New Route

On Sunday when Eileen and I were traipsing around the city - me trying to determine if the asthma was going do me in - we stumbled upon a new route for me to take to work. Ironically the route is really just an extension of the bike route that passes down our street! I've only taken it so far...until Sunday. I've been using it all week so far and it is pretty quiet. There's one spot where people seemed to be rather stunned, but its really only one block, better than the several blocks of the other route.
One of the bonuses of cycling to work (or anywhere) is the ality to mix up the route every now and then. For a year now I've missed an entire neighborhood, complete with sleepy streets. I wonder what else I am missing?

Snuffleupagus

Last week I put the bike away and dealt with a allergy-related cold. For the first time in many years my asthma kicked in to gear to make the matters worse. I haven't needed to use my inhaler like that for, no-joke, 15 years.

Anyways I claim to be mostly through all of that. I still have a lingering cough and my sinuses still enjoy be clogged most of the time (that's typical for the spring) but my energy is up and I'm back on the bike.

On Sunday Eileen and I took a tour around the city for a few hours, I was hoping to ride the 100km Pacific Populaire this year but didn't want to push my luck. Dang.

As of yesterday I've recommenced riding to work, flinging snot rockets as I go. Today I was thanked by a guy on a recumbent for 'shoulder checking before unleashing', No problem.
Its been very sunny out the past few days - its great being able to get some much needed vitamin D.

rail trail

My daily ride to work runs near a pretty long stretch of abandoned railway track. Last year a fellow commuter suggest that I try riding it as part of my route. I rode parts of it a few times and didn't give it much thought. A few weeks back I was feeling my lack of off-road riding and figured some gravel trails would be good medicine. The bike has skinny slicks on it these days so they are not the best for off-roading it, but they are holding up fine. On the way to work I stick to the roads, but on the way home I manage to sneak in a several km stretch of singletrack. The singletrack route, if anything is faster than the roads because there is not a lot of road crossings and you don't always have to be on the lookout for vehicles. At the moment I am considering putting some bigger tires on the bike to take the harshness out of the ride, but I am happy being able to spin along on the road and do quite well on the trail.

Ride of Silence

In cities all around the world cyclists gather for group rides. Vancouver has all sorts from the international, to the local, to the specific and local. If I ever get my new bike, I may even try to get my own going.

As cyclists, we all love to ride. As commuters, we all ride on the streets with cars. This bike-car relationship can be rocky sometimes. Sometimes people get hurt, sometimes people get killed. Enter the Ride of Silence, a group ride that exists to remind the world that roadways are here to be shared, to remind people that cyclists can easily be hurt or killed on the road by motor vehicles.

The Ride of Silence has spread its wings to cover many cities in its 5 year tenure, a list of locations complete with information is is provided on their site. In Vancouver, the local site is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rideofsilence/ and the details for the ride are:

Meet at Grandview Park at 7:00 on Thursday May 17th 2007. The riding pace will be easy and last about an hour, ending downtown the way it will start: in silence.

The return

S oI hopped on the fixed monkey today after about a 10 day hiatus from riding (...out of town see below) Ugh, I wasn't the fastest Johnny on the bike route this morning but it felt great to be out in the morning air. I was up a bit earlier today so I headed to work about a half an hour earlier than usual. To no surprise I didn't leave any earlier...
On the way home I ran into one of my usuals, well at least a guy I see every 6 months or so. Until today he had a Johnny-name, the name I give to people who I don't know. The format is like Johnny Red-Shirt, such that the last name has to describe the person. Anyways this gentleman always comments on my singlespeededness and I usually ask about his efforts in doing the Trans-Rockies race which he has told me about. He met some fellas that did it singlespeed last year, that's nuts. The race is something obscene like 600km in 7 days in the rockies. Today we talked shop - racing mainly (a bit of work talk too), but he gave me the heads up on a local race that is starting this summer. One that looks really cool, cause it starts in my back yard, the BC Bike Race, a race from Victoria to Whistler. That looks pretty sweet, I'll have to keep my ear to the ground about its goings-on. I ain't been racin' fer some time, I just might have to do a cross race this fall though.
Back to the commuting aspect of this post - ahem, where was I - so the cool part about this was that although I took my sweet-arsed time getting to work this morning, on the way home I got to ride and talk about 2/3rds of the way home and it seemed like no time at all, plus I took the long way home. Time flies when you are talking bikes.

I am not a messenger

nor am I a posenger, but I don't really care about what I am not.... anyways.

Besides lugging my clothes to work day in day out, I don't often carry much else (what I carry is another post). Today I had to make a few stops so I had to do some hauling. First I packed my lock, which I don't usually carry as my bike sits in the machine shop at work, then headed out. First stop was my 'old' office with which my company is now separated from. We still like to borrow tools from each other though and I was in search of a 1/4" NPT die which I did not find. weak. So after a few minutes of chit chat with old friends and coworkers I was on my way. This stop was on my way, but I got to take a different route for a while -always a nice change. I rode by my LBS and shook my fist at it for not having my bike in yet and continued past a friend headed in the opposite direction. Stop 2 was at Home Depot for some plumbing supplies. Have you ever tried to find a place to lock your bike at Home Depot? No, didn't think so. I ended up using some temporary fencing as an anchor. I guess they don't get too many people in there buying drywall and loading it onto their xtracycles. After Home Depot it was off to work via some previously unexplored territory.

Using my bike as my vehicle to run errands for work is particularily liberating. Most of the things I deal with comes from afar or in great quantity so the chance to pick up a few wee things here and there is nice.

On the way home I noticed a friend's truck parked on the road near his house - a sign that he was back in town. A quick call revealed that he was not home, rather at school finishing up a paper. My attempts at extorting beer from him had failed. I could have resorted to B&E and theft I suppose. Instead I continued on. A handful of blocks from my house is a liquor store. I figured since I was hauling my lock around I would stop in for a visit. Ten minutes later I left with a bottle of red wine, a 6-pack and a 'big beer' (the essentials) which I proceeded to stuff into my messenger bag on top of my clothes. It all fit. Sweet.

All in all a great day for riding. The differences that a lock and a few places to go can make....

Side note: posting title provided by shirts that used to be available from Dustin at Cadence.

if you have to ask

The weather in Vancouver continues to eat at the soul of its inhabitants. Thursday and Friday were particularily miserable with lots of wind, rain and chilly (for this time of the year) temperatures. I won't lie, I opted to NOT ride. I wasn't emotionally ready for it so I resorted to other means. Call it weakness, I call it spending quality time with my iPod on the bus.

A few months back in Dirt Rag, there was a wicked one-pager titled Bikakure: The Book of the Commuter. It states:

"The Way of the Commuter is found in riding. When the question is whether to ride or not, the answer is always to ride. The Way of the Commuter places emphasis on many qualities, including loyalty, self-sacrifice, justice, sense of shame, refined manners, purity, modesty, frugality, commuting spirit, honor and affection."

This online version of it seems to date back to 2005, I am glad they finally put it into print. Anyways on Thursday/Friday I didn't even ask myself whether or not to ride, I just said F it, and went on my way. I adopted the if you have to ask... policy in January, I like it. You just have to be weary about when you ask yourself whether or not to get on your bike cause it isn't always what you want to hear!

To make up for a few miserable days, I went out on a good ride today to blow some steam off and get some vitamin D from my friend the Sun. More on that ride later.

It's a hard rain

It was damn cold today, considering spring is supposedly sprung. It was spitting rain on the ride home, except for the parts of my journey where it was &^%$ing hailing. It wasn't very big hail, I guess it was more like freezing rain. It stung though. damn.

Nothing to note during the ride yesterday unless you count the two dudes (I am assuming teenager, I am assuming mildly intoxicated) sitting on newspaper boxes at Granville and 10th who were waving to cars, trying to get big trucks to honk, by doing the proper hand motions, and belting out the lyrics to Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back. That's right - All you other brothers can't deny. That was fitting, my mental iPod has been playing lots of rap and hip-hop during the rides. The Roots being the major plaver.

I have talked to a few more people about the group ride and started a draft email. I should get that out in a few days. I figure I'll do a write-up about a piece of gear that I like soon too (ideally to become a regular occurence) I teenk I'll start with my Chrome bag or my MEC wool longsleeve.

Weekend group ride

Over the past few days I have been talking to some people's about trying to set up a group ride for a bunch of us cyclist-types that are not affiliated with any serious riding clubs. Weeknights are usually packed for any one particular person so we have been thinking a weekend ride. Weekend rides can easily interfere with hangovers so I am thinking a ride a bit later in the morning, maybe 10:00ish, ride for a few hours (pace to be moderate), then hit up food (pints) afterwards. The routes will be decided on the fly, people can ride at their own pace, the night before can be sweat out. Yeah, something like that.

To be honest, unless I could think up a good title for a ride like this, I wouldn't even mention the idea here. I spent my entire ride home trying to think up something witty. What did I come up with? I am sort of thinking Tour De'toxification or as the Italians would say Giro De'toxification. If this ends up being the name, I fully expect someone to show up with detox in a bento box (triathletes I am pointing at you).

Stay tuned.

It's not about riding with who you know...

...it's about riding with who you don't know. I ride past people all the time (yeah yeah, I get passed by a few too). Most of the time I give, at the very least, a 'hello'. Sometimes a comment about the weather or something else. Every now and then I will actually get talking to someone for long stretches of road.

Take today, for example. I rode with Johnny Biopace (I never asked for his name, but he was talking about his Biopace chainring) for about 15 minutes and he showed me an alternate route through the urban jungle. I'd talked to him before - about building singlespeeds, gear ratios etc. Today we talked city riding, detours because of the new Skytrain route, and mangled Aluminum cyclocross frames. Oh yeah, and Biopace chainrings and how they are probably a bad thing for singlespeeds, but worth a shot if you accidentally bought one.

Shooting the breeze with someone on the way home is great - it makes a great ride that much better. I have a few 'regulars' that I see every so often, but its the lone road warriors that you really only see once that really keep it interesting.