On A bumpy ride

Tuesday night I did the 'Escape the Don' ride with the Beaches Cycle Club. There was only one image, taken after the ride ended. Dan disabled the flash so the red light from the traffic lights creates an ambiance that I personally am not entirely fond of, but at least there is a nice wide depth of field, something you don't get when the shutter speed is too high. (Even in digital cameras lessons from my 35mm still apply.)



The ride was fast, we took the standard route to the coffee shop, but instead of going south through York University, Dan decided to go straight along Steeles all the way to Yonge and then south on Yonge Street. I made a very important discovery, I need more, better, lights. On the way out, on Queens Quay there was a metal grate in the road. My front wheel got into a rut and steered hard right, I thought I was going to crash for sure, the guys who were behind me said I still looked stable, but I sure did not feel that way. Had I been able to see the grate from just a little further away I am sure I would have had no trouble avoiding it. Then coming south on Yonge just below the 401 I was doing about 52km/h when I hit a small lump in the road, not even a bump really, but at 52km/h you don't need much to get air time, granted only a few centimeters and only for perhaps a tenth of a second, but again, it is the fear thing. After that bump I rode the brakes all the way to the bottom of the hill (Hogs Hollow). Of course the leaders of the pack must have waited some time for me at the top of the hill at Yonge Blvd, but a crash at 50km/h would have been very ugly at best. There is a moral here, if you ride at night, lights are not just so cars can see you, they are also good if you can use them to see the road. Anyway here is the route.


In other news I spent much of the evening, well working actually, had to update a web server, but also cleaning Erin. I noticed the front wheel is not completely true, but it is a lot better than her back wheel. I took the cassette off to clean that as well, when I replaced the cassette I forgot to put the little plastic ring that goes on the hub between the cassette and the wheel itself. Its amazing how much rattle the little piece of plastic prevents. When you think about it, it seems that so much about bikes hangs together with little more than a thread and a prayer.

On Anticipation

First I have added more bike makers to the list. However in order to do that I had to remove the old survey, add a new survey and put in all the original answers, since there already seven votes I had to allow myself to vote multiple times (I am not walking around the office voting from different machines just to get the numbers back to where they were, and I don’t have seven PCs at home.) So this works on the honour system, please only vote once, and don’t ask me to add another bike maker, because it is quite the pain to add to a poll once people have voted. (On an related note, I would like to add, in the interests of objectivity and all that, I have not voted and will not vote, also, although at this point only ‘two people’ have voted, me from my laptop and desktop – two votes for Cervelo – I have simply taken the votes from the old poll and transferred them to the new poll, I have not changed anyone’s pre-existing vote.)

Tonight I am going to do the Escape the Don ride. There is a certain degree of nervousness, as I know I am about to get my rear end seriously handed to me and the thought of chasing after a bunch of tiny red blinking lights on dark city roads, in some of the less desirable areas of town –to put things lightly-, is rather depressing. But I know that every time I do these psycho rides I get stronger, I get better and one day I will not be the guy frantically trying to keep up with the pack, instead I’ll be the guy pulling most of the time while the pack frantically tries to keep up with me.

On a totally unrelated note, I have been thinking a lot lately about why I blog. I suppose part of it is my dream of becoming a great novelist and living off fat royalty cheques for the rest of my days, won’t happen if my writing is not great and the writing won’t be great if I don’t practice. I suppose that dream is an awful lot like my dream of winning the lottery, statistically possible, but practically impossible. But as I think about it, I recall some years ago an Iranian woman, not very old, perhaps in her 20s being interviewed on the radio, it was the first time I had heard the term ‘blog’ actually, so it must have been 2002, or 2003. This woman noted the fact that it would be people like her who would finally bring the Ayatollahs down. I wonder, could blogging ever be more than just naval gazing? Could my writings, well alright, not my writings, but could someone’s words written in a journal spell the end of some horrible regime? It occurs to me it already has happened, Trent Lott lost his position as Senate Majority leader when bloggers forced Lott’s remarks at Storm Thurmond’s birthday into the news. But could a blog ever do in a repressive regime like Iran or North Korea? Or China?

We live in interesting times, challenging certainly, but also interesting. Outcomes are far from certain.

On half weekends

This weekend was pretty lousy for me sorry to say. First it rained a lot, second Sunday was a write off of a day. But let me explain things in order.

Saturday my neighbour, Frank, and I went for a ride. I got Frank into road biking – only took one quick note on the back of an envelope about two months ago, an invitation to borrow my old Coppi and go for a ride with me and $2000 and a dandy little Giant something or other later, Frank is in the BCC and doing 100km! Anyway I had hopped to do the full 180km from Lake Ontario to Simcoe and back, but Frank did not feel up to the task and had to be home by 11am. So at about 5:30 we set out with less ambitious goals. My hope was Ravenshoe road, but Frank was slow off the start, in the first hour we had hardly made it to Steeles, I had to further curtail my goals and aim for a modest Vivian road and back run. Somewhere just north of Steeles a guy on a road bike caught up and I started talking, it turned out, I was riding along side Peter Oyler as he trained for his next Race Across America. Peter was kind enough to slow down for a while and talk, mostly give his advice on how to ride effectively. Peter’s goal for that day was over 200km, so I was rather surprised at how long he stayed and talked.

I suppose if I were in a financial position where I could afford to take a year off and train the RAAM (Race Across America) is something I would love to do. For those of you who do not want to read up on the RAAM, the rules are stupid easy, you mount your saddle in Ocean Side CA and ride, usually for about 10 to 15 days, with less than 24 hours of total time off the saddle, the ride ends in Atlantic City NJ, about 3000 miles from the starting line. N.B. Time off the saddle is optional, almost discouraged, as the first person across the finish line wins.

Perhaps it was Peter’s coaching, or maybe it was his inspiring, or maybe Frank just needed a long time to warm up, but when we turned around from Vivian Frank did much better, whereas on the trip North we average about 22km/h the trip south we were doing something around 30km/h. I think Frank just wanted to catch up with some of the other riders who were out, (and passing us) by the time we turned for home. I stopped the clock at 100.6km, just outside Cycle Solutions, where Frank bought a pair of riding gloves and Maki told me that the only way to get my rear wheel right back to true was to replace the rim. I need a second job, does anyone need a part time Unix/Network analyst? Anyway here is the route, it is a nice one if you want to put in a quick 100km in the country.

When I we got home Frank had to go look after personal matters but another neighbour of mine, Jeff, was out reading the paper, so I loaned Jeff Amy and got him riding with me to Queens Quay and Jarvis and back. Truth is I am trying to get Jeff to buy Amy, but it was interesting, to notice the most common mistake that I know I too was guilty of not so long ago. Too many novice cyclists grind, I guess the thought process is, “oh god, the pack, (or the other guy) is going so fast, I better crank this thing to a stupid high gear and catch up”. Except as anyone with experience knows, grinding is a good way to turn the legs into flaming jello. Jeff complained to me that the gears did not go high enough, I pointed out that in fact I am spinning way faster than he is, I am also going faster. At least that ride gave me one more chance to get outside. Shortly after we got home it started raining and kept on raining off and on through until Monday morning.

Sunday I had promised, and delivered on that promise, to go with my parents, and Lesley to see a play in Stratford. Yes the play was nice, but I just cannot rectify four hours of driving for a two hour play, plus two hours for lunch and wandering around Stratford. Wouldn’t it make more sense, and save a lot of gas and money, to maybe see a play on Yonge street? Or just go for a nice dinner somewhere? Ultimately all of that driving around plus the play and the time wandering around Stratford (a town that does have a pretty decent looking bike shop, but is closed at noon on a Sunday!) basically blew Sunday away for me. I had to race when I got home to get all of my Sunday chores done in preparation for the week to come. Lesley and I said good-bye to the cats at 10am and got home at almost 8pm, so if there is a moral to this story it is if you want culture stay home, unless of course you live in Waterloo, in which case, you are probably beyond redemption.

On Bad Drivers and Weekend Plans

In the NBC TV drama The West Wing the actor Martin Sheen plays the President of the United States, Jed Bartlet. In the first season ‘President’ Bartlet gives a speech where he quotes then real live Vice President Al Gore, When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler. Except in the West Wing Sheen does not say holler he said ‘bang your fist on the table’ which frankly sounds a lot better to me.

Well something happened to me yesterday, I have the law on my side, I have the facts on my side, so the Beck Taxi drive hollered – a lot of four letter words at me.

I was riding on the bike trail that runs on the north side of Lakeshore Blvd, at Carlaw and Lakeshore there are clearly marked traffic lights for bikes on the bike trail and there is a clearly marked ‘no right on red’ for cars turning onto Lakeshore from Carlaw. I had a green, the Taxi on Carlaw had a red, he started turning anyway. When I yelled at him he had the audacity, and stupidity, to yell back. I pointed out that “right now [he] is breaking the law”, remarkably he shut up at that point. I suspect he finally clued in that I was actually in the right, I was crossing on a green and he was turning illegally. I have to ask the question though, are cab drivers physically incapable of obeying traffic laws unless they are yelled at? Second thought, I want to revise and amend my question, remove the word ‘cab’ from that question.

Although, speaking of being right, the guy who fixed my bike is Maki, Andrew Maki, not Mackey. To be fair, I only heard his name, never saw it spelled out. But Erin is fixed, remarkably nothing had to be replaced, besides the bar tape, total repairs cost under $100. Mind you the back wheel is not perfectly true even now, but it is close enough. Maybe one of these years I’ll get myself a truing stand, although I am such a klutz I’m likely to make a perfectly reasonable wheel a distorted disaster. I wonder, how much a replacement rim would cost, something to think about in several months if they are not too expensive, having distortions in the rim really hurts when I have to hit the brakes.

In other news, this weekend I will be missing the Tour De Creemore, sorry guys, I made a prior commitment. But I will try to make it out for next year. Saturday I am getting my neighbour Frank to come out for a ride with me. He thinks we are just going for a nice gentle 120km (yes I should insert an insane and evil laugh here) in truth my goal is a nice 161km, so probably up to near Lake Simcoe and home. Alright maybe not an evil laugh, but we should push for more than just 75 miles.

On Skating and the Olympics

I have a theory, not to many skaters are reading my blog anymore, no one has picked a favourite skate boot, I already have five votes for bike, but nothing for skate. (No I did not vote, in either poll.) Still it is ironic, on March 7, that is only 5 months ago, if I were asked what I do with my spare time the answer would have to be skating, the next day I bought Amy and by the time I got home from my first ride to Burlington a few months later skating seemed to loose all its appeal.

My calf’s still hurt from my skate two days ago, I’ll live, but this race in Duluth is not going to be pretty. Meanwhile I will not be able to do the Escape the Don ride tonight, everything hurts too much. Oh well, at least there is next week. I guess it does not really matter, when I took Erin into the shop yesterday, a lot of begging and pleading resulted in Mackey (the mechanic) telling me he might be able to look at her today. But the look he gave when he saw how out of true the back wheel on Erin is, maybe I should just buy a couple new spokes and a new rim? I wonder how much that would cost. Alright that does it, I am buying a lottery ticket. I need the money.

On an unrelated note, I wrote once, that athletes ought to consider boycotting the Olympic games. I wrote that in sympathy for the Tibetans. My writing pissed off Jacky Shu, not that pissing someone off ever upset me, but one really good argument I forgot to provide, the air quality in North East China is appalling. If I were an endurance runner or cyclist I would be trying to break my leg right now just to get out of competing. Between the dioxins and suspended particulates, the air in Beijing is a toxicologists dream (or nightmare I suppose).

The government has closed factories and reduced the number of cars on the road and their harshest measures have simply arrested the growth of the poisons not actually reduced it. Meanwhile in three weeks the Olympics will be over and the PRC will go back to poisoning everybody’s air business as usual. (Its not as if a dioxin cares that it just crossed the border and is now blowing into International waters.)

So what is to be done? Boycott Chinese made products? Demand better environment protection in future trade treaties? Put the environment before human rights when lecturing Beijing (not that the Politburo cares). One hundred years ago the same sort of nonsense occurred in the United States, slowly the progressive movement cleaned up the mess. To be sure the corruption and lack of environmental awareness, as embodied by the Bush administration has made a modest resurgence, but it will be beaten back down as is the nature of democratic societies. But China is not democratic, a progressive movement cannot arise organically in a non democratic society, can it?

On Skating

Imagine if you will a blind person, slowly over a period of about a week in April of 2008 he (our blind person is a guy) gains his sense of sight. Then suddenly he looses it again on Sunday August 3 and has to go around with a cane. Not being blind I am not sure if my situation is quite that bad, but it sure felt pretty damned lousy.

Okay confession time, I really have got to change the name of this blog. The fact is, I cannot stand skating anymore. My knees are just killing - and all I did was a lousy 37km. I've done 160km rides and felt better after. Here's the ludicrous part, when I went for that skate I was pushing really hard at one point on Commissioner's street, and I look down at my GPS, all I've got on it was a lousy 23km/h. For that kind of cardio on Amy I'd expect to see at least 35km/h and on Erin, well frankly, 40km/h.

Given my current cardio health I think I will be fine in Duluth, I will not make a fool of myself or anything, but I also know I am not going to be finishing on any podium (except that since they have ten podium places for every age I actually might make the podium... but I won't be in the top three.)

Lately I've been thinking, if I ever get good enough I might join the Dark Horse Flyer's (the racing club associated with the Beaches Cycle Club) and do some bike races. But its a safe bet for me to say my skating days are pretty much over, baring another bike mishap.

On a related aside, to everyone at BCC, thanks for your enquires on my post crash status, it was really very decent of you all. I am impressed by the decency of everyone at the club, you guys are an awesome bunch.

On Crashing

This is a long weekend. I seem to be cursed on long weekends. It was the Victoria Day long weekend of 2000 that Cole Airlines enjoyed its one brief moment of air worthy status prior to a rough landing on the Martin Goodman Trail.

I crashed again today. Unlike crashes earlier in the year when it was a matter of not freeing my shoes from the pedals as the bike came to a stop, this crash was a result of events outside of my control. (I believe I have mastered the clip-in clip-out pedal system, not that a rapid clip-out would have helped today.)

I was riding with the BCC, out in Oshawa on Thickson North of Winchester, about 48km from the starting point. Just prior to that we had stopped for the ritual mid ride (well it was a 140km ride, so not so mid ride) coffee break. Just as we were getting ready to leave someone decided they needed to go to the washroom. I was getting cold so I declared that I would start and go slow. Dan announced that anyone who wanted to go now and slow should follow me.

After pulling the pack for about 3 or 4 minutes I decided to be a proactive leader, I told the guy behind me to maintain 26km/h for until a traffic light about 2km away then pick it up to 28km/h. I drifted towards the back of the pack to make sure everyone was in and doing alright. As I tried to drift back I found the pack moving too slowly so I raced back to the front and asked the lead guy to pick up the pace a bit. I should have stayed in front and pulled.

After telling the lead guy to pick it up, I drifted back, but the traffic was getting bad, Thickson is a two lane road with a gravel shoulder, I ended up planting myself in the middle of the pack as it was just too dangerous for me to continue on doubled up with the rest of the pace line. The pack started to go frustratingly slowly, then the guy in the front dropped back, and I felt relieved as things started to pick back up.

As we crossed Winchester a red sedan passed, very slowly, perhaps 35km/h to our 28km/h. Then suddenly the guy not 30cm right in front of me slammed on his brakes. I did the same but it was no good, before I knew up from down I was skidding along the road and then someone else literally rolled right over my back wheel.

For myself the damage is modest, a very minor cut on the knee. But for my bike (who's name, I finally settled on, from now on my bike is called Erin) the situation is very much more ugly. The back wheel is way out of true and needs the work of an experienced mechanic to fix. The hanger for the rear derailleur is bent and needs to be replaced, I am not confident that the rear derailleur is in good shape either - it will probably need to be replaced. The right pedal seems to be deformed, it does not look out of shape but I cannot unclip any more without a major struggle. The bar tape I could keep, but it is so badly scuffed on one side I might as well replace it too.

I was able to ride to the Go Train station in Oshawa, about 10km away, but I could feel my rear brake bouncing against the wheel every time I tried to engage the brakes. (Dan had to loosen the brake so that I could ride Erin in the first place, otherwise every time the untrue section of wheel hit the brake Erin would seize up.) I am sure that ride to the Go train did nothing good for the back wheel.

There is nothing dignified in taking a bike on the Go train, Erin is supposed to be ridden, not do the riding, worst of all, because it is a long weekend all the stores are closed today and tomorrow so I cannot take my broken parts in until Tuesday afternoon. I missed the Simcoe ride, I will miss the Tuesday Escape the Don ride. About the only good that will come of this whole experience is I will have to practice skating tomorrow, but lets be honest, skate or ride? Well I suppose if someone bashed me over the head - with a big rubber mallet - hard enough I might go for the skating, but I doubt it.

I should start a charity, the pay for Erin's repairs fund. I suppose I could ride Amy, but I want to sell her in her pristine state, I am afraid if I ride her I could damage her too. If anyone wants to contribute to the pay for Erin's repairs, just read up on some of the ads here on this blog, or do a Google search from the link up top. Thanks guys. - I know I have no shame, but it is for a good cause.