Signs Signs Everywhere a Sign

These signs that I see twice a day when I'm commuting to work mean well....

No Sh**t

If I had a dog and if I was going to take it to a spa - I'd pick a clean one.

Riding Conditions

What with all our melt/freeze/melt cycles, winter riding has become more like chancy spring riding. In fact, I promised my wife that with the slippery conditions I wouldn't ride to the bike co-op today. We had been out earlier for a walk and could hardly manage the slick sidewalks. Just other day, commuting to work, I lost my front wheel on the icy sidewalk in front of my old cycling buddy's house, just two doors down from my place.

Studded tires will only do so much and it is easy to become over-confident after many successful commutes. And there is every type of condition out there right now. From dry pavement to large snowy humps to series of frozen ridges. Slush too.

I ran into my winter cycling friend Rob the other day on my way home and after comparing the size of our (let's keep it clean) studs, we discussed riding conditions. When it came to slush - as Rob put it so well: "People complain about riding in slush. To me it means hope!". Hope springs eternal as they say. I'm getting pretty excited about the soon - to - come fair weather cycling season and starting to think about getting my two fair weather bikes ready for the season. The mountain bike (Furry Lewis) has a strange knock emanating from somewhere near the bottom bracket and after replacing the whole front cranks/chainrings/bottom bracket last year in preparation for the MS Mountain Tour, I'm praying that it doesn't need replacing. I wanted a sealed bottom bracket for the very reason that it is supposed to be maintenance-free.

My red road bike which I have yet to name, needs a granny gear. Climbing out of the river valley at 149 Street is well nigh impossible. And I don't think it is my conditioning. Last season, after nearly 3,000 km. of varied riding conditions, I still couldn't make it up that very steep incline at the western edge of the river valley trail system.

I realize that changing the front cranks/chainrings will affect everything else involved in the transmission but I'm willing to grind my way through the necessary adjustments to be able to climb steep slopes and besides, the MS Bike Tour is in June which is only 4 months away. There's training to be done!


Tricky stuff


But there I go, getting way ahead of myself. Given our northern location, we still have months of "winter" riding to do and lots of excitement negotiating our frozen highways and bi-ways.

Not a Schmozzle

Discovering that it was only -3C made me eager to strap on the bike for my afternoon commute.  It was 5 o'clock when I finally hit the pavement and as I don't ride on the roads in winter, I pushed my bike along the crowds of pedestrians filling the sidewalks.  Since we live in such an automobilecentric city, I knew that within two blocks the crowds would thin out and I could ride in relative peace.

Three quarters of the way home, I was just thinking about how this bike would handle brown sugar when the sidewalk suddenly ended and I was forced to take to the street.  A street covered in brown sugar on top of hard-packed snow.  I found out soon enough as the bike slewed out from under me and while I didn't go down, I had to plant my left foot on the road to gain control of my two wheeled steed.  Since my wife who doesn't approve of winter riding might read this, I won't mention that bearing down on me was a monstrous

At the eleven kilometer mark, I could see a young guy coming toward me with his head down, staring at a mobile device.  With the zipping sound that the studded tires make on bare pavement, I thought for sure that he would look up at the sound and see me.  Not!  I had to let out one of my deep throated "HEY!!!s" to get his attention.  I got his attention all right.  He was so startled that I swear he levitated off the sidewalk.  Maybe even soiled himself.  It was probably evil of me but I had to snicker at his reaction.  If a collision had been imminent, I would have veered onto the snow.  I mean, I'm not supposed to be riding on the sidewalk anyway.

By the time I got home (one hour and thirty three minutes after departing the workplace), I had to head to the shower to rid myself of all the accumulated perspiration that was soaking my clothing but compared to the Schmozzle the other day, this was my kind of commute.

What a Schmozzle

A commute this morning to work is exactly why I dream of bike trips from the past.  When I woke up and staggered my way to the coffee-maker, I passed our little electronic weather station and discovered that it was only -15C.  Back in bed with my black plasma, I began to choose what and how many layers I would wear on my commute.

First would be my short-sleeved MS jersey, followed by two long-sleeved, wicking bike shirts, my Mountain Equipment Co-op stretchy riding pants covered with an old pair of track pants.  I'd wear my big winter boots on my feet and for my hands, I had the bright idea of wearing tough disposable mechanic gloves, my full-fingered biking gloves covered with an over-sized pair of mittens.

Having decided what to wear, I was committed.  It wasn't until I'd had breakfast and was heading out the door that I discovered that it had snowed during the night.  I've gotten out of the habit of looking out the front door window to check on the day outside because of the Christmas wreath blocking the view.  Riding in fresh snow is very much like riding in sand but I thought I could slug my way through.  I was very proud of the job I had just done on studding my tires and wanted to give them the big test.

I hadn't gone 2 blocks before I discovered that I was in the wrong gear and maybe that would account for my high heartrate.  My first stop was 5 blocks from home at a bus stop to take off my mittens to be able to lift up my neck tube to cover my cheeks, nose and mouth to mitigate the wintery breeze that I hadn't noticed on leaving the driveway.

By the time I had gone 5 kilometers, I was beginning to have doubts. The bike path I usually take was strewn with snow from the nearby street being plowed overnight and that made the going even tougher. When I made another kilometer and a half, I left my bike on the front lawn of an apartment building and went inside the vestibule to try to warm my fingers and toes. There was a feeble trickle of heat coming from the register and it took quite some time to regain feeling in my extremities.

I felt recovered enough to plod my way to a ravine near the museum where because of the numbness in my hands, I couldn't operate my brake levers anymore so decided to ditch the bike in the ravine, catch a bus to work and retrieve the bike later. Using numb fingers, I managed to turn off the blinking lights on the bike and 5 minutes later when a bus showed up, I threw a loonie and a toonie that I had somehow managed to fumble out of my knapsack into the fare collection box. Lurching to the back of the bus I had to contend with curious looks from the other passengers and it wasn't until the bus had made it most of the way downtown that I managed to unbuckle my helmet and taking it off, I discovered that the two blinking lights on the helmet were still flashing and sending their blinding light into the retinas of the early morning passengers!

This is why I daydream about my fair weather cycling adventures.

Commuter Sights

It must be a form of judgement when I'm suspicious of someone that I see riding a bike and holding another one. My first reaction is that the person is stealing one of the bikes.

Reminds me of a joke my father once told us. Every day an old man would cross an international bridge pushing a wheelbarrow full of straw. When he would get to customs, the officers there would dig through the straw looking for contraband. Every time they would find nothing in the straw. This went on for quite some time until one of the customs agents who had developed a rapport with the old man aked him why he would push a wheelbarrow full of straw across the bridge every day. "Because I'm smuggling wheelbarrows!"

It makes my daughter roll her eyes (I read in Sunday's paper that a city in Wisconsin has drafted a bylaw forbidding eye-rolling)when I imagine something about someone that I've never met and know nothing about. In the photograph, the old gent, Ambrose, is on his way home after going to one of the pawnshops on Stony Plain Road and buying his nephew a mountain bike. It has taken him a year of collecting bottles but he finally has managed to raise $85.00 and get his nephew James a bike for his graduation from highschool.

The disheveled old man, Mortimer, with a bandaid holding up one arm of his horn-rimmed glasses is on his way home from his menial job at the "Royal Fork" (my friend calls it the "Royal F_ck") emptying out the buckets of grease from the deep fryers. His boss Mr.Wang, in a moment of uncharacteristic charity has given Mortimer the bike that has been left in the stock room by a long since fired employee. Mortimer is sure he can sell it at the First Baptist Church rummage sale coming up on the August long weekend and he is excited that the pastor has agreed to use some of the money raised at the sale to buy one of those "Hurricane-Force" leaf blowers that would help Mortimer keep the grounds of the church over on 163 Street clear of all the leaves that inevitably blow onto the church yard from the poplar trees surrounding Westlawn Memorial Gardens across the street.

I don't know anything about this fellow except that he helped me by pointing out that I had dropped a package of gum onto the sidewalk while waiting for the light to change at 156 Street. He mumbled something else when the light turned green and I think he was simply encouraging me to take the lead as he would slow me down because of the extra bike he was carting along.

Just goes to show you that that old adage "You can't judge a book by its cover" is true - things aren't always as they seem.