That Was the Year That Was

Every year comes with its highs and lows.  And 2013 was no exception. One low was meeting Wolfgang in Beaverdell.  The backslapping, joking fool who ended up spraying us with gravel and dust when he passed us in his car while we were riding our bikes on the Kettle Valley Railway.

While nearly everything I do on a bike is enjoyable, being able to rent a bike in Portugal and visit the historic sites like the old fort pictured above, was most definitely a cycling high.

2013 brought the news that the landlord of our community bike shop wanted our space to themselves which meant moving BikeWorks South to a new location.  My reaction to this change was one of optimism - here was an opportunity to make an even better bike shop and use some of the lessons learned from building BikeWorks North a year or two ago.

It was with great luck that when my cycling friend Roy and I cycled up to the Biker's Rest Stop in Rhone, British Columbia while on our "Best Of" Tour, that we met with Paul Lautard, a legendary cyclist of the Kettle Valley Railway.  The year before, my daughter and I had stopped in at the Rest Stop but Paul was nowhere to be found and it made our visit rather lonely.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I struck it rich in 2013, but while panning for gold in the North Saskatchewan River after a pleasant bike ride, I did find some gold dust in the bottom of my pan.  Almost enough to pay for the cost of the gold pan itself but priceless in memories.

Grocery Shopping

Since one can never do enough cycling during the winter here in the frigid north, it was an easy decision to go to the organic grocery store and pick up a few things for my daughter.  When I say a few things, there were three items she needed.  Carrots, apples and lemons.

Perhaps riding over to the south side of our city on the one bike I had in front of me with its slick tires was not the best choice.  I see couriers riding around on skinny road tires and my slicks are at least twice as wide...so with my broad wheels, I should have no trouble negotiating the snow.

Recently, we've had as much snow in a day than we usually receive in a month and our wide streets have become narrow snow encrusted lanes.  I knew I was in trouble within a block of my departure point.  The bike was bucking and slipping on the road so I opted out for the sidewalk which meant my short ride to the store was going to be lengthened considerably.

You get the idea

 When she asked for carrots, I imagined one of those bunches you see in the vegetable aisle.

It wasn't until I got to the store that I re-listened to her phone message and realised that when she said she wanted carrots, she was talking about a twenty five pound bag of that orange vegetable.



The lemons filled a small bag and the apples I stuffed into two more bags and they would all fit in my two saddlebags.  But twelve and a half kilos of orange produce?  Was I going to end up like one of those pictures you see every now and then of an overloaded bike?

My father used to say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I've been meaning for over a year to make a cobra-knotted lanyard for my bike for just an emergency like this.

It would be with little effort to unthread the paracord and voila!, I'd have enough rope to safely tie that heavy package to my rear pannier rack.  As it turned out, she changed her mind and I was saved the experience of having to improvise a rope.  I was a little sorry that I didn't get to have the twenty five pounds of traction that that weight would have given me for my ride back to the north side of the river.





He's a Winner!

With today being December 1st, that means that NaNoWriMo is over.  NaNoWriMo?  WTH?  The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month and the idea was to write 50,000 words in one month.  That is why loyal readers, there haven't been the insightful and humourous blogs in November that you have come to rely on for your internet entertainment.

 
 My skills at math - even very basic math are not what they could be.  My father always wanted my brother and I to be engineers but I knew from a very young age that vocation was not for me.  My brother on the other hand always pretended to have an interest in our father's profession and that's why he became a stage manager.

I woke up Friday morning and ran to the computer to tabulate the number of words I had written all month. There was a certain amount of pressure involved since my wife had uploaded her 50,000 word novel the night before. It was with confidence that I sat down at the laptop sure that the only thing I had to do that day was to transcribe a few thousand words and presto!  I'd be done.  After adding up the columns of numbers, I discovered that I only had written 43,000.  Three times I added and got the same result.  What's the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result!

 Fourteen hours later, a writing/transcribing session peppered with every excuse not to write ended.  I had to make more coffee.  Step outside to see if the city had plowed our street.  Had a nap. Make a pot of slow cooker soup.  Iron a shirt.  Have two showers to loosen up the neck muscles.  All told, I probably spent less than half of those 14 hours actually working.

When all the typed pages were uploaded to the NaNoWriMo site and run through their word counter, it was with dismay that I discovered that there were over 57,000 words written.  While I should have been elated at such productivity, I was too worn out to feel like celebrating.  Maybe I had so much difficulty writing all day because my subconscious was trying to tell me that I'd already completed what I had set out to do on November 1st.


Over did it a bit

The month of November was the most unusual month in that we found ourselves writing in places like Denny's or in a public library.  Most of the Saturday mornings would find us feverishly scribbling at a corner table for hours on end at a nearby Starbucks.  My favourite place to write was a an east end bookshop that we'd only recently discovered.  Being surrounded by books and having ample window light to write by made the experience an enjoyable one and not the agonizing marathon that was Friday, November 29th.

Na No Wri Mo (Huh?)

Na No Wri Mo stands for National Novel Writing Month and yours truly is attempting to write a 50,000 word novel during this month of November.

What this means is that Bikewriter'sblog will most likely not be updated this month with the funny and interesting stories about cycling that you have come to expect and enjoy.

I'll be back soon to entertain you and I thank you for your loyalty!!

Bye Bye Bike Shop

The "Goodbye" party at the community bike shop was a great success and since it was a fundraiser, I'm sure the organizers appreciated to $53.10 that patrons left as tips at the improvised bar set up on the display case which is used to hold expensive and rare bike parts.

Good times

My last shift as a mechanic at this shop was on Sunday and given the cold weather, not very many members came in to take advantage of our free services.  I fully expected that with the change of seasons we would be busy winterizing bikes - teaching members how to stud their tires or attach fenders to their bike frames.

Selling it cheap

Rather than move a lot of cycling merchandise, the co-op's idea was to sell off bikes and parts at a discounted rate and I thought for sure that members would be streaming into the shop to score a fine bike at a discount.  Even the crappier bikes would make good winter bikes.  Admittedly, the sale has been going on for several weeks so perhaps the eager bargain finders had already swooped in and found a satisfying deal.

Scrapped bikes with all the useable parts stripped off

I expected to feel sadness at the closing of the shop however, I'm looking forward with excitement to a new shop that has all the features that were built into BikeWorks North.  With all the lessons that were learned in building that relatively new facility, this next one should prove to be even better.

Bike Barkeep

BikeWorks South is closing at the end of the month and moving to a new location in the near future. A big party has been planned so everyone who has had a connection to this community bike shop can have a chance to say goodbye.  My plan is to offer my services as a bartender and with my conveniently placed tip jar, collect donations for the bike co-op.

Since you will be riding your bike over, you may want to slake your thirst at the bar and you'll be expecting a bartender that can do all those exciting juggling tricks with liquor bottles.  A bar man that can pour numerous drinks at one time or set alight a flaming concoction made up of colourful liquers.

Me?

Imagining the party, I can see myself set up with one of those bikes that has a built in bar - you may have seen one.  That empty space in the middle of a bike that has been filled in with a clever cupboard with a door that folds down to become the bar top.  The inside of the travelling locker is filled with bottles of hooch and various glasses and cups.

That's the ticket

I'll be beside the bike bar wearing my barkeep get-up.  Pinstripe vest, arm bands to hold up my shirt sleeves and a snappy bowtie.  A nice towel to keep the bar top dry will hang from my apron and my moustache will be waxed into a stiff shape.

In reality, partygoers will find me stuffed awkwardly into a corner amongst the bike repair stands.  The drinks will be in cans and they'll be nice and warm.  The only exciting thing this bartender will be able to acomplish is when he opens one of the cans and the contents which have been thoroughly shaken from the recent bike ride will spray in a high pressure stream across the dance floor only to strike the DJ's elaborate electronic gear and create a sparkling and elecrifying light show.

Making A Clean Sweep

As a bicycle commuter, you expect to come across all sorts of hazards in your daily travels.  So it came as no surprise to my family to find me outside, on the street with a broom in hand and a dustpan clutched at the ready. Ready to sweep up a long swath of broken glass in the bike lane.

Brand spanking new

The city has gone to quite a lot of trouble adding to the existing bike lanes and upgrading the one they installed in my neighbourhood last year just before the snow fell .  First, the top surface of the whole road was scraped down.  A new type of asphalt coating was then spread across the whole expanse of road.  As my cycling daughter pointed out, the new surface offers better grip for bicycle tires.  

Is my neighbour the culprit?

 While turning my back to oncoming traffic (I'm in the bike lane so how could I be hit by a car?) and sweeping diligently, a neighbour stopped to harangue me about the bicycle lanes.  I know from past experience that this fellow never hesitates to call the city with even the most minor of complaints.  I am certain he is one of the motorists who contacted the city and had them eliminate the bike lane they installed last year which nessesitated all of the work that has been done this summer on our street.

Since I have to live near the guy, I wasn't prepared to argue with him.  Thinking I could placate him, I declared that as far as the bike lanes go, the city has made both motorists and cyclists unhappy. This set him off further into a spit - spraying tirade which wasn't helped when I politely asked him to move over so I could continue sweeping the broken glass onto my household dustpan.