yesterday the unthinkable happened- a huge truck turning right struck a cyclist and crushed her under his wheels. it is a shock to the cycling community here. it was broad daylight, she was wearing a helmet, going from her street to a street with a bike lane on it.
here’s the news story, i can’t bear to recount more: on CBC news.
there will be a memorial ride and placement of a ghost bike on monday nov 14 at 7:30 am. the ride starts at Bloor and Spadina if you’re local (Toronto, Canada).
Tags:bicycles
Every February Toronto cyclists gather at the frozen Dufferin Grove Ice Rink for our annual Icycle Race. Pros spend weeks drilling tiny little screws into their tires to grip on the frozen slippery surface.
There are categories for men, women, and “rubber” (no studs).
spiky tire:
a very supportive (cold) crowd packs the boxes as well as gathers around the edges of the rink.
you usually put more screws on the left side of your tire for cornering like this:
Celeste on her unicycle won the rubber race. it’s always so entertaining with non-stop wipe outs!
for more photos go here.
by Kathleen from Toronto Canada.
my tumblr my twitter my flickr
two weeks ago we had our municipal elections here in Toronto, Canada. there was record voter turnout, and the anti-bike, anti-immigrant, red faced, short-tempered politician sadly won with a huge margin. now our bike community has to figure out what to do with four years of a mayor who threatens to remove bike lanes, cancel transit-building plans and protect the god-given right of driving by removing vehicle registration taxes.
it didn’t take long for our friend in New York, bike snob NYC, to catch wind of this and weigh in on the topic.
The same month as Toronto reached our goal of subscribers in order to finalize plans to implement Bixi here next year, we elect a mayor such as this. One of the reasons is that the Greater Toronto Area includes all the suburbs around the main city, meaning one mayor must represent the car-driving suburban working class as well as the densely dwelling urbanite who bikes and uses transit. These are simplifications of the problem but you see my point. We are a bunch of cities in one. It’s a shame that the city of Toronto proper can’t be it’s own entity as there’s no way one political perspective will ever be able to speak for everyone.
Here’s an illustration of who voted for whom, from the Torontoist website:
Toronto has such a huge number of people who bike every day. You might not even call them “cyclists” as it’s just a part of their life, and you don’t call everyone who drives a car a “car driver”. We are a bike friendly city mostly by the virtue that there are always so many bikes on the road. The discouraging thing is that when horrible things happen and people get hit or die on their bikes, there is no support for them. Most drivers don’t even get charged! We have little infrastructure for safe routes. It seemed that in 2010 we were finally starting to see some of that change (we got a bike lane on Jarvis, sharrows on College, Dundas and others, bike boxes, and Bixi) and then we elected Rob Ford.
sigh. Let’s see what happens in 2011…
by Kathleen from Toronto Canada.
my tumblr my twitter my flickr
Tags:bicycles
I headed down to Vegas with a few of my coworkers for Interbike last month. It was my first time in Vegas and I was hoping to borrow a bike so I could ride the Strip at least once.
First we went to the Outdoor Dirt Demo in Boulder, Nevada. I didn’t ride anything- it was too windy and sooo hot- I just went to see what was up.
The first day after IBike I couldn’t even walk anymore, just went to my hotel to lie down. But the second day was much better and after the show Sarah and Steve (from Modrobes and I borrowed bikes from 4th Floor Distribution (buddies of ours from T.O.) in order to cruise around.
And cruise we did.
those are our three borrowed bikes in the rock garden of Strip Burger. I ate their veggie burger twice, and they had the best fries!
so ya we went downtown:
and ended up on TV:
In the end we decided the bikes were unnecessarily heavy and not very useful, but I admit that riding the strip in Vegas is about the best place I can imagine for that bike. A security guy in the morning asked me where I got it, he wanted to buy one for his wife.
by Kathleen from Toronto Canada.
my tumblr … my twitter … my flickr …
Tags:bicycles · cycling · exhibition · fun
I love spontaneous adventures, so when my boyfriend and I decided last-minute to go on a four-day bike trip through Prince Edward county last week I was stoked to get on the road and see what happened.
We left Thursday (July 29) and came home Sunday (Aug 1). We biked 400km all together, spent 2 hours total on the GO train (to get 60km or so out of the city), camped three places, drank a bunch of beer, swam in the lake, saw a Great Blue Heron and a deer (!), got lots of great exercise and fresh air and had a blast!
Before the trip we both decided to buy the Salsa Bell Lap handlebar to replace our current set ups. We love it! It has a short top so you don’t have to reach too far, ergonomic drops for comfort, and flares out slightly in the drops. It makes you feel like you a lot of control when going downhill, and when touring those downhills can be good breaks from the constant pedaling.
It got really hot some days, and we’d go through litres and litres of water. We used Nuun hydration tablets (its an electrolyte thing, you add a tablet to your bottle of water instead of buying gatorade) and of course had to get the occasional popsicle.
Here’s a link to our route on Bikely. We followed the waterfront trail as much as possible, it has less traffic than the secondary roads and signs indicating it’s a cycling route.
I’m completely recovered from the trip except for lots of itchy mosquito bites. Can’t wait to do more riding and camping!
Check out my flickr for all 300+ pics!
Tags:bicycles
we took the Via train to Montreal a couple weeks ago… this is what happened to my boyfriend’s bike when we checked our bikes in…
the report said that instead of putting the bike on the baggage car, they leaned it against the car and then backed into it with their baggage truck!
still trying to sort out compensation from them. and the whole purpose of our trip was ruined, as we went there to ride around. i hate to say it, but should have rented a car. you can’t trust others with your beloved bikes.
the fork and headset were damaged beyond repair. the frame is probably destroyed too, the seatstays are scraped and bent. the handlebars and stem were bent, brake lever snapped off. the cranks appear to be ok, but we’re not sure. the rear wheel seems to be the only thing that came out without damage, amazingly.
I volunteer with a local program called Wenches with Wrenches. We teach women only bike mechanic workshops at the local Community Bicycle Network space. There’s four weeks worth of classes: 1) Bike fit and parts of the bike 2) Flat fix 3) Brakes 4) Drivetrain.
It’s a super empowering space to be in, with 15+ women all teaching eachother how to fix their own bikes (it’s all run by volunteers). Here’s a pic from the flat fix class last week:
Jane was teaching a class for her first time ever but she did great!
For some participants this is the first time they’ve ever taken their wheel off their bike! This week we did brakes and helped every single girl there adjust their brakes and some even replaced their brake pads! Between the 6 or so volunteers there we managed to figure everything out, even though none of us are professional bike mechanics.
Cycling is fun, and knowing how to make your bike safe and fit right makes it even more enjoyable. I think we’ll end this month’s session with a fun Wenches Bike Tour around town with our newly tuned-up bikes!
…by Kathleen from Toronto Canada.
my tumblr … my twitter … my flickr …
Tags:bicycles
Tags:bicycles
This…
plus this…
will make my 2010 touring wheelset.
36 spokes with 3-cross lacing pattern. 700x28C tyres. AND I’m going to build them myself!
Tags:bicycles
while the US got google cycling maps today, us here in Toronto got Ride the City. At least it’s something.
The thing I find with these mapping programs though is they don’t route you through any streets where you may be biking the “wrong” way on a one-way street.
…So my question is: how often does your cycling route make you bike the “wrong” way on one way streets? Myself, it happens many many times a day and I feel safer doing that than biking on main arterial routes. I’d love to hear how other folks around the world view this issue.
Tags:bicycles
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