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Thursday, May 29, 2008

On road conditions for the Toronto Criterium

Yesterday evening I bought Lesley a brand new Specialized Dolce Elite, you can salivate over a picture of it below. (Right now she has the cheepy pedals, once she masters road biking she can clip in and take wipe outs just like her husband. We now have four bikes at home, her K2 POS for commuting, her baby, my Coppi for commuting and my baby. I am embarrassed to admit, we still own a car... but that will change soon enough. (I hope!)


Prior to actually buying the bike, Dan (the same guy who started the Beaches Cycling Club, see what I'm reading over on the right) was nice enough to size me on my bike. I have this to say, the guys at the place I bought my Roubaix -not where Dan works, he's at Cycle Solutions on Kingston Road - were real lazy jerks! I was beginning to think my Roubaix was the wrong size for me, it turns out it needed some pretty hefty adjustment by someone who knew what they were doing, that is all.

After adjusting and paying for the bikes Lesley and I road home, then because it's the end of the month Lesley had to go back to her office to work - no that's not some euphemism, Lesley's job gets very busy at month end. So I was home, alone at a quarter to eight with nothing to do but clean cat litter. I started to feel really under the weather and just sat down on the floor of the basement wondering what the hell to do. Then it hit me, I am still wearing my bike jersey and (admittedly regular) shorts, and my bike is right beside me and ready to ride... since I didn't have any lights I only managed to squeeze in just 19km before the sun went down but its amazing how refreshing a good ride feels. (Sorry guys, it blows the rush from skating clear out of the water.)

Sometimes I think what the world needs more of are people on bikes... I bet if they put Robert Mugabe on a bike... well in a perfect world he'd be run over by a large tank. But I bet there would be a lot less rat race and stress if everyone rode on muscles instead of crushed 500 million year old algae.

Tomorrow afternoon is the Toronto Criterium. I won't be able to go, I have an inescapable family function, but I am going to try to squeeze in a few minutes to watch a little. Now I skate, or ride half the Crit's course every day on my way to the office and its not a pretty course, there are pot holes, there are swears, there are speed bumps coming off turns and hills, and best of all there is a BFCS (Big Flipping Construction Site) right at the corner of Scott and The Esplanade, to racers who might read this, take that corner real wide unless you've already done a few laps and know what I'm talking about. Its not a pretty 100 degree (or 80 degree, depends which way your going) turn. There are large concrete obstructions that are easy to crash into.

I skated to work today, have to eat dinner at my parents and since I will walk there with Lesley riding makes less sense, but I have to admit skating just isn't as fun. I think a big problem is I want so badly to be the fastest person on the trail and when I ride that is a pretty much a sure thing, but when I skate a strong cyclist, even one with a second rate bike and jeans can kick my sorry ass, as happened today. (I guess I am still a big of a show-off at heart.)

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