Bike to the Symphony 2014

After months of waiting, tonight is the night when we bike to the symphony.  I'd like to tell you that everything is arranged if I thought you'd believe it. Tell you that my wife has been practising on her own bike.  That our daughter is joining us for this fun ride.

Instead, the reality is that my wife will meet me at the concert hall and my daughter forgot the date and has made other plans.  Even what I'll wear tonight still has to be decided.  A suit?  T-shirt and jeans?  T-shirt for sure since I bought a black tee with a silkscreened impression of a bow tie and a pleated shirt.

I'm still debating as to which bike to ride.  My preference is the Raleigh 20 since it is so spiffy with its chrome fenders.  But I'm worried that the front fender will get crushed when I lock it to the portable bike rack that I know will be in place at the music venue.

The fender crusher

One thing I know for sure is that we will have a good time.  It is Bike Month here after all and what better way to spend a Friday evening than to have a fun bike ride and then sit right on stage with our city's orchestra?

Tickets are still available at:http://edmontonbikes.ca/bike-to-the-symphony-2014/

A Bittersweet Weekend

On a recent weekend the new southside community bike shop opened to great fanfare and a huge pent up demand for its services.  BikeWorks South as it is known to us who volunteer there had been closed for many months.

BWS

At BikeWorks North (the other community bike shop), every shift has been at capacity with folks wanting to fix bikes, buy bikes and rent bikes.  So it was with happiness and some relief that BWS opened its doors to the public.

BikeWorks North

This same weekend, the Edmonton cycling community learned of the tragic death of one of its young members.  A woman who last year went on a weekend bike ride to a nearby lake and instead of cycling back home, continued on and on.  We were all amazed by her determination as we watched her progress on Face Book.

Just by accident a couple of weeks later, I was working in Lake Louise and while pulling out of a parking lot early one morning, who do I see stopped at a stop sign, straddling her bike?  This very same cyclist with her small amount of gear strapped neatly to her rear pannier rack and looking fresh and strong.

In her memory

The varied experiences that life deals us every day are what make our lives so rich.  Just like light and dark, hot and cold, love and hate, there are two sides to life itself and this one weekend served those of us in the cycling community a dose of happiness and sadness.

A Bike Library?

Who would have guessed that the university in our city has a bike lending library?  Having difficulty finding the place, I asked 10 people for directions and not one of them had ever heard of the place.  I eventually found it in a plain looking building connected to what is called the "Dentistry Pharm" building.  A place that I thought involved dentistry on livestock.

Near here

It was surprising to enter the bike library.  Much more spacious that I had thought and lo and behold! it looked like a bike repair shop.  Repair stands scattered about, wrenches and assorted bike tools hanging from hooks above work benches.  And of course dozens of bikes ready to be rented.

Bike Library

Nathan, a university student, runs the library.  You could call him the librarian.  No bow tie on this guy.  A natty tweed cap covers his dark curls.  Wearing pedals pushers, he looks like a modern, educated, bike rider.  The rest of his clothing is hidden beneath a grimy apron and his hands are stained with grease.  Your basic bike mechanic turned librarian.

The librarian himself

The bikes themselves have been donated and all of them are sprayed a forest green colour and are available only to students, staff and visiting dignitaries.  Each bike comes with a bell, two lights and a U-lock.  Nathan throws in a bicycle map of the city as well.  A very good deal at ten dollars a week!  Renters use their university "One Card" which means that you don't even need a separate library card to get mobile at our institution of higher learning.

All Washed Up

Seeing a waterproof bag in a camping store reminded me that I should buy one in case I ever go near water again with my camera and other valuables in hand.  This year my son, Ragnar the Trader and I plan to take a bikepacking trip to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. It occurred to me that we should plan to stop in Midway and rent a canoe for the afternoon, drift down the Kettle River and then relax around a campsite.

Being that close to the U S of A will be fun!

Twice in the past my cycling buddy Roy and I have rented a canoe from Steve, the manager of the campground in Midway and drifted for a couple of hours down the river, quaffing beer and taking photographs.  Last year on our "Best of" tour, we discovered a small inlet where we could safely tie up the canoe and then jump from a nearby cliff into the cool and clear water.

 My son seems to like the idea of this particular tour even though it does involve climbing a mountain twice - once on the way to Grand Forks and then again on the way back to Midway.  That part didn't thrill him.  But when I described the air conditioned liquor store in Grand Forks and its vast selection of cold beer and that the store is right next to an A&W, Ragnar became downright enthused!

Look at the chicks man!

 The canoe trip will be one of the highlights of our tour as long as neither of us tip the canoe into the river the way Roy and I did last year.  We got completely soaked but luckily I managed to hold my camera and wallet out of the water. We did have to pay Steve twenty bucks for one of the paddles we lost.  We're still blaming each other for capsizing the canoe even though we both know that it was Roy grabbing an over-hanging branch that caused the spill.  This year it won't matter as much since I'll have my stuff in a waterproof pouch.

Killing Time?

If your choice was to sit for hours in a dumpy automotive showroom or ride your bike down an interesting pathway, which would you choose?

While driving to this business in Calgary last week, I noticed a bicycle path just two blocks away.  So with some careful planning, and knowing I was going back there, I packed my 20" Raleigh. There was anticipation of a pleasant bike ride versus twiddling my thumbs in a showroom that had nowhere to sit.

On two occasions I've had my wife drop me off at the Calgary Airport and then ridden seventy five kilometers to my friend's house.  It is an extra day of riding I manage to get in before my friend and I begin our annual bikepacking trip.  So I knew about this particular path but what I didn't know was that this route would take me past Calgary's snow mountain, a cremation forest and their science park.

Snow Mountain

The cremation forest is still in its infancy and the trees planted there are only a few feet tall.  Nearby is Deerfoot Trail with its constant stream of noisy traffic and the only activity in the forest itself was a dog defecating beneath the trees.

That a boy!

It took some doing, but I found a way to ride a bike to SPARK, the science park right on the bike pathway.  There are no signs to direct a cyclist to this facility and I didn't have enough time to investigate whether they had installed bike racks or not.  Besides, I had to get back to the auto business so I guess you could say that I had no time to park at Spark.

Bike parking?

Kettle Valley Rewind

Is it possible to do the Kettle Valley Railway in reverse?  My cycling partner for the last nine years, Roy made the suggestion the other night.  Both of us have done a loop that includes Penticton, Osoyoos, Rock Creek, Beaverdell, Mc Cullogh and Chute Lake.  The whole trip is about 400 kilometers - remembering of course that we do have six days to do it.

The Kettle Valley Railway

His proposal is that we start in Rock Creek - one of our favourite places.  We're fond of that spot for a few good reasons - one of them being the kindness that was shown us the first time we camped there.  A large group of  cyclists supported by a van that carried all their gear was set up at the other end of the campground.  Roy, being the social animal that he is,  was keen to go over and visit.  Me?  We had just spent 6 1/2 hours climbing in the lowest gear (and peddling as hard as we could) just to reach the summit of a mountain west of town.  We had had another two hours in the saddle riding past dumps like Bridesville and negotiating a steep switchback into Rock Creek itself.

Bridesville

My nervy partner hit an easy 50 kilometers and hour going down that switchback while I paused to put on my cycling jacket.  Being exhausted, I didn't trust my judgement at high speeds so I zipped up the jacket just enough that it would act like a parachute and slow me down as I descended.  Luckily there was no traffic to complicate matters further.

Upon entering town, we stopped at the Petro Canada station which appeared to be the liveliest place in this tiny burg.  It wasn't until we were in the back of the grocery department looking for hooch that we came across the reason for all the traffic.  A wooden display rack held bags of freshly baked cheese buns.  And they were flying off the rack.  Being half starved after cycling all day, we didn't hesitate to jump into the fray and grab a couple of bags of those appealing baked baked goods before they disappeared as well.

Get your cheese buns!

We were outside only for seconds before we tore one of the bags apart and stuffed our faces with the delectable treats.  Sharp cheese taste mixed with a little green onion and a soft but chewy bun put us both in heaven.  Cheese bun heaven!

It was later, after we had eaten our supper (and all the buns), that the tour leader from the group of cyclists came over to our camp carrying a cooking pot the size of a garbage can.  Its insides were filled with a mixture of hot chili and rice which he offered to us.  Roy and I had burned 5,000 calories just climbing Anarchist Mountain so we were more than happy to eat the still warm chili and replace those missing calories.  The only condition was that we clean the pot when finished.  It was the least we could do.

20 is Plenty

God Beams

It was one of my children that called the heavenly sunbeams that occasionally appear in the sky "God Beams" and it was those wonderful shafts of light that greeted me on my commute downtown this morning.

Our weather station said the outside temperature was zero.  Looking out the front door window, I could see a sciff of snow that resembled a dusting of icing sugar on a bundt cake.  I had decided to ride my new-to-me 20" Raleigh even though it doesn't have studded tires.  I was gambling that the new tires with their thick treads that I had bought from the Raving Bike Fiend would cut through any ice/snow.

The pannier rack on the Raleigh is too short to mount regular panniers on the rear so I "improvised" by putting an Axiom top mounted bag on the rack first.  A kind lady from the library had given me two small saddlebags which I cleverly mounted on top of the Axiom bag.

I'm so smart!

It wasn't easy to find the bike lanes that the city installed and painted last year.  The markings are so faint, I couldn't help but think that the city was being passive/aggressive in their approach.  "Okay - we want to look like we are encouraging cycling in our city but we sure as hell don't want to piss off the vocal and powerful auto lobby!"

That faint smear separates bikes and cars

It doesn't really matter all that much where the bike lanes are since in the winter the city dumps all the snow on them and just this morning what do I see but some sort of construction vehicles parked right in the bike lane.  God forbid that they should park on the grassy verge!

@#$%^&*!!!