was a wonderful route and left me with the really nice pain. I hope the weather is nice so I can ride this thing again this Sunday.
And here is a group photo, from Keele, just south of Kettleby.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
On Flatting
Tuesday November 2 was a bad day. Any day when a bunch of angry lunatics wins elections is a bad day. Tuesday was especially bad because my back tyre ripped wide open on Brimley road between Eglinton Ave. and Danforth Road.
So for anyone who might happen across this blog who is new here, I'm what might be called a lunatic myself, as in I am crazy about riding, my bike that is. Anyway I use clincher tyres, (tyres or tires that have an inner tube), as opposed to tubular (tube is sewn up inside the tyre) or tubeless (tyre has no tube and is glued to the wheel, like that of a car tyre).
Now one might think that with a ripped tyre it would still be possible to ride home, since the tube did not rip, except, when the tyre rips what happens is, the metal threads inside the tyre are now exposed and the tube is bulging around them, although come to think of it, even a clean rip the tube would still fail. If a person is ever bored on a rainy Saturday afternoon, take a cheap road bike tube and try to inflate it to 40 psi. Now normally road bikes should run at about 90 to 120 psi (sometimes even as high as 140psi), but if one were to inflate a free tube to 40psi, well it would not work, the tube would explode.
What happens is, inside the tyre the tube has no room to expand so the air simply becomes more dense and the tyre feels harder. But in the open the tube expands and expands, so that the equivalent of 40psi of air pressure makes the tube rather large and then kaboom. Well when a tyre rips, suddenly there is all kinds of space for a tube to expand into and kaboom. What I find really annoying, this particular ripped tyre had all of about 500km on it. All but the very thinnest racing tyres (of which this was not) should last 2000km, this was the second failure of that tyre too, the previous failure was at about 30km of use.
Anyway that failure seemed like a good invitation to stop riding and recover, in five days I commuted to work three days (so about 80km a day on Friday, Monday and Tuesday) and did two days of intense club rides (Saturday and Sunday). I think a couple days off is very much necessary, that said I think I'm going to do some core training, it will probably help.
So for anyone who might happen across this blog who is new here, I'm what might be called a lunatic myself, as in I am crazy about riding, my bike that is. Anyway I use clincher tyres, (tyres or tires that have an inner tube), as opposed to tubular (tube is sewn up inside the tyre) or tubeless (tyre has no tube and is glued to the wheel, like that of a car tyre).
Now one might think that with a ripped tyre it would still be possible to ride home, since the tube did not rip, except, when the tyre rips what happens is, the metal threads inside the tyre are now exposed and the tube is bulging around them, although come to think of it, even a clean rip the tube would still fail. If a person is ever bored on a rainy Saturday afternoon, take a cheap road bike tube and try to inflate it to 40 psi. Now normally road bikes should run at about 90 to 120 psi (sometimes even as high as 140psi), but if one were to inflate a free tube to 40psi, well it would not work, the tube would explode.
What happens is, inside the tyre the tube has no room to expand so the air simply becomes more dense and the tyre feels harder. But in the open the tube expands and expands, so that the equivalent of 40psi of air pressure makes the tube rather large and then kaboom. Well when a tyre rips, suddenly there is all kinds of space for a tube to expand into and kaboom. What I find really annoying, this particular ripped tyre had all of about 500km on it. All but the very thinnest racing tyres (of which this was not) should last 2000km, this was the second failure of that tyre too, the previous failure was at about 30km of use.
Anyway that failure seemed like a good invitation to stop riding and recover, in five days I commuted to work three days (so about 80km a day on Friday, Monday and Tuesday) and did two days of intense club rides (Saturday and Sunday). I think a couple days off is very much necessary, that said I think I'm going to do some core training, it will probably help.
Monday, November 1, 2010
On Weekend Rides and Hurting
Over last week I did not have a chance to ride after Monday. Monday morning it was raining so I drove to work, in the evening it was nice and Lesley was jet lagged (she just got back from visiting her parents) so I went for a ride and blew a flat on the Royal York overpass over the Gardiner Expressway. Shortly after I replaced my inner tube my old manager/director gave me a call and asked me to look at a network configuration if I had a second. (Funny thing about blowing a flat, you loose interest in the actual ride after flatting, well it's not so much a loss of interest as a fear that the replacement tube will fail too.)
Anyway Toronto was hit by a weather "bomb" yes that's a real meteorological term, although it conjures up images of blizzards and hurricane force winds with intense rains, it was more of a weather dud. Listening to the radio and hearing predictions of 90km/h winds I figured, better to be in a big steel tub than on a tiny little carbon fibre work of art. As a result I did not ride Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Friday I had a chance in the evening to extend my ride, so I did exactly that, and my total distance, about 30km to work and 73km home. Then Saturday a bunch of us in the Beaches Club went up to Stouffville, and a few of the guys must have had their Wheaties that morning because they left the rest of us in about six different kinds of pain, it was a good leg burner of a day.
Sunday the Beaches club had their end of season ride, what end of season? There's no snow, and even if there were, end of season... humph, end of rear, as in my rear end, ride in the snow! Anyway the BCC end of season featured a drive out to scenic Dundas Ontario, a nice warm up of 90km followed by a lunch and then a drive home. Now I'm sorry but if I cover 73km on my (albeit extended) commute home and over 100km on a regular working day, I'll be damned if I am going to drive over 100km just to ride 90km, unless said ride were a race, but as it's a social ride, uhm, save the diesel, ride to the ride.
I suspect I sound like a pompous jerk, but I'm sorry, driving a bike somewhere, sort of strikes me of asking a fish if he'd like some water to drink. Bikes are, to my thinking, the best and most decent way to get around, using a car to drive a bike that is in good repair is... unethical and immoral. (Driving a bike to a shop to get repaired, that is a different matter entirely - of course - but even better, driving to the shop buying tools and fixing the bike at home yourself is even better still.)
Anyway a couple guys had a similar opinion, well actually I think they just did not want to spend several hours driving, and sitting in traffic, just to do a three hour ride. So we did our own little ride, it hurt, in a really, and I do mean really, good way. There were 14% hill climbs, there were 55km/h (sustained) descents, there were head winds and tail winds. There was even, shudder, snow, but it did not accumulate. It was a really good ride, it even featured a coffee stop, but while I confess from the front door of my house I did not ride Jordan, I did mount the saddle as soon as I had walked her to the street, and again while I did dismount, before I got home, that was because I had to open the garden gate to get into the front yard. In short, total distance on Jordan 129km, total distance walking or driving the bike: less than 20m, or less than 0.001% of the distance covered.
Anyway here is a very nice, car free, route, very much worth doing again.
Anyway Toronto was hit by a weather "bomb" yes that's a real meteorological term, although it conjures up images of blizzards and hurricane force winds with intense rains, it was more of a weather dud. Listening to the radio and hearing predictions of 90km/h winds I figured, better to be in a big steel tub than on a tiny little carbon fibre work of art. As a result I did not ride Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Friday I had a chance in the evening to extend my ride, so I did exactly that, and my total distance, about 30km to work and 73km home. Then Saturday a bunch of us in the Beaches Club went up to Stouffville, and a few of the guys must have had their Wheaties that morning because they left the rest of us in about six different kinds of pain, it was a good leg burner of a day.
Sunday the Beaches club had their end of season ride, what end of season? There's no snow, and even if there were, end of season... humph, end of rear, as in my rear end, ride in the snow! Anyway the BCC end of season featured a drive out to scenic Dundas Ontario, a nice warm up of 90km followed by a lunch and then a drive home. Now I'm sorry but if I cover 73km on my (albeit extended) commute home and over 100km on a regular working day, I'll be damned if I am going to drive over 100km just to ride 90km, unless said ride were a race, but as it's a social ride, uhm, save the diesel, ride to the ride.
I suspect I sound like a pompous jerk, but I'm sorry, driving a bike somewhere, sort of strikes me of asking a fish if he'd like some water to drink. Bikes are, to my thinking, the best and most decent way to get around, using a car to drive a bike that is in good repair is... unethical and immoral. (Driving a bike to a shop to get repaired, that is a different matter entirely - of course - but even better, driving to the shop buying tools and fixing the bike at home yourself is even better still.)
Anyway a couple guys had a similar opinion, well actually I think they just did not want to spend several hours driving, and sitting in traffic, just to do a three hour ride. So we did our own little ride, it hurt, in a really, and I do mean really, good way. There were 14% hill climbs, there were 55km/h (sustained) descents, there were head winds and tail winds. There was even, shudder, snow, but it did not accumulate. It was a really good ride, it even featured a coffee stop, but while I confess from the front door of my house I did not ride Jordan, I did mount the saddle as soon as I had walked her to the street, and again while I did dismount, before I got home, that was because I had to open the garden gate to get into the front yard. In short, total distance on Jordan 129km, total distance walking or driving the bike: less than 20m, or less than 0.001% of the distance covered.
Anyway here is a very nice, car free, route, very much worth doing again.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
On The Next Mayor
Robert Ford got elected mayor on Monday, in retrospect I have to admit, much as I find the man detestable I can see why so many people voted for him. I wrote the following in a comment in the Globe and Mail web site, I think it sums things up nicely.
I live in Toronto, but would never vote for Ford, as an avid cyclist and firm believer in the importance of immigration into the city I would never want a man like that running things. But I suspect the reason a lot of people did vote for Ford was frustration, salaries are stagnant, debts are increasing, the cost of living is only going up, the value of homes is expected to go down.
In this personal financial disaster, garbage men go on strike so that they can keep bankable sick days [In 2009 city workers all went on strike for about a month], city councillors (mine, although I didn't live in the beach when she got elected) are using my property taxes to sue people, and general waste on the part of council (who voted themselves a raise during a recession and major strike). Well anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those who would go on strike, or even better those who voted for a raise whilst the rest of us were hurting, couldn't possibly expect to do well.
I have to admit, I am not keen on my choice of language, "anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those" is quite a bit more violent than I like, but on the other hand that does seem to embody the spirit of the Rob Ford revolt. Still I have to wonder, all of this talk, reducing taxes, cutting waste, finding new efficiencies. What will Ford do when he realises that he cannot possibly save more than a percent or two from the city budget without really making those less fortunate among us, those who need city services like public transit, really start to suffer? Somehow I suspect the Ford years are going to be marked by a new level of stratification.
I hope I am wrong.
I live in Toronto, but would never vote for Ford, as an avid cyclist and firm believer in the importance of immigration into the city I would never want a man like that running things. But I suspect the reason a lot of people did vote for Ford was frustration, salaries are stagnant, debts are increasing, the cost of living is only going up, the value of homes is expected to go down.
In this personal financial disaster, garbage men go on strike so that they can keep bankable sick days [In 2009 city workers all went on strike for about a month], city councillors (mine, although I didn't live in the beach when she got elected) are using my property taxes to sue people, and general waste on the part of council (who voted themselves a raise during a recession and major strike). Well anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those who would go on strike, or even better those who voted for a raise whilst the rest of us were hurting, couldn't possibly expect to do well.
I have to admit, I am not keen on my choice of language, "anyone who wasn't promising to hurt those" is quite a bit more violent than I like, but on the other hand that does seem to embody the spirit of the Rob Ford revolt. Still I have to wonder, all of this talk, reducing taxes, cutting waste, finding new efficiencies. What will Ford do when he realises that he cannot possibly save more than a percent or two from the city budget without really making those less fortunate among us, those who need city services like public transit, really start to suffer? Somehow I suspect the Ford years are going to be marked by a new level of stratification.
I hope I am wrong.
Monday, October 25, 2010
On Ranting, An Addition
Like most old media news sites, the Globe and Mail allows for people to comment on articles. Well I am of the opinion that the Globe and Mail's comment section must surely be the most heavily loaded with grumpy curmudgeonly old farts web site out there. Holy smokes, what a bunch of complainers and right wingers! They should have a pop-up on the, Join the Conversation, link, the pop-up could read: all hope abandon, ye who enter here.
What else is going on? No much, I went for a ride on Saturday, it was a nice ride, but too short. It was widely expected to rain on Sunday so I slept in, which I have to admit was nice. (It would have been nicer if the boys - cats - would let me keep sleeping, but they decided that I ought to get out of the bed and they can be very persuasive.) It did rain on Sunday, as expected, so I did not feel all that guilty sleeping in and then doing house work.
The bike frame that caused my hit counter to spin a couple weeks ago will go up on ebay. I'd really like to sell this thing already damnit!
Oh yes, Toronto is electing a new mayor today, must... restrain... myself... Rob Ford... is... a... won't... say... it...
Ah ha! I didn't call the councillor from Etobicoke North a total douche bag! Oh ooops. Anyway at this point we've all heard the arguments why Ford was an accident, but, the angry ranters who seem to populate the comment section of the Globe and Mail are running rampant all over the polling stations. I fear to wake up tomorrow and discover that fat incompetent is my mayor, but it happened once before and we survived that idiot, barely. If Rob Ford becomes mayor maybe Leslie and I can move to London, Boris Johnson rides a bike, and it sure would be nice to watch Top Gear without adverts.
What else is going on? No much, I went for a ride on Saturday, it was a nice ride, but too short. It was widely expected to rain on Sunday so I slept in, which I have to admit was nice. (It would have been nicer if the boys - cats - would let me keep sleeping, but they decided that I ought to get out of the bed and they can be very persuasive.) It did rain on Sunday, as expected, so I did not feel all that guilty sleeping in and then doing house work.
The bike frame that caused my hit counter to spin a couple weeks ago will go up on ebay. I'd really like to sell this thing already damnit!
Oh yes, Toronto is electing a new mayor today, must... restrain... myself... Rob Ford... is... a... won't... say... it...
Ah ha! I didn't call the councillor from Etobicoke North a total douche bag! Oh ooops. Anyway at this point we've all heard the arguments why Ford was an accident, but, the angry ranters who seem to populate the comment section of the Globe and Mail are running rampant all over the polling stations. I fear to wake up tomorrow and discover that fat incompetent is my mayor, but it happened once before and we survived that idiot, barely. If Rob Ford becomes mayor maybe Leslie and I can move to London, Boris Johnson rides a bike, and it sure would be nice to watch Top Gear without adverts.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
On Destructive Rantings
Okay with a subject like that, and given that right now my thoughts are of the upcoming municipal election, one might expect I would go after the highly bombastic, bullying, obese, wife abusing, drug addicted, DWI (in Florida in 1999, same time he got busted for pot) candidate for mayor (and ahead in the polls) Robert Ford.
Now in fairness, whenever Mister Ford opens his mouth he reminds me of the guy who sold me my beat up used VW Jetta. (I ended up needing to do all kinds of work to make the car road worthy, because the dealer was a liar and a crook, hey he was a used car salesman, every time I hear Rob Ford open that mouth of his I cringe.
Anyway I do not need to rant, this morning I got around to reading the Focus section (Editorials section) of the Saturday Globe and Mail. (Hey it takes me a week to plow through a Saturday Globe, but I do keep up on the website... or used to, ever since they redesigned everything I've been seriously contemplating cancelling my subscription, that paper really went down hill fast.)
Anyway in the Saturday Focus section of The Globe there was an article about how Mister Ford is an everyman because he is fat. I cannot show the article here because The Globe pulled it from their website on account of the fact that the Ford people were complaining it was offensive and inappropriate. (This from a guy who routinely bullies his fellow councillors during council meetings, just do a YouTube search for Rob Ford, there are tons of examples.)
But my personal favorite, Rob Ford has a single lawn sign, it's white with red and blue print, as if he were American or something! (News flash Mister Ford, Toronto is, last I checked, still in Canada.) Anyway more significantly, the sign reads something to the effect of "Rob Ford, Respect for taxpayers." Of course it might help here if I explained something, Rob Ford says he will reduce our taxes, while cutting spending (fair enough), yet have no impact to front line services (excuse me?) and reduce the municipal budget deficit at the same time (WTF??). How is this respect for rate payers? When last I checked, building roads, sewers, hiring police and firefighters cost money. Paying down the debt costs money, this money comes from taxes. How on earth is it respectful to say "I will do the impossible if I am elected." Frankly that is the Rob Ford "Respect for Taxpayers".
Certainly there is very little respect for voters intelligence, but then Toronto is a pretty tolerant city, we had the first legal gay marriage, and gay divorce in North America, city publications go out in something like 23 different languages, our gay pride parade is one of the biggest in the world. I think we'd rather have the "Kenyan, Muslin, student of Rev. Wright, palin around with terrorists" black fellow by the name of President Obama as our Prime Minister than that scary white guy from Alberta who really is an economic terrorist! (Well personally I'd rather have Prime Minister Obama on his worst day than Stephen Harper any day!) Anyway my point is, sure we're tolerant, we are so tolerant we will take a blithering idiot and make him our mayor, heck we did it once already, Mel Lastman! So I guess the real question is, would a Mayor Ford be worse or just as bad as Mayor Lastman? My money is on Ford being worse.
Anyway enough wining about a guy who cannot control his eating, or wife abusing. (Sorry but then you know, if you run for public office, probably not wise to hit your wife... and no, just because I never hit Lesley does not in any way imply I plan to run for office, rather it implies I have a very small amount of decency.)
On a totally unrelated note, on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11, I rotated Jordan's tires. I rode to work on Tuesday and Friday, I rode on Saturday, Sunday and again to work yesterday (Monday). In one week I covered over 500km, I am already past the half way point to another tire rotation. Holy smokes! No wonder my legs are sore. I love riding, too bad it was raining this morning or I'd be past 600km by the end of today. Maybe a weather induced break will be a good thing though, like I said, my legs are sore. A couple days of healing will probably do a lot of good.
Now in fairness, whenever Mister Ford opens his mouth he reminds me of the guy who sold me my beat up used VW Jetta. (I ended up needing to do all kinds of work to make the car road worthy, because the dealer was a liar and a crook, hey he was a used car salesman, every time I hear Rob Ford open that mouth of his I cringe.
Anyway I do not need to rant, this morning I got around to reading the Focus section (Editorials section) of the Saturday Globe and Mail. (Hey it takes me a week to plow through a Saturday Globe, but I do keep up on the website... or used to, ever since they redesigned everything I've been seriously contemplating cancelling my subscription, that paper really went down hill fast.)
Anyway in the Saturday Focus section of The Globe there was an article about how Mister Ford is an everyman because he is fat. I cannot show the article here because The Globe pulled it from their website on account of the fact that the Ford people were complaining it was offensive and inappropriate. (This from a guy who routinely bullies his fellow councillors during council meetings, just do a YouTube search for Rob Ford, there are tons of examples.)
But my personal favorite, Rob Ford has a single lawn sign, it's white with red and blue print, as if he were American or something! (News flash Mister Ford, Toronto is, last I checked, still in Canada.) Anyway more significantly, the sign reads something to the effect of "Rob Ford, Respect for taxpayers." Of course it might help here if I explained something, Rob Ford says he will reduce our taxes, while cutting spending (fair enough), yet have no impact to front line services (excuse me?) and reduce the municipal budget deficit at the same time (WTF??). How is this respect for rate payers? When last I checked, building roads, sewers, hiring police and firefighters cost money. Paying down the debt costs money, this money comes from taxes. How on earth is it respectful to say "I will do the impossible if I am elected." Frankly that is the Rob Ford "Respect for Taxpayers".
Certainly there is very little respect for voters intelligence, but then Toronto is a pretty tolerant city, we had the first legal gay marriage, and gay divorce in North America, city publications go out in something like 23 different languages, our gay pride parade is one of the biggest in the world. I think we'd rather have the "Kenyan, Muslin, student of Rev. Wright, palin around with terrorists" black fellow by the name of President Obama as our Prime Minister than that scary white guy from Alberta who really is an economic terrorist! (Well personally I'd rather have Prime Minister Obama on his worst day than Stephen Harper any day!) Anyway my point is, sure we're tolerant, we are so tolerant we will take a blithering idiot and make him our mayor, heck we did it once already, Mel Lastman! So I guess the real question is, would a Mayor Ford be worse or just as bad as Mayor Lastman? My money is on Ford being worse.
Anyway enough wining about a guy who cannot control his eating, or wife abusing. (Sorry but then you know, if you run for public office, probably not wise to hit your wife... and no, just because I never hit Lesley does not in any way imply I plan to run for office, rather it implies I have a very small amount of decency.)
On a totally unrelated note, on Thanksgiving Monday, October 11, I rotated Jordan's tires. I rode to work on Tuesday and Friday, I rode on Saturday, Sunday and again to work yesterday (Monday). In one week I covered over 500km, I am already past the half way point to another tire rotation. Holy smokes! No wonder my legs are sore. I love riding, too bad it was raining this morning or I'd be past 600km by the end of today. Maybe a weather induced break will be a good thing though, like I said, my legs are sore. A couple days of healing will probably do a lot of good.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
On Rain
It is really difficult to think of anything to write when a guy's been away from the saddle as long as I have. (Two whole days!) Actually two days is not so bad, last week sucked, because I was primary on call looser boy, I rode once, Monday. I got caught in the rain and spent the rest of the week and into the weekend cleaning Jordan. End result, in the last fourteen days, I have been on the saddle just a few times.
So thanks to the rain I have to drive to work. Only it is worse than that, because my mother was in a car accident (she's fine, car needs some body work). Mum is now without a car so I loaned her my old Jetta on the, mistaken, belief that it was going to be a nice week and I could ride all week long. Now I have to ride Lesley's gas guzzler. (Lesley likes her truck, but last night I filled the tank, hoping I could ride today and leave Lesley with a full tank, 3/8'ths of a tank on an Audi Q5 costs as much as a full tank of diesel for the Jetta.)
You know I have to admit, I am too car dependant, I was thinking this morning, I should ride the Coppi to work in the rain (on the other hand 25km on slick roads). But then I look at my baby boomer parents and the very notion of getting around without using fossil fuels fills them with dread.
Frankly this attitude of the car is a god to be worshiped, it's the Rob Ford view of the universe!, or at least North America. We already live in a world of peak oil, that much is obvious, consider the chart below which I pulled from here. Now one thing to note is this chart ends just as the 2008 recession really started to hit. As of October, 14 2010 (Thursday) at 09:20:28 the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (the benchmark crude that the graph below plots) is $83.45.
In other words, with the exception of the pre-recession high, back in July or August of 2008, oil has never been as expensive as it is today, and we are very nearly in a double dip recession right now!
Heck lets, consider the price of oil over the last 150, or so, years. (This graph was also pulled from here.)
So in fact the only time oil has been as expensive as it is now (now being since peak oil set in, which would be, I believe, around 2004) was when we first discovered the stuff and were trying to figure out how to pull it out of the ground.
But really, the real reason we should worry about how we get to keep driving, here is a graph from Wikipedia of non-OPEC and Russian oil. Note that we have in fact peaked.
Now some wise guy is going to comment that there is Russia and OPEC (and unconventional oil) are not included. Well consider this:
[World] reserves are confused and in fact inflated. Many of the so-called reserves are in fact resources. They're not delineated, they're not accessible, they’re not available for production.
— Sadad I. Al-Husseini, former VP of Aramco, presentation to the Oil and Money conference, October 2007.
Or I like this graph, also from Wikipedia.
It is a graph of OPEC reported reserves, the caption from Wikipedia says it all:
Graph of OPEC reported reserves showing refutable jumps in stated reserves without associated discoveries, as well as the lack of depletion despite yearly production.
In an average year oil comes out of the ground and so the lines should drop, then a discovery is made and the lines should go up a little, or an elephant field is discovered and lines rocket up. But often times in this graph we see elephant type jumps without the associated finds.
Perhaps this (from Wikipedia) explains things,
One difficulty in forecasting the date of peak oil is the opacity surrounding the oil reserves classified as 'proven'. Many worrying signs concerning the depletion of proven reserves have emerged in recent years.
...
For the most part, proven reserves are stated by the oil companies, the producer states and the consumer states. All three have reasons to overstate their proven reserves: oil companies may look to increase their potential worth; producer countries gain a stronger international stature; and governments of consumer countries may seek a means to foster sentiments of security and stability within their economies and among consumers.
Okay so oil is running out, the next logical question, will we find a replacement? Because if we don't, well thankfully there is apparently enough arable land within 100 miles of Toronto to feed the city's population. But I hope there are enough horses to pull the food into town.
So thanks to the rain I have to drive to work. Only it is worse than that, because my mother was in a car accident (she's fine, car needs some body work). Mum is now without a car so I loaned her my old Jetta on the, mistaken, belief that it was going to be a nice week and I could ride all week long. Now I have to ride Lesley's gas guzzler. (Lesley likes her truck, but last night I filled the tank, hoping I could ride today and leave Lesley with a full tank, 3/8'ths of a tank on an Audi Q5 costs as much as a full tank of diesel for the Jetta.)
You know I have to admit, I am too car dependant, I was thinking this morning, I should ride the Coppi to work in the rain (on the other hand 25km on slick roads). But then I look at my baby boomer parents and the very notion of getting around without using fossil fuels fills them with dread.
Frankly this attitude of the car is a god to be worshiped, it's the Rob Ford view of the universe!, or at least North America. We already live in a world of peak oil, that much is obvious, consider the chart below which I pulled from here. Now one thing to note is this chart ends just as the 2008 recession really started to hit. As of October, 14 2010 (Thursday) at 09:20:28 the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (the benchmark crude that the graph below plots) is $83.45.
In other words, with the exception of the pre-recession high, back in July or August of 2008, oil has never been as expensive as it is today, and we are very nearly in a double dip recession right now!
Heck lets, consider the price of oil over the last 150, or so, years. (This graph was also pulled from here.)
So in fact the only time oil has been as expensive as it is now (now being since peak oil set in, which would be, I believe, around 2004) was when we first discovered the stuff and were trying to figure out how to pull it out of the ground.
But really, the real reason we should worry about how we get to keep driving, here is a graph from Wikipedia of non-OPEC and Russian oil. Note that we have in fact peaked.
Now some wise guy is going to comment that there is Russia and OPEC (and unconventional oil) are not included. Well consider this:
[World] reserves are confused and in fact inflated. Many of the so-called reserves are in fact resources. They're not delineated, they're not accessible, they’re not available for production.
— Sadad I. Al-Husseini, former VP of Aramco, presentation to the Oil and Money conference, October 2007.
Or I like this graph, also from Wikipedia.
It is a graph of OPEC reported reserves, the caption from Wikipedia says it all:
Graph of OPEC reported reserves showing refutable jumps in stated reserves without associated discoveries, as well as the lack of depletion despite yearly production.
In an average year oil comes out of the ground and so the lines should drop, then a discovery is made and the lines should go up a little, or an elephant field is discovered and lines rocket up. But often times in this graph we see elephant type jumps without the associated finds.
Perhaps this (from Wikipedia) explains things,
One difficulty in forecasting the date of peak oil is the opacity surrounding the oil reserves classified as 'proven'. Many worrying signs concerning the depletion of proven reserves have emerged in recent years.
...
For the most part, proven reserves are stated by the oil companies, the producer states and the consumer states. All three have reasons to overstate their proven reserves: oil companies may look to increase their potential worth; producer countries gain a stronger international stature; and governments of consumer countries may seek a means to foster sentiments of security and stability within their economies and among consumers.
Okay so oil is running out, the next logical question, will we find a replacement? Because if we don't, well thankfully there is apparently enough arable land within 100 miles of Toronto to feed the city's population. But I hope there are enough horses to pull the food into town.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
On Cleaning Up After The Rain
I have spent too much time cleaning my sweet ride, well it is not too much time, it is just that I am too tired to write about, so here are the pictures instead.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
On Scams
I have a Trek Equinox E7 frame I am trying to get rid of. The story of how I got it is rather long and complicated but at this point I have a frame, it is (right now) for sale and I threw a few pictures and a little description of the thing up on Craigslist.
Yesterday I had a response:
I responded:
So I answer to the best of my ability:
Now the alarm bells started ringing:
I do not need to be scammed thank you, lets get some standard anti-fraud measures going:
Well Rose might be in the scamming business but they are not in the very much going on between the ears business:
I don't have a copy of my response to this note, but it went to the effect of, "The bike is in the shop, you can see it there, you can pay me cash only I don't use paypal. Sorry."
Why do people try to scam? Who gets fooled? Such a shame, the whole damn thing.
Oh incidently, Rose's email might show up as: Clarence Rose [300000kms@gmail.com]. If you ever plan to sell anything on Craigslist, make sure to avoid this guy.
Yesterday I had a response:
On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Clarence Rose wrote:
** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html
--
Hello Seller,
Do you still have the item for sale? and how long have you been using it.
Rose.
I responded:
Hi Rose,The next question was as reasonable as it was predictable:
Yes the bike is for sale. I think it has about 60km of use on it, so hardly used at all.
Michael
On Wed, 6 Oct 2010, Clarence Rose wrote:
Thanks very much for the mail,I'm interested in buying it,may i know why you wanted to sell it and what's it present condition.
So I answer to the best of my ability:
Hi,
Actually the guy who bought the bike for triathalons decided he wanted a conventional road bike and gave me the frame. I have inspected it and it clearly is hardly used. It has a small scuff from transport (to the original store where it was sold) and it has accumulated some dust but it otherwise is in perfect condition.
If you would like to see the frame, it is at Biseagal (http://www.biseagal.com/welcome.htm) at 388 Carlaw Avenue (Between Dundas and Gerrard on the West side) look for the Yellow Inde-Art Design House sign Biseagal is in the same enterance down the hall on the right hand side.
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.666046,-79.342104&spn=0,0.001072&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=43.665961,-79.342069&panoid=jwIdvDvvzTMbDw5CvLFVCQ&cbp=12,244.88,,0,4.57
If I am not around, just ask Malcolm, the owner of Biseagal, to show you Michael's Trek frame.
Michael
Now the alarm bells started ringing:
I so much appreciate your response to my earlier mail. I wish to let you know that I'm satisfied with the condition. Like I said there's no doubt I'm gonna purchase it. Therefore I want you to consider it sold by withdrawing the advert from craigslist. Note that you will not be responsible for shipping and handling. My shipping company will come to your location for pick up. Kindly provide me your name and full address, so i can forward it to the shipping company to calculate the cost of pick up for me. Please get back to me as soon as possible.
May your troubles be less, your blessings more.
and nothing but happiness comes through your door.
I do not need to be scammed thank you, lets get some standard anti-fraud measures going:
Like I said, the frame is in the shop, see the email below for details. If a shipping company is going to retrieve the frame, how are you going to pay me? I only accept cash.
Well Rose might be in the scamming business but they are not in the very much going on between the ears business:
I'm not in town presently that is why i want to hand over this transaction to PayPal and my agent so as soon as the payment has been made then my agent can come for the necessary information.. Just get back to me with your full home address and your PayPal email address for the instant payment.
I don't have a copy of my response to this note, but it went to the effect of, "The bike is in the shop, you can see it there, you can pay me cash only I don't use paypal. Sorry."
Why do people try to scam? Who gets fooled? Such a shame, the whole damn thing.
Oh incidently, Rose's email might show up as: Clarence Rose [300000kms@gmail.com]. If you ever plan to sell anything on Craigslist, make sure to avoid this guy.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
On Religion (again)
A forewarning, this post can be really offensive, particularly to anyone of deep religious belief. I am becoming quite an atheist and this sort of expands on my notions. (Frankly I wish I had a private diary as well as a public blog.) I would ask any religious person not to read this, or read it and remember it’s just my ideas on religion and is not meant as a criticism of the next person’s belief structures. Actually if anything this is a critique of my own beliefs.
I was driving to work today when I had a bit of an epiphany, religion, as most humans (okay, more likely just me) view it, is incredibly arrogant.
An example of my slightly wacked beliefs is in order here. Some time ago I participated in the Montreal 24 hour inline relay race on the F-1 track in Montreal. Over the course of the evening Jacky Schu had the baton and would have to pass it off to me (I in turn passed it off to Daniel Dumbrill who passed it back to Jacky, one hand off per lap, each lap was just under 5km.)
Into the evening the rain started, at first it just made things unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. Around two in the morning I was to do a lap, I went out from the paddock and waited on a bleacher for Jacky, about a minute before Jacky arrived the rain started coming down in biblical proportions. (I.e. Genesis 6, This is the line of Noah, Noah was a righteous man, he was blameless in his age… – Sadly I did not need to consult The Plaut Commentary to write that quote, I’ve got it stuck, hard wired into my brain.)
Anyway I did my lap in the rain and just about a minute before completing my lap, the rain let up, a lot. Thus I developed two theories, God hates me, and God’s sense of timing needs work.
See the arrogance? Why on earth would a supreme deity give a damn about my rollerblading adventures? It is just like when I yell at the sky in the rain on Monday, imploring any almighty to keep the rain back until I get home. (If you want to find out the outcome of that particular prayer, see yesterday’s blog post.)
Or the epiphany? I got a bunch of green lights on the drive to work. Really I should be thanking the city traffic planners, there is no supreme deity involved.
Of course this brings me to the logical question, when is the almighty at work? When Osama Bin Laden’s minions smash airplanes into buildings and kill three thousand innocent people? When the Christian Crazies in Florida threaten to burn hundreds of Qurans? How about when other Christian Crazies protest a soldier’s funeral - he was gay. (Shortest definition of tasteless, crass and inhumane I have ever seen.) How about when the Jewish Crazies build homes in The West Bank?
I wonder, would say a cow view a human as the physical embodiment of the divine? (After all, look at the power a rancher has over the cow.) If so what is a cow thinking as it gets marched to the slaughter? Would the cow think, I have upset my master for my deviant beliefs or would it think I am going to a better place now? Either way, makes me wonder about God’s motivation, makes me also wonder if there is one.
I was driving to work today when I had a bit of an epiphany, religion, as most humans (okay, more likely just me) view it, is incredibly arrogant.
An example of my slightly wacked beliefs is in order here. Some time ago I participated in the Montreal 24 hour inline relay race on the F-1 track in Montreal. Over the course of the evening Jacky Schu had the baton and would have to pass it off to me (I in turn passed it off to Daniel Dumbrill who passed it back to Jacky, one hand off per lap, each lap was just under 5km.)
Into the evening the rain started, at first it just made things unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. Around two in the morning I was to do a lap, I went out from the paddock and waited on a bleacher for Jacky, about a minute before Jacky arrived the rain started coming down in biblical proportions. (I.e. Genesis 6, This is the line of Noah, Noah was a righteous man, he was blameless in his age… – Sadly I did not need to consult The Plaut Commentary to write that quote, I’ve got it stuck, hard wired into my brain.)
Anyway I did my lap in the rain and just about a minute before completing my lap, the rain let up, a lot. Thus I developed two theories, God hates me, and God’s sense of timing needs work.
See the arrogance? Why on earth would a supreme deity give a damn about my rollerblading adventures? It is just like when I yell at the sky in the rain on Monday, imploring any almighty to keep the rain back until I get home. (If you want to find out the outcome of that particular prayer, see yesterday’s blog post.)
Or the epiphany? I got a bunch of green lights on the drive to work. Really I should be thanking the city traffic planners, there is no supreme deity involved.
Of course this brings me to the logical question, when is the almighty at work? When Osama Bin Laden’s minions smash airplanes into buildings and kill three thousand innocent people? When the Christian Crazies in Florida threaten to burn hundreds of Qurans? How about when other Christian Crazies protest a soldier’s funeral - he was gay. (Shortest definition of tasteless, crass and inhumane I have ever seen.) How about when the Jewish Crazies build homes in The West Bank?
I wonder, would say a cow view a human as the physical embodiment of the divine? (After all, look at the power a rancher has over the cow.) If so what is a cow thinking as it gets marched to the slaughter? Would the cow think, I have upset my master for my deviant beliefs or would it think I am going to a better place now? Either way, makes me wonder about God’s motivation, makes me also wonder if there is one.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
On Rain
I hate the rain. I mean sure plants need it to grow, but if I could control such things, nothing would fall from the sky when the temperature is below about 5 degrees above freezing (so no ice or snow on the roads) and it would never rain during the day - more riding time!
Yesterday morning both the Weather Network and Environment Canada's weather models predicted no rain for the whole week. How much things change. About an hour before it was time for me to saddle up and mount a beautiful (clean) black Specialized Roubaix I looked out the window and saw some ominous grey clouds to the south. Now here's a silly question, why bother checking the weather? I mean, if its going to rain, too bad, it's not like I have a spare car I can drive home. Anyway I checked two different Doppler radars hoping that maybe one was stale data. No such luck, a cloud about 100km long and perhaps ten wide running from the south shore of Lake Ontario up north of Oshawa was working it's way north west from New York towards Toronto.
So much about that weather is just wrong. Usually the wind blows from the north west, so that cloud should have been moving away not closer. Anyway I started for home and probably made it 20km before the rain really started hammering me hard. (Of course I go south east so I was basically moving right towards the storm.) At first it was just irritating, it's cold and my face is getting wet, then almost suddenly the ground went from moist to soaking wet. Soon water had penetrated my shoe covers, then shoes and socks so my feet were cold. Water was soaking down my jacket leg warmers so instead of providing warmth my clothing was actually making an unpleasant situation dreadful.
I stripped off my clothing by the washing machine in the basement, when I took off one of my shoes and put my foot (still wearing a sock) on the floor I left a big wet foot print. Taking those wet socks off was a very nice experience. Later that evening I took some images of my ride, Jordan, she is in very bad need of a very serious cleaning.
Yesterday I decided that since I will be stuck at home, (I'm on call), the whole weekend I might as well clean my ride. Well suddenly I have no choice. So here is my revised plan.
Apparently for mountain bikers, mud is a badge of honour. Mud, if you ask me, is ugly. Mud ought to be the symbol of a construction sight, or maybe the trenches of World War I, not a badge of honour.
How on earth am I going to clean all this damn mud?
I need a power washer, I guess.
Sigh.
I love this down tube, when it is clean there is something really pretty in a big fat down tube. Right now, not so much.
Arrrrgh!
Yesterday morning both the Weather Network and Environment Canada's weather models predicted no rain for the whole week. How much things change. About an hour before it was time for me to saddle up and mount a beautiful (clean) black Specialized Roubaix I looked out the window and saw some ominous grey clouds to the south. Now here's a silly question, why bother checking the weather? I mean, if its going to rain, too bad, it's not like I have a spare car I can drive home. Anyway I checked two different Doppler radars hoping that maybe one was stale data. No such luck, a cloud about 100km long and perhaps ten wide running from the south shore of Lake Ontario up north of Oshawa was working it's way north west from New York towards Toronto.
So much about that weather is just wrong. Usually the wind blows from the north west, so that cloud should have been moving away not closer. Anyway I started for home and probably made it 20km before the rain really started hammering me hard. (Of course I go south east so I was basically moving right towards the storm.) At first it was just irritating, it's cold and my face is getting wet, then almost suddenly the ground went from moist to soaking wet. Soon water had penetrated my shoe covers, then shoes and socks so my feet were cold. Water was soaking down my jacket leg warmers so instead of providing warmth my clothing was actually making an unpleasant situation dreadful.
I stripped off my clothing by the washing machine in the basement, when I took off one of my shoes and put my foot (still wearing a sock) on the floor I left a big wet foot print. Taking those wet socks off was a very nice experience. Later that evening I took some images of my ride, Jordan, she is in very bad need of a very serious cleaning.
Yesterday I decided that since I will be stuck at home, (I'm on call), the whole weekend I might as well clean my ride. Well suddenly I have no choice. So here is my revised plan.
- Over the course of the week I want to clean the brake hoops (the part of the wheel rims where the brakes make contact) and the tyres. (Make sure there is no glass or metal embedded in the tyres.)
- Also during the week clean the chain, first use a chain cleaning kit and a simple degreaser, then go nuts, take the chain off and put it in a bottle and use a naphtha based solvent.
- Leave the chain to dry (allow the solvent to completely evaporate) over the course of the week.
- On Saturday take Jordan apart completely and clean all parts. I even take the chain rings off the cranks and clean the chain ring bolts. (I will keep the bars, headset, brakes, deraileurs and levers together, as it is a lot of effort to retune the cabling - I'll replace the cables at the end of season anyway.)
- On Sunday, or if I am making good progress on Saturday I will put Jordan back together. With, hopefully some images of a stunning black and red bicycle that makes grown men (at least one grown man) drool.
Apparently for mountain bikers, mud is a badge of honour. Mud, if you ask me, is ugly. Mud ought to be the symbol of a construction sight, or maybe the trenches of World War I, not a badge of honour.
How on earth am I going to clean all this damn mud?
I need a power washer, I guess.
Sigh.
I love this down tube, when it is clean there is something really pretty in a big fat down tube. Right now, not so much.
Arrrrgh!
Monday, October 4, 2010
On Repairs and Ultra Rides
The Furnace Creek 508 was this past weekend. For a couple years now I've had a bit of a dream to do that ride, admitedly it is considerably harder, both in terms of hill climbing and distance than anything I have ever done (Toronto ON to Rochester NY in a day) but it still sounds like one awsome ride, if for no other reason than for 508 miles I would not have to worry about riding in the rain.
One thing I find very annoying is, for the life of me, I cannot find a final 2010 results page. I am curious to find out who won. Peter Oyler went, I understand he came in fourth or fifth, but I am curious about a few others, some of the guys who compete in the 508 are surely worthy of admiration. For example, one guy, Michael Emde, has competed in the Furnace Creek several times, he came 3'rd in 2005, 2'nd in 2009, and 1'st in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Imagine riding 508 miles in the desert and being the fastest guy to do it... three times! In a row! That has gotta count for something.
Anyway I am on call for the week to come, I am going to try to ride, in considerably colder weather than The Death Valley, to work each day. But this weekend I will have to stay close to the computer, so I guess I will be cleaning up Jordan. But a good cleaning will be a good thing, a clean bike is a healthy bike!
Actually a good overhaul is in order, Jordan ought to be past the 1000km mark since the last tyre change. So I will probably try to do the following:
Friday night:
* Clean chain and leave out to dry.
* Take off cassette and soak in solvent
Saturday:
* Take off all parts and clean
Sunday:
* Reassemble
* Tidy basement
One thing I find very annoying is, for the life of me, I cannot find a final 2010 results page. I am curious to find out who won. Peter Oyler went, I understand he came in fourth or fifth, but I am curious about a few others, some of the guys who compete in the 508 are surely worthy of admiration. For example, one guy, Michael Emde, has competed in the Furnace Creek several times, he came 3'rd in 2005, 2'nd in 2009, and 1'st in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Imagine riding 508 miles in the desert and being the fastest guy to do it... three times! In a row! That has gotta count for something.
Anyway I am on call for the week to come, I am going to try to ride, in considerably colder weather than The Death Valley, to work each day. But this weekend I will have to stay close to the computer, so I guess I will be cleaning up Jordan. But a good cleaning will be a good thing, a clean bike is a healthy bike!
Actually a good overhaul is in order, Jordan ought to be past the 1000km mark since the last tyre change. So I will probably try to do the following:
Friday night:
* Clean chain and leave out to dry.
* Take off cassette and soak in solvent
Saturday:
* Take off all parts and clean
Sunday:
* Reassemble
* Tidy basement
Monday, September 27, 2010
On Rides and Idiot Cyclists
On Saturday a bunch of us (eight in total) from the BCC rode 100.5km to Stouffville and back, the wind was just brutal, coming from the North West. Mind you the trip home was nice, we flew south. Then on Sunday Thi and I went for a little ride, 136.1km of pretty intense rollers. Thi let me do most of the pulling (nice guy) on the way into the wind and then he got the chance to stop and wait for me at the hill tops on the first leg south (now that I was spent from breaking the wind).
When we got to the coffee shop in Stouffville we found a bunch of BCC'rs out for the 85km Stouffville ride, so we rode home with them. I thought I was spent when Thi and I got to the coffee shop, but maybe it was the tailwind or maybe it was steady downhill I felt a lot stronger coming home and was able to roll from the front to the back and back to the front of the paceline a bunch of times to ensure no one was getting dropped. Of course now my legs are sore, but its the good pain.
Here is a way to identify true roadies, if a person walks down the stairs without issue they are not a true road cyclist, but if walking down the stairs, even a day or two after a ride is agonizingly painful and difficult, you may have a roadie on your hands. Yes walking downstairs today has been a study in pain. I think I might buy myself a toboggan, just to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. (Good thing there is broadloom on all the stairs!)
Anyway quick thoughts on the up coming municipal election here in Toronto, yes I think Robert Ford is a fat serial exaggerator (he claims the bike lane on Jarvis cost the city $6 million when the actual cost turned out to be $59 thousand). Ford has the support of big Jimbo the first minister of Finance in Canada to run a deficit in more than ten years and a member of the Ontario cabinet when the province was $5.7 billion in the hole yet according to official statements, still in the black. Ford also believes that the signed on transit city plan (a $7.2 billion expansion of light rail and bus lines for Toronto) should be canned and the money saved be used for building a new subway. (Apparently somehow enough money will be saved by backing out of signed contracts to build underground subways instead of grade level light rail?)
Well at least Sarah Thomson has a really interesting proposal. I am not sure it is a solution to all the city's traffic... issues, but it is a definite step in the right direction. I'm still unsure if I like Thomson or Joe Pantalone more but one of those two will definitely be getting my vote come November, unless some sort of "Anybody but Ford" coalition gets it's act together and someone else steps up to the plate.
Finally, last night some idiot cyclist tried to cross Lakeshore Blvd. at Colborne Lodge against a red light. The first car to hit him, flung him into a second car. A 40 year-old on a red mountain bike without identification was pronounced dead on the scene. Now as a cyclist I have to admit, I've run red lights from time-to-time, I'm not proud of it, but then I only run reds when it's a side street and I'm on a major street and, critically, there are no cars. Or if it's a 'T' intersection and I am not impeding auto traffic. But crossing Lakeshore at Colborne Lodge, that is just insane, worse it gives the rest of us a bad name.
When we got to the coffee shop in Stouffville we found a bunch of BCC'rs out for the 85km Stouffville ride, so we rode home with them. I thought I was spent when Thi and I got to the coffee shop, but maybe it was the tailwind or maybe it was steady downhill I felt a lot stronger coming home and was able to roll from the front to the back and back to the front of the paceline a bunch of times to ensure no one was getting dropped. Of course now my legs are sore, but its the good pain.
Here is a way to identify true roadies, if a person walks down the stairs without issue they are not a true road cyclist, but if walking down the stairs, even a day or two after a ride is agonizingly painful and difficult, you may have a roadie on your hands. Yes walking downstairs today has been a study in pain. I think I might buy myself a toboggan, just to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. (Good thing there is broadloom on all the stairs!)
Anyway quick thoughts on the up coming municipal election here in Toronto, yes I think Robert Ford is a fat serial exaggerator (he claims the bike lane on Jarvis cost the city $6 million when the actual cost turned out to be $59 thousand). Ford has the support of big Jimbo the first minister of Finance in Canada to run a deficit in more than ten years and a member of the Ontario cabinet when the province was $5.7 billion in the hole yet according to official statements, still in the black. Ford also believes that the signed on transit city plan (a $7.2 billion expansion of light rail and bus lines for Toronto) should be canned and the money saved be used for building a new subway. (Apparently somehow enough money will be saved by backing out of signed contracts to build underground subways instead of grade level light rail?)
Well at least Sarah Thomson has a really interesting proposal. I am not sure it is a solution to all the city's traffic... issues, but it is a definite step in the right direction. I'm still unsure if I like Thomson or Joe Pantalone more but one of those two will definitely be getting my vote come November, unless some sort of "Anybody but Ford" coalition gets it's act together and someone else steps up to the plate.
Finally, last night some idiot cyclist tried to cross Lakeshore Blvd. at Colborne Lodge against a red light. The first car to hit him, flung him into a second car. A 40 year-old on a red mountain bike without identification was pronounced dead on the scene. Now as a cyclist I have to admit, I've run red lights from time-to-time, I'm not proud of it, but then I only run reds when it's a side street and I'm on a major street and, critically, there are no cars. Or if it's a 'T' intersection and I am not impeding auto traffic. But crossing Lakeshore at Colborne Lodge, that is just insane, worse it gives the rest of us a bad name.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
On Drive Chains
Someone on the BCC website recently found an article entitled Today is the world premier of the chain-less Hungarian developed bicycle. Okay either this article is about the most poorly researched article ever or the authors are excited that Hungary is free of it's chains and into a new world of cables. Sorry guys, but chainless bicycles are old news.
Yesterday I went to a meeting with, as it turns out some old friends of mine from my undergrad days. The meeting was in Waterloo so I had to drive there which was upsetting because it was such a nice day out. When I got home I was tired, I find driving to be fatiguing, so I went for a ride to wake up. (Actually I went for a ride because it was a nice day out.) In 2:57:58 I rode 87.19 km so averaged 29.39km/h, I maxed out at 63.65 km/h and burned off 3719 calories as I bore into a pretty nasty headwind (naturally when I turned around the wind died off some so I did not even get a free ride home).
At the start of the ride the wind seemed to be coming out of the south west so I picked a route that was as south and west as possible so that I would have less work to do on the way home. I have to admit, I like my slightly modified Mississauga Loop which I draw below, using Matheson instead of Eglinton is a really good idea, Matheson is a quieter road (at least in the evening) and it is in much better repair. It does make the ride a little longer, but hey, long is good.
On the way home I was stopped at a light, on Davenport about a third of the way up a steep hill (Christie Street). A guy in a red VW I think Jetta, looks at me as I stand waiting for the light to change. When the light goes green, he guns his engine, jack rabbits and cuts off the bike lane and slows as if to stop. I yell something to the effect of "get out of the bike lane". And he drives to the top of the hill and pulls over. As I pass him (now legally parked) he yells at me "I was gonna give you a draft". Then after I pass him without saying boo he goes and tries to catch up with me, so I hammer hard and know that he can trivially catch me, I wait until he's along side and I slam on the brakes - at least I can out maneuver any car - then I turn on a side road and wait for him to drive off. Strangely I don't want to have an altercation with a motorist any more than I want a motorist to give me a draft up a steep hill. Mind you I find it exceptionally hard to believe that his motives were to give me a draft, I mean, either he is the dumbest nice guy in the world, or more likely he's just an inconsiderate driver - have not seen that before!
Logically, why would a cyclist need a draft up hill? Besides, how much draft is a small car going to give? And even worse, I was breathing hard, it is a short but steep hill, now I'm taking in auto exhaust, yeah, that's just want I want during a tough hill climb. So like I said, either the dumbest nice guy or inconsiderate.
Yesterday I went to a meeting with, as it turns out some old friends of mine from my undergrad days. The meeting was in Waterloo so I had to drive there which was upsetting because it was such a nice day out. When I got home I was tired, I find driving to be fatiguing, so I went for a ride to wake up. (Actually I went for a ride because it was a nice day out.) In 2:57:58 I rode 87.19 km so averaged 29.39km/h, I maxed out at 63.65 km/h and burned off 3719 calories as I bore into a pretty nasty headwind (naturally when I turned around the wind died off some so I did not even get a free ride home).
At the start of the ride the wind seemed to be coming out of the south west so I picked a route that was as south and west as possible so that I would have less work to do on the way home. I have to admit, I like my slightly modified Mississauga Loop which I draw below, using Matheson instead of Eglinton is a really good idea, Matheson is a quieter road (at least in the evening) and it is in much better repair. It does make the ride a little longer, but hey, long is good.
On the way home I was stopped at a light, on Davenport about a third of the way up a steep hill (Christie Street). A guy in a red VW I think Jetta, looks at me as I stand waiting for the light to change. When the light goes green, he guns his engine, jack rabbits and cuts off the bike lane and slows as if to stop. I yell something to the effect of "get out of the bike lane". And he drives to the top of the hill and pulls over. As I pass him (now legally parked) he yells at me "I was gonna give you a draft". Then after I pass him without saying boo he goes and tries to catch up with me, so I hammer hard and know that he can trivially catch me, I wait until he's along side and I slam on the brakes - at least I can out maneuver any car - then I turn on a side road and wait for him to drive off. Strangely I don't want to have an altercation with a motorist any more than I want a motorist to give me a draft up a steep hill. Mind you I find it exceptionally hard to believe that his motives were to give me a draft, I mean, either he is the dumbest nice guy in the world, or more likely he's just an inconsiderate driver - have not seen that before!
Logically, why would a cyclist need a draft up hill? Besides, how much draft is a small car going to give? And even worse, I was breathing hard, it is a short but steep hill, now I'm taking in auto exhaust, yeah, that's just want I want during a tough hill climb. So like I said, either the dumbest nice guy or inconsiderate.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
On Goals and Rides
Back in June I proposed a challenge, measure how much distance was done using fossil fuels and how much was done using a bike. I have a confession to make, I stopped recording driven distance, principally because in mid July I was sent to London Ontario (over 200km) for work and then had to make a return trip the same weekend, for a total drive in one weekend of almost 950km. I am working on changing things around so I will not be doing that much driving going forward but for now, sadly, I need to keep buying oil by-products. On the other hand, because I drive a beat up old diesel that does not even have a working air conditioner, my 950km of driving resulted in the consumption of an entire 45L of fuel. Still it was a lot of driving, not a good thing.
Anyway, Sunday, September 19, there was a race, the Queens Park Grand Prix, which is just a fancy way of saying a Criterium at Queens Park Cres. Among the competitors include Michael Barry and sixth fastest man in the World (fastest in North America) on a bicycle, none other than Ryder Hesjedal. One would think the results would be a foregone conclusion, they were not. Now don't get me wrong, that a Canadian is the fastest cyclist in North America and has a real shot at a yellow or pink jersey one day is totally about the most awesome thing for Canadian cyclists to look to but that some guy, Jeffrey Schiller, from London Ontario won, is even more cool because it means that Ryder is not a one off thing, that just maybe we have more great roadies coming down the pipeline? If only car drivers would be considerate, we - Canada - might actually be able to put an entire pro tour team together one day.
Speaking of rude drivers, I have decided, the most annoying thing motorists do, for now. I am hammering away, for example, this morning, I am booking it on Queen Street west bound towards Coxwell, now Queen is a 40km/h zone and I was clocking 48km/h according to my GPS. So would someone please explain to me, why, if I am in the right lane and a car is in the left lane the driver has to do 60, cut me off and then make a right turn, rather than go at the posted speed limit and make the turn in safety behind me. The number of times I have been cut off by right turning cars in the past three days is disgusting, and they don't even get anywhere, if they just went behind me it would be safer and they would only be a second or two slower than by doing things dangerously.
As for riding, well this weekend I rode on Saturday and Sunday with Thi from the BCC. Both were published rides but on Saturday there was also a ride to Stouffville and Sunday was the Crit so I guess most people had other ideas. Anyway both were good rides. On Saturday Thi had to get back home in time to open his shop we had to turn for home early but I took a little detour and ultimately rode 100.5 km in 3 hours, 27 minutes and 20 seconds, I burned 4440 calories and averaged a heart rate of 135 bpm, my top speed 56.72 km/h and despite an awful head wind at times and a lot of traffic lights we still achieved a 29.08km/h average speed. (I did a few extra hills too.)
On Sunday we took a very scenic route around South Eastern Ontario, we covered 134.6km in 4 hours 24 minutes and one second, I burned 5457 calories and had an average heart rate of 133 bpm, my top speed 56.47 km/h and this time, with another brutal head wind still pulled off a 30.59km/h average speed. It was a very hilly route and as the green of summer turns to amber and crimson of autum, one of the prettiest rides I have done. The full route is here, or see below. The one thing is, I wonder if Westney is a good road from Taunton to Highway 7, if we could use that and bypass 7 completely that would be a good thing. Still this was a very nice route and enabled us to bypass Oshawa while still getting all the really good hills packed in.
Anyway, Sunday, September 19, there was a race, the Queens Park Grand Prix, which is just a fancy way of saying a Criterium at Queens Park Cres. Among the competitors include Michael Barry and sixth fastest man in the World (fastest in North America) on a bicycle, none other than Ryder Hesjedal. One would think the results would be a foregone conclusion, they were not. Now don't get me wrong, that a Canadian is the fastest cyclist in North America and has a real shot at a yellow or pink jersey one day is totally about the most awesome thing for Canadian cyclists to look to but that some guy, Jeffrey Schiller, from London Ontario won, is even more cool because it means that Ryder is not a one off thing, that just maybe we have more great roadies coming down the pipeline? If only car drivers would be considerate, we - Canada - might actually be able to put an entire pro tour team together one day.
Speaking of rude drivers, I have decided, the most annoying thing motorists do, for now. I am hammering away, for example, this morning, I am booking it on Queen Street west bound towards Coxwell, now Queen is a 40km/h zone and I was clocking 48km/h according to my GPS. So would someone please explain to me, why, if I am in the right lane and a car is in the left lane the driver has to do 60, cut me off and then make a right turn, rather than go at the posted speed limit and make the turn in safety behind me. The number of times I have been cut off by right turning cars in the past three days is disgusting, and they don't even get anywhere, if they just went behind me it would be safer and they would only be a second or two slower than by doing things dangerously.
As for riding, well this weekend I rode on Saturday and Sunday with Thi from the BCC. Both were published rides but on Saturday there was also a ride to Stouffville and Sunday was the Crit so I guess most people had other ideas. Anyway both were good rides. On Saturday Thi had to get back home in time to open his shop we had to turn for home early but I took a little detour and ultimately rode 100.5 km in 3 hours, 27 minutes and 20 seconds, I burned 4440 calories and averaged a heart rate of 135 bpm, my top speed 56.72 km/h and despite an awful head wind at times and a lot of traffic lights we still achieved a 29.08km/h average speed. (I did a few extra hills too.)
On Sunday we took a very scenic route around South Eastern Ontario, we covered 134.6km in 4 hours 24 minutes and one second, I burned 5457 calories and had an average heart rate of 133 bpm, my top speed 56.47 km/h and this time, with another brutal head wind still pulled off a 30.59km/h average speed. It was a very hilly route and as the green of summer turns to amber and crimson of autum, one of the prettiest rides I have done. The full route is here, or see below. The one thing is, I wonder if Westney is a good road from Taunton to Highway 7, if we could use that and bypass 7 completely that would be a good thing. Still this was a very nice route and enabled us to bypass Oshawa while still getting all the really good hills packed in.
Monday, September 13, 2010
On Riding West and Oil Economics
Saturday a bunch of us from the BCC went out for a properly long ride. It was supposed to be out to the Forks of the Credit, except that due to construction the road was closed and the very best part, the reason we hauled all the way through the city to Belfountain had to be missed. Still we rode over 198km with an average near as makes no difference of 29km/h, which is especially impressive because on the ride out there was no wind but by the time we turned around there was a brutal head wind.
On Mississauga Road, up around Boston Mills Road a bunch of guys in an oncoming Jeep threw a full water bottle at us, and nailed someone in the pack square in the head. I wish we got their licence plate, we would have phoned that one in, but they drove much too quickly (I don't think they were worried about a speeding ticket if they were throwing 1kg projectiles at people.) It was a really disgusting and repulsive thing to do and frankly kind of ruined the ride for me there.
I mean the guys I rode with were great and the scenery was nice, but when drivers have that sort of attitude towards cyclists. It was not like we were blocking the Jeep (he was oncoming, remember?) and it is a quiet country road with lots of room and we were in a single file paceline too, almost in the gravel on the right hand side! No this sort of attitude from some drivers, it is where the expression "war on the car" comes from. Of course we all know there is no war on the car, that is silly political grandstanding, what there is, is an expectation among all too many motorists that they ought to have an untrammeled right to the road, that anyone who dares to take precious tarmac from their beloved automobiles is fair game for their grill or their water bottles. I guess I can only hope that the monsters who were out for a joy ride got busted by the police for reckless driving at some later point that day and end up loosing their licence and are forced to ride a bike for the rest of their days, that to me would be an appropriate punishment, somehow I doubt that is what is going to happen.
On my drive to work I often listen to the radio but lately I have found CBC to be rather unengaged. I have taken a new habit, doing number crunching. Today I started with the fact that the Peel P-50, the smallest production car in the world had fuel economy of 1 gallon (presumably UK, or imperial gallon) per hundred miles, now one imperial gallon is 4.546 Litres and one hundred miles is 160.9344km, so the P-50 can go a mind blowing 35.4km on a Litre of petrol, put in modern metric terms, a P-50 gets 2.82L/100km, which is about twice the range per Litre of my diesel Jetta. But what gets me, is while the fuel economy is pretty impressive, consider this, that P-50, uses about a million calories of energy to cover 10km, by contrast for one thousand calories, using my bicycle I can cover 25km, and I look a lot less idiotic on my ride than Jermey Clarkson in his.
On Mississauga Road, up around Boston Mills Road a bunch of guys in an oncoming Jeep threw a full water bottle at us, and nailed someone in the pack square in the head. I wish we got their licence plate, we would have phoned that one in, but they drove much too quickly (I don't think they were worried about a speeding ticket if they were throwing 1kg projectiles at people.) It was a really disgusting and repulsive thing to do and frankly kind of ruined the ride for me there.
I mean the guys I rode with were great and the scenery was nice, but when drivers have that sort of attitude towards cyclists. It was not like we were blocking the Jeep (he was oncoming, remember?) and it is a quiet country road with lots of room and we were in a single file paceline too, almost in the gravel on the right hand side! No this sort of attitude from some drivers, it is where the expression "war on the car" comes from. Of course we all know there is no war on the car, that is silly political grandstanding, what there is, is an expectation among all too many motorists that they ought to have an untrammeled right to the road, that anyone who dares to take precious tarmac from their beloved automobiles is fair game for their grill or their water bottles. I guess I can only hope that the monsters who were out for a joy ride got busted by the police for reckless driving at some later point that day and end up loosing their licence and are forced to ride a bike for the rest of their days, that to me would be an appropriate punishment, somehow I doubt that is what is going to happen.
On my drive to work I often listen to the radio but lately I have found CBC to be rather unengaged. I have taken a new habit, doing number crunching. Today I started with the fact that the Peel P-50, the smallest production car in the world had fuel economy of 1 gallon (presumably UK, or imperial gallon) per hundred miles, now one imperial gallon is 4.546 Litres and one hundred miles is 160.9344km, so the P-50 can go a mind blowing 35.4km on a Litre of petrol, put in modern metric terms, a P-50 gets 2.82L/100km, which is about twice the range per Litre of my diesel Jetta. But what gets me, is while the fuel economy is pretty impressive, consider this, that P-50, uses about a million calories of energy to cover 10km, by contrast for one thousand calories, using my bicycle I can cover 25km, and I look a lot less idiotic on my ride than Jermey Clarkson in his.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
On Politics and Bottom Brackets
Lesley was asking me about the plans some Florida (why is it the dateline for all the craziest things that happen in the United States seem to be somewhere in or very near Florida?) pastor has for burning a bunch of copies of the Qur'an. Now I will grant you I thought the response to the Danish Muhammad cartoons thing was way over the top, but this is very different, mostly because it is almost completely the reverse of the Danish cartoons.
To the reader, one must understand that I am a bibliophile, I have a passion for books and reading almost as much as I have a passion for riding. I find the notion of book burning repugnant and the idea of attacking someones religion by defacing or destroying the underlying ideals manifest in printed form repulsive. That something like one and half billion Muslims are enraged by this idiot Rev. Jones is unsurprising, that even Sarah Palin does not approve is only a modest surprise, but you know when you the nations foremost lunatic saying your actions are wrong... well I guess I'm just joining a very large choir.
Oh and yes, congratulations Mrs. Palin, you beat out Rush Limbuagh, Glen Beck and Bill O, that's real spunk to beat those guys to the top of the lunatic pile, and so quickly. You go girl!
Anyway enough angry ranting about lunatic attention seekers... although, well Toronto has a municipal election coming up and I just want to say, as I have said all too many times before, this "war on the car" is crap, the real war is a civil war. Now that I have to drive too work so much, it is painfully obvious, don't allow trucks on highways during rush hour and really crack down on illegally stopped or parked cars during rush hour. Bikes aren't the problem it is vehicles that block lanes or need too much space and time to accelerate or change lanes.
Anyway as for biking, well I've got Jordan back!! Yipppeeee! What happened was a chain ring bolt had come off the crank and mashed itself into the chainstay where Specialized has a metal plate to protect the stay. Anyway the metal plate was all ripped up and rubbing right up against the chain ring (yes I will have to replace that chain ring :( - but at least not right away.) I thought I simply had a busted bottom bracket. Anyway when I took the crank off to replace the bottom bracket I saw the sorry state of my chainstay. Well thanks to Mr. Carbon Fibre, aka Malcolm Munroe and Specialized I was able to get a replacement part and have it expoxied down. Malcolm (a skilled machinest) was able to look up the tables for the bolts that go into my chain ring and it turns out that if you have aluminum bolts (standard on the Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 crankset) torque the bolts to 12Nm or about 8.86 foot pounds. Yet another reason to always have a torque wrench when doing bike repairs, its just too bad Shimano does not document that torque anywhere.
Lesley and I went to DC last weekend, maybe this weekend I will write about it, but since all the images are still on the SD card at home, I'm going to put off writing about Washington.
To the reader, one must understand that I am a bibliophile, I have a passion for books and reading almost as much as I have a passion for riding. I find the notion of book burning repugnant and the idea of attacking someones religion by defacing or destroying the underlying ideals manifest in printed form repulsive. That something like one and half billion Muslims are enraged by this idiot Rev. Jones is unsurprising, that even Sarah Palin does not approve is only a modest surprise, but you know when you the nations foremost lunatic saying your actions are wrong... well I guess I'm just joining a very large choir.
Oh and yes, congratulations Mrs. Palin, you beat out Rush Limbuagh, Glen Beck and Bill O, that's real spunk to beat those guys to the top of the lunatic pile, and so quickly. You go girl!
Anyway enough angry ranting about lunatic attention seekers... although, well Toronto has a municipal election coming up and I just want to say, as I have said all too many times before, this "war on the car" is crap, the real war is a civil war. Now that I have to drive too work so much, it is painfully obvious, don't allow trucks on highways during rush hour and really crack down on illegally stopped or parked cars during rush hour. Bikes aren't the problem it is vehicles that block lanes or need too much space and time to accelerate or change lanes.
Anyway as for biking, well I've got Jordan back!! Yipppeeee! What happened was a chain ring bolt had come off the crank and mashed itself into the chainstay where Specialized has a metal plate to protect the stay. Anyway the metal plate was all ripped up and rubbing right up against the chain ring (yes I will have to replace that chain ring :( - but at least not right away.) I thought I simply had a busted bottom bracket. Anyway when I took the crank off to replace the bottom bracket I saw the sorry state of my chainstay. Well thanks to Mr. Carbon Fibre, aka Malcolm Munroe and Specialized I was able to get a replacement part and have it expoxied down. Malcolm (a skilled machinest) was able to look up the tables for the bolts that go into my chain ring and it turns out that if you have aluminum bolts (standard on the Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 crankset) torque the bolts to 12Nm or about 8.86 foot pounds. Yet another reason to always have a torque wrench when doing bike repairs, its just too bad Shimano does not document that torque anywhere.
Lesley and I went to DC last weekend, maybe this weekend I will write about it, but since all the images are still on the SD card at home, I'm going to put off writing about Washington.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
On Matters Divine
Talking about religion is always a risky subject, there is a real chance I will really leave someone pissed off and lets face it, the religious crazies, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim - take your pick, they are loony. (Not to say that say, your average Hindu is a bad person, the overwhelming majority are, I am sure, very good and decent people, but when some Mosque gets blown up in India well, violence seldom begets peace.)
Anyway I bring this up because a couple years ago (September 18, 2006 to be specific) a pastor, fellow by the name of Pastor John Hagee (I can already hear some people moaning) said "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans... New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God... there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came."
Since Hagee's little rant against The Big Easy was divine punishment there have now been two major oil accents in the Gulf of Mexico that I think are worth bringing up. One is the well known Deep Water Horizon well, the other, an oil platform called Vermilion just exploded this morning, no word yet on how much (if any) oil is escaping. (Allegedly no oil is getting out, but well, in theory only five thousand barrels a day came out of the Deep Water Horizon, in fact it was closer to sixty thousand barrels a day.)
So I have a question for Hagee because I'm a little confused. Are these oil spills the work of divine retribution because New Orleans still has not mended in her ways? Are they divine retribution for too much use of oil? Are they divine retribution for kicks? Maybe they are big oil's retribution for the fact that we had so much fun beating up on old Tony Hayward? If so what was the Kalamazoo oil spill retribution for? The American revolution? (!)
Anyway maybe, just maybe these oil spills are our planet's retribution for being such appallingly lousy stewards of what really is, or was, a pretty pleasant place to inhabit. Anyway a hurricane is working it's way up the Atlantic Seaboard, I hope another one of these hurricane's floods Hagee's home, except I don't think he would understand the irony.
Anyway I bring this up because a couple years ago (September 18, 2006 to be specific) a pastor, fellow by the name of Pastor John Hagee (I can already hear some people moaning) said "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans... New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God... there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came."
Since Hagee's little rant against The Big Easy was divine punishment there have now been two major oil accents in the Gulf of Mexico that I think are worth bringing up. One is the well known Deep Water Horizon well, the other, an oil platform called Vermilion just exploded this morning, no word yet on how much (if any) oil is escaping. (Allegedly no oil is getting out, but well, in theory only five thousand barrels a day came out of the Deep Water Horizon, in fact it was closer to sixty thousand barrels a day.)
So I have a question for Hagee because I'm a little confused. Are these oil spills the work of divine retribution because New Orleans still has not mended in her ways? Are they divine retribution for too much use of oil? Are they divine retribution for kicks? Maybe they are big oil's retribution for the fact that we had so much fun beating up on old Tony Hayward? If so what was the Kalamazoo oil spill retribution for? The American revolution? (!)
Anyway maybe, just maybe these oil spills are our planet's retribution for being such appallingly lousy stewards of what really is, or was, a pretty pleasant place to inhabit. Anyway a hurricane is working it's way up the Atlantic Seaboard, I hope another one of these hurricane's floods Hagee's home, except I don't think he would understand the irony.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
On Rides
Yesterday I was riding to work when there was a sudden slippery feeling on the pedals, thereafter pedaling backward became considerably harder - not that I pedal backward all that often. When I got to work I removed the chain (gotta love KMC master links) and found the same resistance. Relieved, the issue had to be the bottom bracket (an easy and not horribly expensive part to replace I carried on with my day).
The ride home included a frightful cracking noise from the area of the bottom bracket. When I finally got home, after feeding my boys (the cats) I set to work on Jordan (my ride) and took apart her drive train. Removing the crank took an awful lot of force, and when it finally came free it took part of the bottom bracket along with. (Further backing my theory of a busted bottom bracket.)
Then I walked around to the drive side and removed the other half of the crankset. Behind the crankset on the Specialized Roubaix frame, just behind the bottom bracket on the chain stay is a metal plate that I guess is there to protect the frame from a dropped chain or a really flexible right crank? Anyway for whatever reason that plate has literally folded up and was rubbing against the crank.
In fact the issue with Jordan was not her bottom bracket, the issue is that folded metal plate. The good news is, the plate is epoxied to the frame and the carbon is undamaged, so it should be a simple matter of removing the folded plate and replacing with a good epoxy (Specialized, if you are reading this, use better epoxy for the sake of my mental health please) and new metal plate. The bad news, doing this change will require a skilled machinist, who thank goodness I know, except he is very busy and probably will not be able to fix my poor ride for at least a little while.
I've been having a lot of mechanicals lately, but then it occurs to me, I have been doing an awful lot of riding - more than driving even and when one considers I just blew $650 on auto repair, well I have yet another reason to like my bike.
The ride home included a frightful cracking noise from the area of the bottom bracket. When I finally got home, after feeding my boys (the cats) I set to work on Jordan (my ride) and took apart her drive train. Removing the crank took an awful lot of force, and when it finally came free it took part of the bottom bracket along with. (Further backing my theory of a busted bottom bracket.)
Then I walked around to the drive side and removed the other half of the crankset. Behind the crankset on the Specialized Roubaix frame, just behind the bottom bracket on the chain stay is a metal plate that I guess is there to protect the frame from a dropped chain or a really flexible right crank? Anyway for whatever reason that plate has literally folded up and was rubbing against the crank.
In fact the issue with Jordan was not her bottom bracket, the issue is that folded metal plate. The good news is, the plate is epoxied to the frame and the carbon is undamaged, so it should be a simple matter of removing the folded plate and replacing with a good epoxy (Specialized, if you are reading this, use better epoxy for the sake of my mental health please) and new metal plate. The bad news, doing this change will require a skilled machinist, who thank goodness I know, except he is very busy and probably will not be able to fix my poor ride for at least a little while.
I've been having a lot of mechanicals lately, but then it occurs to me, I have been doing an awful lot of riding - more than driving even and when one considers I just blew $650 on auto repair, well I have yet another reason to like my bike.
Monday, August 30, 2010
On A Difficult Hill - an amendment
I found a couple pictures of myself from the Rattle Snake ride I wrote about earlier this morning.
I am in the blue BCC jersey at the front of the paceline.
I am in the blue BCC jersey at the front of the paceline.
And there is even a few seconds of me pedaling in the linked video.
On a Difficult Hill
I recall during this year's Tour at one point the pelaton was climbing some hill, must have been near the Alps, it was no HC climb, just a Cat 1 or 2 affair. Phil Liggett was giving a description, 7% for a couple kilometers than 12% for a kilometer or whatever it was and so on.
Yesterday the BCC did the hill at Rattle Snake Point for the first time in 2010. The first time I did Rattle Snake, Sunday June 22, 2008, I didn't actually do Rattle Snake. I bonked and cramped and wound up walking up to the top of the hill. I was such a wreck for the journey home Dan came up behind me and pushed me to help me catch up with the pelaton. At the time my steed was an almost completely stock 2006 Specialized Roubaix, except for two upgrades, she did have Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels, and blush, aero bars. Ironically that bike has a classic triple crank so theoretically was ideally suited for Rattle Snake a hill that seems to be, mostly 16% grade. (Okay for all you statistical junkies, the Stock 2006 Roubaix, my ride at the time, has a triple crank of 52/42/30 and a 9 speed 12-25 cassette, so in June of 2008 I could not hack Rattlesnake at 30-25.)
Well I did Rattle Snake yesterday and my legs, as one might expect, hurt today, but I did do said hill and could have made a second pass if I felt sufficiently masochistic (as well I hate the decent out of the escarpment, so I need to feel brave as well as masochistic) but anyway, it was the first time I did Rattle Snake on a standard double crank, granted I did have a swollen cassette, my crankset was 53/39 with a 11-28 ten speed in back.
So to the non technical folk, what do all the numbers mean, well its the number of teeth on the various cogs that make up a bike drive train, let me express it as a ratio, for every tooth on the crank on my old bike there are 0.833 teeth on the cassette, whereas on my new Roubaix (Jordan) for every tooth on the crank there is 0.718 teeth on the cassette now more cassette teeth do mean that you move slower climbing the hill, but that also means that there is less resistance so my new drive train is actually about 16% harder than the old drive train.
In short, I climbed the same hill that I could not climb two years ago. I did it with 16% more torque than I would have needed two years ago (not that I had that torque at the time). I made it to the top and still felt strong enough to hack the hill all over again.
I think I've improved a little bit, but lets be honest, its the machine, not the engine. I mean when a guy has a ride as sweet as mine, well I can't let the bike be disappointed in me!
Anyway I woke up this morning, checked the weather, saw there was a chance of thunderstorms and used that as an excuse to get another hour of sleep and drove to work. But I'm rather glad I got that sleep, and I think my legs are grateful I didn't ride today. I still hurt from yesterday, some things do not change.
Yesterday the BCC did the hill at Rattle Snake Point for the first time in 2010. The first time I did Rattle Snake, Sunday June 22, 2008, I didn't actually do Rattle Snake. I bonked and cramped and wound up walking up to the top of the hill. I was such a wreck for the journey home Dan came up behind me and pushed me to help me catch up with the pelaton. At the time my steed was an almost completely stock 2006 Specialized Roubaix, except for two upgrades, she did have Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels, and blush, aero bars. Ironically that bike has a classic triple crank so theoretically was ideally suited for Rattle Snake a hill that seems to be, mostly 16% grade. (Okay for all you statistical junkies, the Stock 2006 Roubaix, my ride at the time, has a triple crank of 52/42/30 and a 9 speed 12-25 cassette, so in June of 2008 I could not hack Rattlesnake at 30-25.)
Well I did Rattle Snake yesterday and my legs, as one might expect, hurt today, but I did do said hill and could have made a second pass if I felt sufficiently masochistic (as well I hate the decent out of the escarpment, so I need to feel brave as well as masochistic) but anyway, it was the first time I did Rattle Snake on a standard double crank, granted I did have a swollen cassette, my crankset was 53/39 with a 11-28 ten speed in back.
So to the non technical folk, what do all the numbers mean, well its the number of teeth on the various cogs that make up a bike drive train, let me express it as a ratio, for every tooth on the crank on my old bike there are 0.833 teeth on the cassette, whereas on my new Roubaix (Jordan) for every tooth on the crank there is 0.718 teeth on the cassette now more cassette teeth do mean that you move slower climbing the hill, but that also means that there is less resistance so my new drive train is actually about 16% harder than the old drive train.
In short, I climbed the same hill that I could not climb two years ago. I did it with 16% more torque than I would have needed two years ago (not that I had that torque at the time). I made it to the top and still felt strong enough to hack the hill all over again.
I think I've improved a little bit, but lets be honest, its the machine, not the engine. I mean when a guy has a ride as sweet as mine, well I can't let the bike be disappointed in me!
Anyway I woke up this morning, checked the weather, saw there was a chance of thunderstorms and used that as an excuse to get another hour of sleep and drove to work. But I'm rather glad I got that sleep, and I think my legs are grateful I didn't ride today. I still hurt from yesterday, some things do not change.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
On Red Lights
There is something about cold air and sudden stops. I was riding to work today and about 250m from an intersection (yes I just measured, with Google maps) the 'Do not walk' warning started blinking, according to the warning I had about ten seconds with, I would guess a 20km/h head wind.
Now that I'm in the compartive comfort of a desk, with all the trappings of computerized life, I can say that closing that 25m/s was quite impossible, it would have required ramping up to 90km/h. But being that I am a lousy judge of distance (or maybe it was 15 seconds? meaning a more reasonable 60km/h) I made a full on attempt at the light and wound up slamming on the brakes and down shifting all in the last two or three seconds.
The trouble with sprinting hard in the cold is it really, really hurts the lungs.
The following is from Road Bike Rider, it describes a lot of rides I go on.
Wicked Wednesdays
Now that I'm in the compartive comfort of a desk, with all the trappings of computerized life, I can say that closing that 25m/s was quite impossible, it would have required ramping up to 90km/h. But being that I am a lousy judge of distance (or maybe it was 15 seconds? meaning a more reasonable 60km/h) I made a full on attempt at the light and wound up slamming on the brakes and down shifting all in the last two or three seconds.
The trouble with sprinting hard in the cold is it really, really hurts the lungs.
The following is from Road Bike Rider, it describes a lot of rides I go on.
Wicked Wednesdays
Every Wednesday evening, my bike club hosts an interval workout on a hill at the local university. The climb takes 5-6 minutes and we do it 6 times. Rain or shine. Darkness or daylight. Forest fire or student protest.
Our coach refers to these sessions as Level 5 or anaerobic threshold workouts. Even if you pace it perfectly -- negative splits, each interval faster than the last -- it hurts. I'm talking root-canal, tax-audit, "I-think-we-should-start-seeing-other-people" pain.
I begin dreading Wednesday evenings around bedtime Tuesday. By Wednesday lunchtime, I'm feeling nausea that has nothing to do with my midday meal of organic yam and raw kale from my Biggest Loser lunchbox.
Then I show up at the workout and scan the group to see what fresh dose of humiliation awaits. Last week it was the 65-year-old guy who dropped me like a tub of Grecian Formula. It was inspiring. Really.
A few weeks ago it was the one-armed dude. OK, he had 2 arms, but one was in a sling. He flew past me like a, um, person with fully functioning body parts.
Did I mention the 50-something mom? The 15-year-old lad who I swear was on training wheels last month? Both quicker than me. A fellow could choke on all this inspiration.
Why keep at it? Like most cyclists, I'm stubborn, masochistic and a little delusional. All this toil and trouble have to make us stronger, right?
Plus, I do eventually finish ahead of some people -- the ones who come to one Wednesday and never return.
I may not be fast, but I'm pretty good at one thing: showing up.
Monday, August 23, 2010
On Riding In The City
Saturday (August 21) Ian, Thi and I went for a quick ride around the city. The boys were fast and it hurt, in a good way. I will here try to summarize the route to the best of my recollection.
We first had to work our way to the bike trail from the Toronto Public Library Branch at Gerrard and Broadview. This involved a great deal of winding around street car tracks, bad drivers (question who is worse, pick-up trucks or taxis?), oblivious pedestrians and so on. By the time we got to the trail I was seeing red and started an attack, Thi held on and would not let go. Ian was still warming up and dropped off. I slowed down and by the by Ian got back on. Of course having set a speed Thi and Ian were now ready to run hot.
We went up Royal York and as per standard operating procedure missed the light at The Queensway. When we finally did clear Royal York and The Queensway I was feeling slow and it showed, 26 km/h, Thi and Ian started complaining and before I knew what's what, found myself desperately drafting trying very hard not to fall off their backsides.
When we got to St. Phillips I made a discovery, the entire run from Dixon to Weston I was never once going slower than the posted speed limit. Sadly there was no cop around to give me a speeding ticket. (A speeding ticket whilst cycling would be awesome!) I maxed out at about 55km/h just before hitting the brakes as I neared the traffic light at Weston, Ian and Thi both passed me going down the hill. We used Oak St. and Wendell to cross highway 401, which is probably one of the nicest places to cross the highway in the city, it is a minor side road with no interchange.
We used Bartor, Arrow, Signet and Weston Road to get up to Langstaff, while mostly keeping the pace down to the low 30s an occasional sprint up a hill left me hurting. But when we turned on Langstaff we got nailed by a good 20 or 30km/h East Wind, it was a fight to go east. We used Creditstone and took it to Rutherford and then down Keele, although looking at the map now, it occurs to me, one day we should just take Creditstone (becomes Melville) all the way up past Major MacKenzie - heck a guy could use this as a route to (or from) Klienburg.
The journey home was, with the exception of a rude driver (honked at for no good reason) largely uneventful. The trip down Russel Hill road from just below St. Clair to Dupont was, as always, a complete adrenalin rush. There was a Toyota SUV in front of us at Clarendon, by the time I got to Cottingham (about 500m down the hill) the Toyota was out of sight it was so far back. (It probably helps that I was taking a 30km/h zone turn at over 50km/h.)
On Rosedale Valley Road an entire car managed to pass us on the 2km run from Park Road to Bayview. When we got back to Dundas Thi decided he needed to log some extra miles so while Ian had to meet someone Thi and I decided to try to meet up with the Saturday Pickering group, on the way we found Jason Charette who rode with us.
We climbed the hill at Kingston Road between Birchmount and Danforth, Thi started hammering and while Jason and I were keeping a fine form at first, doing 35km/h up the hill I found the 90km already on my legs hurt too much and I decided to drop back a little and regain my ground later on. I think Thi was feeling generous and decided to stop at the Tim Hortons just past the Danforth merge. We waited a while and the Pickering group never showed, so we headed home. In short it was a good day, complete with a lot of proper burn your legs sprinting and hill climbing. Hopefully we will do another ride like that one again soon.
We first had to work our way to the bike trail from the Toronto Public Library Branch at Gerrard and Broadview. This involved a great deal of winding around street car tracks, bad drivers (question who is worse, pick-up trucks or taxis?), oblivious pedestrians and so on. By the time we got to the trail I was seeing red and started an attack, Thi held on and would not let go. Ian was still warming up and dropped off. I slowed down and by the by Ian got back on. Of course having set a speed Thi and Ian were now ready to run hot.
We went up Royal York and as per standard operating procedure missed the light at The Queensway. When we finally did clear Royal York and The Queensway I was feeling slow and it showed, 26 km/h, Thi and Ian started complaining and before I knew what's what, found myself desperately drafting trying very hard not to fall off their backsides.
When we got to St. Phillips I made a discovery, the entire run from Dixon to Weston I was never once going slower than the posted speed limit. Sadly there was no cop around to give me a speeding ticket. (A speeding ticket whilst cycling would be awesome!) I maxed out at about 55km/h just before hitting the brakes as I neared the traffic light at Weston, Ian and Thi both passed me going down the hill. We used Oak St. and Wendell to cross highway 401, which is probably one of the nicest places to cross the highway in the city, it is a minor side road with no interchange.
We used Bartor, Arrow, Signet and Weston Road to get up to Langstaff, while mostly keeping the pace down to the low 30s an occasional sprint up a hill left me hurting. But when we turned on Langstaff we got nailed by a good 20 or 30km/h East Wind, it was a fight to go east. We used Creditstone and took it to Rutherford and then down Keele, although looking at the map now, it occurs to me, one day we should just take Creditstone (becomes Melville) all the way up past Major MacKenzie - heck a guy could use this as a route to (or from) Klienburg.
The journey home was, with the exception of a rude driver (honked at for no good reason) largely uneventful. The trip down Russel Hill road from just below St. Clair to Dupont was, as always, a complete adrenalin rush. There was a Toyota SUV in front of us at Clarendon, by the time I got to Cottingham (about 500m down the hill) the Toyota was out of sight it was so far back. (It probably helps that I was taking a 30km/h zone turn at over 50km/h.)
On Rosedale Valley Road an entire car managed to pass us on the 2km run from Park Road to Bayview. When we got back to Dundas Thi decided he needed to log some extra miles so while Ian had to meet someone Thi and I decided to try to meet up with the Saturday Pickering group, on the way we found Jason Charette who rode with us.
We climbed the hill at Kingston Road between Birchmount and Danforth, Thi started hammering and while Jason and I were keeping a fine form at first, doing 35km/h up the hill I found the 90km already on my legs hurt too much and I decided to drop back a little and regain my ground later on. I think Thi was feeling generous and decided to stop at the Tim Hortons just past the Danforth merge. We waited a while and the Pickering group never showed, so we headed home. In short it was a good day, complete with a lot of proper burn your legs sprinting and hill climbing. Hopefully we will do another ride like that one again soon.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
On Trojans
As I alluded to yesterday, I broke down and bought a Lezyne Micro Floor pump that mounts beside the water bottle cage on the downtube. I am still schleping around the Carbon Dioxide cartridges and pump while I decide how to do things in the long term.
Anyway a quick product review, from an end consumer who paid for the thing out of his own pocket. When I brought the pump home the first thing I did was try it on a deflated tyre, it takes a fair bit of hand action and it is a pain to bend over far enough to work the thing, but, it is a lot easier to use then the hand pumps and getting that high pressure that roadies like, 120psi, does seem possible. Although the pressure gauge seems a little flaky.
First I started inflating the tyre and the gauge stayed at zero for about ten or fifteen pumps, then suddenly the gauge shot up to 20 psi and quickly, four or five pumps hit 40 psi, the pumping steadily brought the gauge to 70 psi where it again stayed no matter how much pumping I did. Now this particular tube did have a leak, but it was a slow leaker and while the gauge said 70psi I did a pinch test and it felt more like 120, maybe even 140 psi.
So, in short, besides a flaky gauge this is an effective roadside recovery tool, except, the pump is all machined aluminum which is a good thing when it's a floor pump or when you want durability, but when you've got the pump mounted along side your $1000 to $3000 carbon fibre bicycle frame, just millimeters from your feet that are turning in the cranks 80 to 120 revolutions per minute you probably don't want machined aluminum banging up against that carbon beauty. Ultimately I took a leaky tube, which I have several, used a sharp pair of scissors and wrapped both ends as well as a wide point near the base of the pump with sections of tube and then kept the tube in place with elastic bands. My fix does not look pretty but at least my frame will not get hurt. That said, if someone from Lezyne ever does read this, a couple requests:
Anyway a quick product review, from an end consumer who paid for the thing out of his own pocket. When I brought the pump home the first thing I did was try it on a deflated tyre, it takes a fair bit of hand action and it is a pain to bend over far enough to work the thing, but, it is a lot easier to use then the hand pumps and getting that high pressure that roadies like, 120psi, does seem possible. Although the pressure gauge seems a little flaky.
First I started inflating the tyre and the gauge stayed at zero for about ten or fifteen pumps, then suddenly the gauge shot up to 20 psi and quickly, four or five pumps hit 40 psi, the pumping steadily brought the gauge to 70 psi where it again stayed no matter how much pumping I did. Now this particular tube did have a leak, but it was a slow leaker and while the gauge said 70psi I did a pinch test and it felt more like 120, maybe even 140 psi.
So, in short, besides a flaky gauge this is an effective roadside recovery tool, except, the pump is all machined aluminum which is a good thing when it's a floor pump or when you want durability, but when you've got the pump mounted along side your $1000 to $3000 carbon fibre bicycle frame, just millimeters from your feet that are turning in the cranks 80 to 120 revolutions per minute you probably don't want machined aluminum banging up against that carbon beauty. Ultimately I took a leaky tube, which I have several, used a sharp pair of scissors and wrapped both ends as well as a wide point near the base of the pump with sections of tube and then kept the tube in place with elastic bands. My fix does not look pretty but at least my frame will not get hurt. That said, if someone from Lezyne ever does read this, a couple requests:
- Please make proper rubber frame protectors that would mount on both ends of the pump and probably strap to each other so they don't fall off (maybe strap to the frame too so there is extra protection against the pump falling off?)
- Fix that damned pressure gauge, it was brutal.
That said, the pump itself is pretty good, I don't think anyone would want to lug something like the Lezyne around in a race, but on a training ride, especially when you get far from home, it is a good thing to have around.
Now as for the subject of this post, yesterday I found three Trojan horses on my PC at work, they completely buggered up network file access. I don't visit those, cough, inappropriate, web sites, so I have to wonder how they got here. Must be Microsoft.com, sorry does that count as inappropriate? I'm beginning to think so!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
On The Problems With Carbon Dioxide
I feel a little like a pro cyclist lately. Let me explain, a friend of mine was telling me, the higher up you get in the world of cycling, the more often you change teams. Yes sir, I am back in the job market, sorry to say, but the current job is too stressful. I think this is a function of entrepreneurs, they can start a business but cannot listen to the advice of others. Anyway enough of head banging.
So I have been horribly busy with work lately and haven't had a chance to post recently but here are some updates.
Friday the 13'th I rode to work, it was very nice, logged 79km and then went grocery shopping. Saturday Thi and I did a ride around Mississauga, ended up logging 110km. Later that day Thi and I sat around and drank a lot of beer while I changed the cassette on his Zipp wheel set, he was a 12-27, now an 11-28. (Actually I now know I'm an old fart, a lot of beer, was two bottles, actually we mostly sat around and talked, cycling, politics, economics, all sorts of random things.)
I was on call on Sunday so I stayed home. I did laundry, I made pasta, I swapped out tyres on Jordan, she's got Vittoria Open Corsa EVO CX now, she had Vredestein Fortezza Tricomps. Now in theory the Vredesteins are slower and heavier, they are a bigger pain to change than the Vittoria's, but, the Vredesteins almost never puncture roadside. The Vittoria's, well I found a staple in the on my very first ride after the change, I got to work. Didn't check through the day and when I went to go home, noticed my back tyre was flat. A road side change in the office!
So Monday afternoon, in the comfort of my office, 25km from home I changed a tyre, luckily it was a Vittoria so it was not a total war to get the thing off my wheel, unluckily it was a Vittoria so all it took was a rusty staple to puncture. Sigh. The first Carbon Dioxide cartridge did not discharge properly and got my tyre to about 40 psi, I need 100 psi on a road bike tyre. The second cartridge was even worse, down to 20 psi. I was beginning to loose faith in my pump. The third cartridge worked, about 80psi, enough to limp home.
I got home, put Jordan on the stand, had dinner with Lesley and went back downstairs to look at the tyres, maybe there would be a thumb tack?
When I got down to Jordan I found the front tyre to be in perfect condition and the back tyre was clearly, using my thumb and forefinger test, down to between 20 and 40 psi. I took the tube and tyre out and gave a very careful inspection of everything, I put the tyre and tube back and reinflated to 120psi. About a half hour later I rechecked, 100 psi. Yet another tube later and I was in business. The suspect tube I inflated on the floor until it was about six feet on it's side, by this morning, it was nearly flat, but no evidence of a leak. My pet theory, some dirt wedged into the valve from my pump and air was escaping from whence it came. So I am going to throw in the towel, I am completely fed up with the carbon dioxide cartridges, I cannot get to a good air pressure and all to often end up loosing a tube to the vagaries of the pump. I won't use a hand pump, I'm sorry, I am not good at masturbating in public (ever see a person use a hand pump? 'Nugh said.) Instead I will get a bottle cage mounted mini floor pump, obviously the ideal, well the ideal is a support car with spare wheels on the roof, but given that I am not riding Le Tour, I guess this is probably the best I can arrange, hey it beats walking home, or shudder, driving!
So I have been horribly busy with work lately and haven't had a chance to post recently but here are some updates.
Friday the 13'th I rode to work, it was very nice, logged 79km and then went grocery shopping. Saturday Thi and I did a ride around Mississauga, ended up logging 110km. Later that day Thi and I sat around and drank a lot of beer while I changed the cassette on his Zipp wheel set, he was a 12-27, now an 11-28. (Actually I now know I'm an old fart, a lot of beer, was two bottles, actually we mostly sat around and talked, cycling, politics, economics, all sorts of random things.)
I was on call on Sunday so I stayed home. I did laundry, I made pasta, I swapped out tyres on Jordan, she's got Vittoria Open Corsa EVO CX now, she had Vredestein Fortezza Tricomps. Now in theory the Vredesteins are slower and heavier, they are a bigger pain to change than the Vittoria's, but, the Vredesteins almost never puncture roadside. The Vittoria's, well I found a staple in the on my very first ride after the change, I got to work. Didn't check through the day and when I went to go home, noticed my back tyre was flat. A road side change in the office!
So Monday afternoon, in the comfort of my office, 25km from home I changed a tyre, luckily it was a Vittoria so it was not a total war to get the thing off my wheel, unluckily it was a Vittoria so all it took was a rusty staple to puncture. Sigh. The first Carbon Dioxide cartridge did not discharge properly and got my tyre to about 40 psi, I need 100 psi on a road bike tyre. The second cartridge was even worse, down to 20 psi. I was beginning to loose faith in my pump. The third cartridge worked, about 80psi, enough to limp home.
I got home, put Jordan on the stand, had dinner with Lesley and went back downstairs to look at the tyres, maybe there would be a thumb tack?
When I got down to Jordan I found the front tyre to be in perfect condition and the back tyre was clearly, using my thumb and forefinger test, down to between 20 and 40 psi. I took the tube and tyre out and gave a very careful inspection of everything, I put the tyre and tube back and reinflated to 120psi. About a half hour later I rechecked, 100 psi. Yet another tube later and I was in business. The suspect tube I inflated on the floor until it was about six feet on it's side, by this morning, it was nearly flat, but no evidence of a leak. My pet theory, some dirt wedged into the valve from my pump and air was escaping from whence it came. So I am going to throw in the towel, I am completely fed up with the carbon dioxide cartridges, I cannot get to a good air pressure and all to often end up loosing a tube to the vagaries of the pump. I won't use a hand pump, I'm sorry, I am not good at masturbating in public (ever see a person use a hand pump? 'Nugh said.) Instead I will get a bottle cage mounted mini floor pump, obviously the ideal, well the ideal is a support car with spare wheels on the roof, but given that I am not riding Le Tour, I guess this is probably the best I can arrange, hey it beats walking home, or shudder, driving!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
On Red Lights
I ended my previous post with a comment to the effect that I guess I am going to have to get my speed training on my daily ride to work. Well today would have to count. Now it is only about 25km from home (near Woodbine and Queen Street) to work (near Highway 7 and Leslie) - almost all uphill. But I averaged 29 km/h. Okay, so the guys in the Pro Pelaton do a lot better, but then they don't have red lights. I swear I think some traffic planner is looking at me from some camera (or several cameras) and timing the lights so I get red after damned red. (The sound you hear is my eyes rolling... blasted red lights.)
Yesterday the best manager in the world came by my place for a beer. Its funny, when I worked for Ian there were days I couldn't stand the guy, but looking back, Ian was the best. Anyway Ian came by, we talked about aviation (his father used to work for Pratt and Whitney Canada and his brother works at Embraer) we talked about old times, what my former colleagues thought of the restructuring - they are mostly actively job searching, eight months later than Ian and I, but at least they see the writing on the wall. We talked about Triathlons.
Ian told me something interesting. A woman he knows is a runner, she runs marathons and has even done so well in the famous Boston Marathon she's been invited to do a Triathlon. Only problem, she's a runner. Anyway she's high enough up the food chain that she landed herself a nice Cervelo of some sort (Ian doesn't know the exact model but I got the impression it's a proper Tri bike). Now this lady and her fancy Cervelo are training to do a Tri. I asked about joining a bike club, and Ian told me something that I've sort of always known but never really put two plus two together in my head. The lady doesn't want advice, most people don't want advice come to think of it. Anyway she doesn't want advice so badly that she would rather train by herself than in a club. I guess this is why so many women run or ride alone? Anyway I'll have to remember that the next time I see someone lift their heels whilst spinning.
Yesterday the best manager in the world came by my place for a beer. Its funny, when I worked for Ian there were days I couldn't stand the guy, but looking back, Ian was the best. Anyway Ian came by, we talked about aviation (his father used to work for Pratt and Whitney Canada and his brother works at Embraer) we talked about old times, what my former colleagues thought of the restructuring - they are mostly actively job searching, eight months later than Ian and I, but at least they see the writing on the wall. We talked about Triathlons.
Ian told me something interesting. A woman he knows is a runner, she runs marathons and has even done so well in the famous Boston Marathon she's been invited to do a Triathlon. Only problem, she's a runner. Anyway she's high enough up the food chain that she landed herself a nice Cervelo of some sort (Ian doesn't know the exact model but I got the impression it's a proper Tri bike). Now this lady and her fancy Cervelo are training to do a Tri. I asked about joining a bike club, and Ian told me something that I've sort of always known but never really put two plus two together in my head. The lady doesn't want advice, most people don't want advice come to think of it. Anyway she doesn't want advice so badly that she would rather train by herself than in a club. I guess this is why so many women run or ride alone? Anyway I'll have to remember that the next time I see someone lift their heels whilst spinning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
