28.04.2008: i'm not dead. i just got fed up with toronto and moved to copenhagen instead, one of the best cities in the world for cyclists. so obviously this blog is completely unnecessary now. sorry. 20.12.2007: this is the reason i haven't been riding my bike. i don't have one of these 22.11.2007: i had to see if it was possible. i had to know if cycling in weather like this was viable. didn't i? but it's not, it's just stupid. it took me twice as long and all i have to show for it is a spare TTC token and a wet ass. arriving at my destination i was greeted with "you're a fucking mental case", and dirty look from the caretaker as he watched me drip sludge all over his lobby. if these places would provide adequate bike storage it wouldn't be a problem. but cycling when it's snowing is not cool. the roads covered in slush, spraying out from underneath every car's wheels. deteriorating brakes, slipping wheels. freezing ears, snow in eyes. calf muscles aching. it's just dangerous, and not even in a fun way. cold i can handle, but not this. 21.11.2007: it's been a long time. does mean the roads have been safer? no not really. halfway through october i came into possesion of a monthly TTC travel pass, so that cut down on my road adventures somewhat. then i went back home for a while. now i'm back and it's cold and dark. but i'm determined to not let that put me off cycling. cycling in the dark is now unavoidable, but i'm refusing to cycle on main roads when i do. they're too poorly lit and way too dangerous. i have trouble seeing the cyclists with the most expensive and impressive arrays of bike lights, nevermind the kamikaze cyclists with no lights. what is wrong with you? so these roads are out of the question. and if there's no alternative i'm going to have to ride the sidewalk. come fine me officer, at least i'll still alive. and if you're going to point out the number of accidents due to people cycling on the sidewalk, don't bother. if i'm in accident from cycling on the sidewalk at least it's my fault. not the fault of some idiot driver. that i can handle. 15.10.2007: i know you're not supposed to aggravate drivers, but sometimes they're too rude to ignore. like this one guy down on bloor, west of spadina. you know the stretch, where it's really narrow and there's cars consistently parked down both sides, their doors ready to open in your face. you don't want to cycle within a doors width of the parked cars, and if you try to be nice and leave room for the cars coming up behind you there's always some asshole who will drive way too close. close like i wish i had spikes on the sides of my pedals. it may seem unreasonable to take up the whole lane, but that section of road moves so slowly the cars have nowhere to go anyway. if they overtake they're just queuing at the red light sooner. so when someone starts honking at us to get out of the way, and forces past us only to be stopped at the lights infront, i couldn't help but feel a little angry. what's a suitable response? in the future, when then stakes are raised, i'll probably snap off his wingmirror as i pass. or bounce a molotov off his windscreen. set fire to his tyres. but all i did was tap on his window and give him my stiffest finger as i zipped passed. not really enough to warrant him blaring his horn again (misuse under the ontario highway act?) for a good few seconds, but nevermind. i'm sorry for further worsening our city's cyclists' reputation, and further escalating the ever growing tension between drivers and riders, but sometimes it's too satisfying to not fight back. 12.10.2007: toronto cycling tip of the day: cars don't indicate when turning right. if you need to know which way a car is going you have to look at their place in the road and the angle of their tyres. my favourite method is knocking on their window and asking them. my secret favourite method is using my helmet to knock on their window and asking them. 07.10.2007: this saturday at bike pirates was quite a different experience. i still spent many minutes staring at my bike hoping it would magically fix itself. there were still times i wanted someone to just mend it. and times when i really needed help but everyone was busy. the difference was how everything slowly came together, rather than fall apart. i started with the easy problems and replaced my completely broken pedal. both of the pedals which came with the bike have been scrapped now because they fell apart. is my cycling style to blame? i don't know, but i doubt it. then i thought i should probably fix up my back wheel, which was the main reason i was there. but after a bit of fiddling i discovered it was getting too hard and moved on to my back brakes instead, taking them apart and deciding to replace the whole lot. or at least i did until someone said it was completely unnecessary. back to the wheel. i loosened the cones up and everything just fell out. previously caged bearings bouncing around the floor and splinters of broken metal cage sticking into my thumb. the clues suggest my big mistake was putting the bearing cages in the wrong way round. whoops. so i found some cones with dust caps that matched my old ones (there were two left, lucky) and found myself a new axle (my old was was mashed) and got to putting it back together. only there weren't any quarter inch bearings. almost disaster, but luckily i found two bearing cages that fit perfectly (very lucky). an hour later it was spinning beautifully. back to the brakes. i got them all tightened up and even managed to get the squeak out of the front brakes. it didn't last, but whilst they were silent it was magic. i left feeling very happy. and also stuffed from the burritos. brilliant. 05.10.2007: this morning just a stain on the tarmac. and a small tuft of fur. 04.10.2007: i got pointed at by two small kids during my cycle this morning. the first said nothing, just pointed and smiled, so i wiggled my fingers at him - some childish approximation of a wave. it's hard to convey a reciprocal smile when you've got a filter wrapped around your face. but look at me, i'm a cyclist and i'm cool. the cars are not, they are cold and hard and will never wave back at you. they are ugly and bad for you. i am nice and friendly. the second kid, up on eglinton, "mommy mommy look at that!". "it's a mask", she told him. and i hope she tells him why i need to wear it. it's not just so i look more threatening, which obviously fails completely when it comes to children. and the dead racoon from yesterday was still in the middle of the road. now a little flatter. 02.10.2007: that was my first experience of actually almost being door'd. i've felt like it was close before, but everytime i've been far enough away or the driver had seen me and all was cool. this guy, he just throws his door wide open and out into the traffic. it swings all the way across my path. only, halfway down the road i'd seen his rear-lights switch off and i knew someone was in there, by the time i'd reached him i was clear of him and his reckless behaviour. i knew he hadn't looked, i could see it floating amongst the shock and guilt in his eyes as he looked up to see me sail by, about a meter from the edge of his door. the bastard. i wanted to stop and give him what for, but amongst all the rain i really couldn't be bothered. 01.10.2007: recently my back brake has been getting progressively worse, with the cable getting so loose the lever almost touches the handle bars when i brake hard enough, so on saturday i put aside an hour to go over to bike pirates and fix it up. if you know bike pirates you don't need me telling you how cool it is, but if you don't know them you should definately go check it out. it's a volunteer-run self-help bike repair shop that focuses on educating people in the way of bike mechanics. they have all the tools and spare parts you could possibly need and are incredibly friendly. and cool. did i mention they were cool? after brief instructions i got my bike set up and went to work changing my cable. it was remarkably easy until i had to stretch the cable tight. we didn't have cable stretchers but a woman was willing to lend me a hand, and doing the hard painful part of pulling the cable whilst i twatted around with the wrenches trying to tighten the bolts. then someone told me something on my backwheel need tightening, and luckily there was a guy who was about to show someone else how to do it. in hindsight this is where i should have said "if i ain't broke don't fix it", but who was i to say whether it needed fixing? i took my wheel off and took it out the back and started the process of taking it apart. locknuts, spacers, cones. the gear cogs were tricky to get off, but soon i had all the ball bearings out - my entire back wheel in pieces laid out across the paving slab. i was cleaning up the various bits when someone said my cones were worn and needed replacing. in hindsight i should have thought of what happens when you have too many cooks, and whether this person even knew what the problem was with my bike. to make things difficult the thread on my axle was trashed on one side and there was no chance of removing the cone. so, the only thing for it was to replace the whole lot, which was not a problem since they had brand new ones in. i greased it all up and started putting it back together, only the dust caps didn't fit to my hub, and then the old dust caps didn't fit with the cones, and then the new cones didn't seem to fit with the bearings. going through this process, trying to get the wheel aligned and get the cones at the right tightness, this must have taken me two hours. and in the end the only thing for it was to find my old cones and put it all back together exactly how it was before, only i couldn't even do that. by this time they were closed and i just needed to get out of there. i'd wasted my whole day and not done any of the things i needed to get done. i'd pulled apart my wheel for no decent reason and i was getting increasingly frustrated that i couldn't reassemble it. my bike in pieces, grease and dirt everywhere, my belly empty, i was about to burst into tears and walk home. as pathetic as that would have been. i felt completely destroyed. of course, someone saw my utter desperation and came to my aid. it was almost seven when we finally got it looking like a bike. i didn't even get the guy's name, but he was a fucking star. also the dude who joined me in taking back wheels apart. and the guy who couldn't believe someone had told me i needed new cones, and wanted to know who it was so he could have words (but i'm not one to grass). in total i spent over five hours there and had six different people 'helping' me at various times. and now my bike isn't safe to ride. there's all kinds of weird noises coming from the hub and.. oh i don't know. the whole thing is just fucked. and all i wanted to do was change my brake cable. on the positive side, which i've struggled very hard to see, i learnt a lot about my bike and met some great people. even the person who told me to change my cones i'd buy a beer if i saw him out. it was just a bit of bad luck, that totally ruined my afternoon and evening. and my ride to work this morning. so, see you there next weekend? 29.09.2007: i swear that as the days get shorter, drivers' tempers follow. on the whole it was a good ride, and potentially the last big one of the season (with the unpredictable weather october brings i'm not holding my breathe for a continuation in big turnouts), but it seemed like asshole driver 'participation' was at an all time high. crossing over to the danforth we had a few extremely aggressive drivers, one of them actually rammed a cyclist (there were conflicted reports of whether his wheel was buckled or not). another driver got out his car and almost started a fight. a little while later we were down in the financial district being followed by some particularly nasty bastards. one guy kept suddenly jumping his SUV forwards at the cyclists at the back of the mass, threatening to ram and engulf us under his obscenely large vehicle. there are many methods to cause a serious accident, he happened to chose that one. i totally lost my cool with that guy (i say 'guy', with the height of the vehicle i couldn't even see who was driving) and started shouting obscenities at him. what the fuck are you supposed to do? nearer the end of the ride someone on a motorbike did the same. that's at least three times in one night (potentially more, keeping up with news from the whole mass is tricky). i'm tempted to suggest next time it happens a few hardcore people stop infront of the car to block it outright whilst everyone else gets out of the way. it'd probably only make things worse though. those dickheads are too unpredictable. we could always go australian on them and throw a bike through their windshield, yo. so yes, excluding those few events, and i believe no one was seriously injured, it was a brilliant ride and not too cold at all. the subway went down at some point, so when we were up at yonge and bloor we had one huge audience ("the subways are all closed and there's cyclists blocking the road, it's anarchy", or not). and i got to shout "cult" at the scientologists, hurray. we ended in kensington again, this time cycling round and round the round.. thing, getting extremely dizzy. we then retreated to ronnie's and enjoyed some cool beers while ranting about maths and the state. at least i was, but nevermind. 27.09.2007: lol, i think that's all the comment they deserve.. 26.09.2007: where i work i'm up on the fifth floor. and although i bought a cheap bike so i didn't have to worry about bike theft, i still don't like leaving it out on the street all day, so to keep it safe i bring it up into the office. this wouldn't be a problem, only there's also numerous language schools in my building, complete with teeming armies of young foreign students - kids who don't understand elevator ethics. usually i'll just wait in the lobby until everyone has crammed into a lift and then wait for the next one, but some mornings it's just too busy. i'll move my bike infront of the first lift doors (there are three elevators) to make sure i get in first when it arrives. when it does, i'll drag my bike to back and stand behind it, using it as some kind of primitive defense barrier as the kids pile in, chatting frantically in languages that don't even seem compatible. i'd hate to think how much chain oil has been rubbed off onto various jeans and leggings as people squash up against my bike. i try to warn people but i'm just ignored. and then this morning one guy gets his backpack hooked around my handlebars and starts dragging my bike out the lift. there were four other people in the lift when his strap sets off my bike horn, honking somewhere around the 100db level. the frail woman in the corner looked particularly uninmpressed. what was i to do except apologised profusely? 25.09.2007: the woman who was driving way to close to me, the one who was trying to push me off the road, she didn't particularly have it in for me because i'm a cyclist, she was just too busy chatting on her mobile phone. then there's the guy in the big black SUV, he's twenty metres from the traffic lights when they flip to orange, and he decides to accelerate through them. those thirty seconds he shaved off his journey make all the difference. 23.09.2007: it's been a very busy weekend. it's tiring being socially concsious in this stupid city. people don't care enough to get their butts out of their houses and out of their cars, so if there's an event, you need to be there showing your support. but that's not the main reason i go, i'm at them all because they're a hell of a good time. also it's been a gorgeous weekend. the weather has been perfect. from the combination of the warming sun and cool breeze, to the pink and blue slice of sky as the sun set over our saturday evening parade.. did anyone tell you it was international car free day? did you do anything for it? or more importantly not drive? let me know. we were all out along queens west, enjoying our legally rented parking spaces, with tents, busking, boot throwing, painting, and even hair cutting. the parking meter party is a genius idea. and don't all the people walking by say it should be like this every day? yes it should, why don't you do something about it? as with all the other fun and cheekily subversive events in this city, this was organised (spearheaded?) by streets are for people. they'd procured a car from someone (who was more than happy to part with it, it came complete with divorce papers) and they covered every inch of it in paint. these days, this is what passes for a petition. everyone who wanted their streets free from cars signed it, doodled on it, and left their own personal messages. i couldn't resist scrawling "throw brick here" on the window, with a big "X", despite it not being in keeping with the vibe. and, much to the amusement of the now magazine photographer, i wrote "all drivers are murderers" across the rear fender (isn't that what they call them in this country). also julie can't draw bicycles. come six o'clock (probably more like seven, but who was counting?) we started our march from trinity bellwoods park to city hall. it was phenomenal, and not just because i was over-exicted at being asked if i'd be on official corking duty. it was executed beautifully. we had a strong crowd and the drumming group were on form, filling the road with their brutal rhythmic assualt. with a noise like that there is no stopping you. the sun set and the sky popped, raining us with colours, the buildings framing our sliver of rainbow sky. our banners waved in silver blues and yellows, red and black. the graffitied cream car in front, being pushed the whole way. you can't do cooler than that. honk honk honk. we danced on the steps of city hall. shouting and hooting. mj standing on the cenotaph with his trademark horn, doing a quick speech, and i have an urge to shout "mj for major". he looked and sounded the part, plus it looks good written down. and there's your unmissable party. we were up early the next morning to cycle our butts to hyde park for the bells-on-bloor ride. we got there in plenty of time to help out and feel genuinely useful. be proper scene. bells-on-bloor has been born out of takethetooker and a wish to have a more family-orientated less-radical campaign. i think less radical means getting permission and having police involvement, or something. in any other country this would be rubbish, but having a mass of police cyclists accompany us was slick. it made corking easier, a tactic which they'd agreed upon in advance and were more than happy to assist with. try getting that kind of service in new york. and it quickly shut up the more aggressive drivers when a police officer cycled up to lend us his authority. tell me i'm breaking the law now, mother fucker. the organisers were aiming for a one thousand strong crowd, which was an obscene and unattainable goal, but to their credit they pulled in a lot of people. shoot for the moon. it was easily bigger than any of the critical masses i've been on, and some of them have been gigantic. it was a fantastic turn out and it lifted my spirits even higher. and all along bloor people came out of their shops and cafes to ring their bells along with us. it was ding ding ding all the way. i rang my bell so hard i split the skin on my thumb. and i'm sure we went home a little further along the road to tinnitus. after the ride we tried to join the toronto smog hike, organised by the david suzuki foundation and the toronto environmental alliance, two reasonably big players. so what we'd pictured was two lanes of yonge blocked off and filled with smiling families, they'd have banners and ticker tape and all flavours of the wonderful. but no. there was just a few people walking silently along the sidewalk. we knew it was happening and that didn't help us find them. it was like nothing was going on. which is pretty much what was going on. shamed. we cycled up passed eglinton and retired for pizza. a weekend well spent. now i'm thoroughly exhausted. brint on critical mass.. 20.09.2007: it's amazing what a different view you get of the city when you cycle through it down a new road and at a different angle. i cycled down university avenue, starting somewhere around eglinton (whatever it's called up there) and ending at queen st west. i had the pleasure of doing this during rush hour and i didn't even notice when i crossed bloor. the bus infront of me had driven too close to the dust piles accumulating at the edge of the road due to construction work and the ROM was completely obscured. from there down to queen was solid non-moving traffic. why do drivers do it to themselves? i spent the whole time balancing my bike between cars and curb so as not to hit them. bike lane anyone? queen st west was the worst. i've never cycled against (yes, "against") a more aggressive group of drivers. mentalists the lot of them. the way to save this city is to skip the congestion charge and jump straight to an outright car ban downtown. that many cars is completely unjustified. any number of cars is completely unjustified. and they all need to learn manners and patience. at my destination i suddenly realised i didn't have the keys to my bike lock. actually i had no keys, i'd left my wallet at home. after a minute of weighing up my options i figured i'd have some faith and i asked the beggar at the end of the street if he'd keep an eye on my bike. in a more sane moment i might ridicule this slightly stupid behaviour too, but five minutes later my bike was still there. i gave him some dinner money and apologised for treating him like a parking meter, he didn't seem to mind at all. 19.09.2007: the great thing about smog is the brilliant early morning jesus rays you get beaming through the trees. it's like cycling through a fantasy novel. but actually more like don quixote, with huge giants charging around everywhere trying to kill you with their bull bars and wing mirrors. the reason i haven't posted for a long time is not because the roads suddenly got much safer, drivers started being friendly to cyclists and vice versa (well that is never going to happen), and the city suddenly rolled out all its bike-friendly plans and then some. it's because i wasn't actually cycling. disappointing huh? sorry. so i get back on my bike after only a week and i'm having to deal with variable weather already. monday tricked me by being too cold, so the last two days i've been sweating all the way to work. and then some idiot in a toronto service van decides to drive three blocks up mt.pleasent road with his all his indicators flashing. at the lights i shouted at him, asking him if he was turning turning, but he couldn't hear me over his big fucking noisey engine. i'm sure driving with your hazard warning lights on is fine in some situations, but not when you're just driving up the road with all the other stupid cars. anyway. i'll see you on the streets. this weekend is a busy one, with car free day and bells on bloor. i was going to link to what appears to be the official car free day website, but they have links to autoshare on their homepage. talk about missing the point, imbeciles. they also link to car heaven, which encourages people to trade in their old cars for new 'environmentally friendly' ones. pricks. 16.09.2007: the other day, during a rather frantic bike ride, i had a few crazy ideas. against my better judgement i'm going to make them 'public'. the least of the crazy ideas is making tinted car windows illegal. all of a sudden this actually seems quite sensible. how many times have you been cycling along parked cars and not been able to see through the tinted windows to check if there's anyone in the car and, more importantly, if they're about to get out without looking? i'm sure there's a very good reason why some cars have tinted windows, but i'm sure it's not as important as reducing the number of people being door'd. the second idea is completely crazy, and everyone is going to disagree
28.04.2008: i'm not dead. i just got fed up with toronto and moved to copenhagen instead, one of the best cities in the world for cyclists. so obviously this blog is completely unnecessary now. sorry.
20.12.2007: this is the reason i haven't been riding my bike. i don't have one of these
22.11.2007: i had to see if it was possible. i had to know if cycling in weather like this was viable. didn't i? but it's not, it's just stupid. it took me twice as long and all i have to show for it is a spare TTC token and a wet ass. arriving at my destination i was greeted with "you're a fucking mental case", and dirty look from the caretaker as he watched me drip sludge all over his lobby. if these places would provide adequate bike storage it wouldn't be a problem. but cycling when it's snowing is not cool. the roads covered in slush, spraying out from underneath every car's wheels. deteriorating brakes, slipping wheels. freezing ears, snow in eyes. calf muscles aching. it's just dangerous, and not even in a fun way. cold i can handle, but not this.
21.11.2007: it's been a long time. does mean the roads have been safer? no not really. halfway through october i came into possesion of a monthly TTC travel pass, so that cut down on my road adventures somewhat. then i went back home for a while. now i'm back and it's cold and dark. but i'm determined to not let that put me off cycling. cycling in the dark is now unavoidable, but i'm refusing to cycle on main roads when i do. they're too poorly lit and way too dangerous. i have trouble seeing the cyclists with the most expensive and impressive arrays of bike lights, nevermind the kamikaze cyclists with no lights. what is wrong with you? so these roads are out of the question. and if there's no alternative i'm going to have to ride the sidewalk. come fine me officer, at least i'll still alive. and if you're going to point out the number of accidents due to people cycling on the sidewalk, don't bother. if i'm in accident from cycling on the sidewalk at least it's my fault. not the fault of some idiot driver. that i can handle.
15.10.2007: i know you're not supposed to aggravate drivers, but sometimes they're too rude to ignore. like this one guy down on bloor, west of spadina. you know the stretch, where it's really narrow and there's cars consistently parked down both sides, their doors ready to open in your face. you don't want to cycle within a doors width of the parked cars, and if you try to be nice and leave room for the cars coming up behind you there's always some asshole who will drive way too close. close like i wish i had spikes on the sides of my pedals. it may seem unreasonable to take up the whole lane, but that section of road moves so slowly the cars have nowhere to go anyway. if they overtake they're just queuing at the red light sooner. so when someone starts honking at us to get out of the way, and forces past us only to be stopped at the lights infront, i couldn't help but feel a little angry. what's a suitable response? in the future, when then stakes are raised, i'll probably snap off his wingmirror as i pass. or bounce a molotov off his windscreen. set fire to his tyres. but all i did was tap on his window and give him my stiffest finger as i zipped passed. not really enough to warrant him blaring his horn again (misuse under the ontario highway act?) for a good few seconds, but nevermind. i'm sorry for further worsening our city's cyclists' reputation, and further escalating the ever growing tension between drivers and riders, but sometimes it's too satisfying to not fight back.
12.10.2007: toronto cycling tip of the day: cars don't indicate when turning right. if you need to know which way a car is going you have to look at their place in the road and the angle of their tyres. my favourite method is knocking on their window and asking them. my secret favourite method is using my helmet to knock on their window and asking them.
07.10.2007: this saturday at bike pirates was quite a different experience. i still spent many minutes staring at my bike hoping it would magically fix itself. there were still times i wanted someone to just mend it. and times when i really needed help but everyone was busy. the difference was how everything slowly came together, rather than fall apart. i started with the easy problems and replaced my completely broken pedal. both of the pedals which came with the bike have been scrapped now because they fell apart. is my cycling style to blame? i don't know, but i doubt it. then i thought i should probably fix up my back wheel, which was the main reason i was there. but after a bit of fiddling i discovered it was getting too hard and moved on to my back brakes instead, taking them apart and deciding to replace the whole lot. or at least i did until someone said it was completely unnecessary. back to the wheel. i loosened the cones up and everything just fell out. previously caged bearings bouncing around the floor and splinters of broken metal cage sticking into my thumb. the clues suggest my big mistake was putting the bearing cages in the wrong way round. whoops. so i found some cones with dust caps that matched my old ones (there were two left, lucky) and found myself a new axle (my old was was mashed) and got to putting it back together. only there weren't any quarter inch bearings. almost disaster, but luckily i found two bearing cages that fit perfectly (very lucky). an hour later it was spinning beautifully. back to the brakes. i got them all tightened up and even managed to get the squeak out of the front brakes. it didn't last, but whilst they were silent it was magic. i left feeling very happy. and also stuffed from the burritos. brilliant.
05.10.2007: this morning just a stain on the tarmac. and a small tuft of fur.
04.10.2007: i got pointed at by two small kids during my cycle this morning. the first said nothing, just pointed and smiled, so i wiggled my fingers at him - some childish approximation of a wave. it's hard to convey a reciprocal smile when you've got a filter wrapped around your face. but look at me, i'm a cyclist and i'm cool. the cars are not, they are cold and hard and will never wave back at you. they are ugly and bad for you. i am nice and friendly. the second kid, up on eglinton, "mommy mommy look at that!". "it's a mask", she told him. and i hope she tells him why i need to wear it. it's not just so i look more threatening, which obviously fails completely when it comes to children. and the dead racoon from yesterday was still in the middle of the road. now a little flatter.
02.10.2007: that was my first experience of actually almost being door'd. i've felt like it was close before, but everytime i've been far enough away or the driver had seen me and all was cool. this guy, he just throws his door wide open and out into the traffic. it swings all the way across my path. only, halfway down the road i'd seen his rear-lights switch off and i knew someone was in there, by the time i'd reached him i was clear of him and his reckless behaviour. i knew he hadn't looked, i could see it floating amongst the shock and guilt in his eyes as he looked up to see me sail by, about a meter from the edge of his door. the bastard. i wanted to stop and give him what for, but amongst all the rain i really couldn't be bothered.
01.10.2007: recently my back brake has been getting progressively worse, with the cable getting so loose the lever almost touches the handle bars when i brake hard enough, so on saturday i put aside an hour to go over to bike pirates and fix it up. if you know bike pirates you don't need me telling you how cool it is, but if you don't know them you should definately go check it out. it's a volunteer-run self-help bike repair shop that focuses on educating people in the way of bike mechanics. they have all the tools and spare parts you could possibly need and are incredibly friendly. and cool. did i mention they were cool? after brief instructions i got my bike set up and went to work changing my cable. it was remarkably easy until i had to stretch the cable tight. we didn't have cable stretchers but a woman was willing to lend me a hand, and doing the hard painful part of pulling the cable whilst i twatted around with the wrenches trying to tighten the bolts. then someone told me something on my backwheel need tightening, and luckily there was a guy who was about to show someone else how to do it. in hindsight this is where i should have said "if i ain't broke don't fix it", but who was i to say whether it needed fixing? i took my wheel off and took it out the back and started the process of taking it apart. locknuts, spacers, cones. the gear cogs were tricky to get off, but soon i had all the ball bearings out - my entire back wheel in pieces laid out across the paving slab. i was cleaning up the various bits when someone said my cones were worn and needed replacing. in hindsight i should have thought of what happens when you have too many cooks, and whether this person even knew what the problem was with my bike. to make things difficult the thread on my axle was trashed on one side and there was no chance of removing the cone. so, the only thing for it was to replace the whole lot, which was not a problem since they had brand new ones in. i greased it all up and started putting it back together, only the dust caps didn't fit to my hub, and then the old dust caps didn't fit with the cones, and then the new cones didn't seem to fit with the bearings. going through this process, trying to get the wheel aligned and get the cones at the right tightness, this must have taken me two hours. and in the end the only thing for it was to find my old cones and put it all back together exactly how it was before, only i couldn't even do that. by this time they were closed and i just needed to get out of there. i'd wasted my whole day and not done any of the things i needed to get done. i'd pulled apart my wheel for no decent reason and i was getting increasingly frustrated that i couldn't reassemble it. my bike in pieces, grease and dirt everywhere, my belly empty, i was about to burst into tears and walk home. as pathetic as that would have been. i felt completely destroyed. of course, someone saw my utter desperation and came to my aid. it was almost seven when we finally got it looking like a bike. i didn't even get the guy's name, but he was a fucking star. also the dude who joined me in taking back wheels apart. and the guy who couldn't believe someone had told me i needed new cones, and wanted to know who it was so he could have words (but i'm not one to grass). in total i spent over five hours there and had six different people 'helping' me at various times. and now my bike isn't safe to ride. there's all kinds of weird noises coming from the hub and.. oh i don't know. the whole thing is just fucked. and all i wanted to do was change my brake cable. on the positive side, which i've struggled very hard to see, i learnt a lot about my bike and met some great people. even the person who told me to change my cones i'd buy a beer if i saw him out. it was just a bit of bad luck, that totally ruined my afternoon and evening. and my ride to work this morning. so, see you there next weekend?
29.09.2007: i swear that as the days get shorter, drivers' tempers follow. on the whole it was a good ride, and potentially the last big one of the season (with the unpredictable weather october brings i'm not holding my breathe for a continuation in big turnouts), but it seemed like asshole driver 'participation' was at an all time high. crossing over to the danforth we had a few extremely aggressive drivers, one of them actually rammed a cyclist (there were conflicted reports of whether his wheel was buckled or not). another driver got out his car and almost started a fight. a little while later we were down in the financial district being followed by some particularly nasty bastards. one guy kept suddenly jumping his SUV forwards at the cyclists at the back of the mass, threatening to ram and engulf us under his obscenely large vehicle. there are many methods to cause a serious accident, he happened to chose that one. i totally lost my cool with that guy (i say 'guy', with the height of the vehicle i couldn't even see who was driving) and started shouting obscenities at him. what the fuck are you supposed to do? nearer the end of the ride someone on a motorbike did the same. that's at least three times in one night (potentially more, keeping up with news from the whole mass is tricky). i'm tempted to suggest next time it happens a few hardcore people stop infront of the car to block it outright whilst everyone else gets out of the way. it'd probably only make things worse though. those dickheads are too unpredictable. we could always go australian on them and throw a bike through their windshield, yo. so yes, excluding those few events, and i believe no one was seriously injured, it was a brilliant ride and not too cold at all. the subway went down at some point, so when we were up at yonge and bloor we had one huge audience ("the subways are all closed and there's cyclists blocking the road, it's anarchy", or not). and i got to shout "cult" at the scientologists, hurray. we ended in kensington again, this time cycling round and round the round.. thing, getting extremely dizzy. we then retreated to ronnie's and enjoyed some cool beers while ranting about maths and the state. at least i was, but nevermind.
27.09.2007: lol, i think that's all the comment they deserve..
26.09.2007: where i work i'm up on the fifth floor. and although i bought a cheap bike so i didn't have to worry about bike theft, i still don't like leaving it out on the street all day, so to keep it safe i bring it up into the office. this wouldn't be a problem, only there's also numerous language schools in my building, complete with teeming armies of young foreign students - kids who don't understand elevator ethics. usually i'll just wait in the lobby until everyone has crammed into a lift and then wait for the next one, but some mornings it's just too busy. i'll move my bike infront of the first lift doors (there are three elevators) to make sure i get in first when it arrives. when it does, i'll drag my bike to back and stand behind it, using it as some kind of primitive defense barrier as the kids pile in, chatting frantically in languages that don't even seem compatible. i'd hate to think how much chain oil has been rubbed off onto various jeans and leggings as people squash up against my bike. i try to warn people but i'm just ignored. and then this morning one guy gets his backpack hooked around my handlebars and starts dragging my bike out the lift. there were four other people in the lift when his strap sets off my bike horn, honking somewhere around the 100db level. the frail woman in the corner looked particularly uninmpressed. what was i to do except apologised profusely?
25.09.2007: the woman who was driving way to close to me, the one who was trying to push me off the road, she didn't particularly have it in for me because i'm a cyclist, she was just too busy chatting on her mobile phone. then there's the guy in the big black SUV, he's twenty metres from the traffic lights when they flip to orange, and he decides to accelerate through them. those thirty seconds he shaved off his journey make all the difference.
23.09.2007: it's been a very busy weekend. it's tiring being socially concsious in this stupid city. people don't care enough to get their butts out of their houses and out of their cars, so if there's an event, you need to be there showing your support. but that's not the main reason i go, i'm at them all because they're a hell of a good time. also it's been a gorgeous weekend. the weather has been perfect. from the combination of the warming sun and cool breeze, to the pink and blue slice of sky as the sun set over our saturday evening parade.. did anyone tell you it was international car free day? did you do anything for it? or more importantly not drive? let me know. we were all out along queens west, enjoying our legally rented parking spaces, with tents, busking, boot throwing, painting, and even hair cutting. the parking meter party is a genius idea. and don't all the people walking by say it should be like this every day? yes it should, why don't you do something about it? as with all the other fun and cheekily subversive events in this city, this was organised (spearheaded?) by streets are for people. they'd procured a car from someone (who was more than happy to part with it, it came complete with divorce papers) and they covered every inch of it in paint. these days, this is what passes for a petition. everyone who wanted their streets free from cars signed it, doodled on it, and left their own personal messages. i couldn't resist scrawling "throw brick here" on the window, with a big "X", despite it not being in keeping with the vibe. and, much to the amusement of the now magazine photographer, i wrote "all drivers are murderers" across the rear fender (isn't that what they call them in this country). also julie can't draw bicycles. come six o'clock (probably more like seven, but who was counting?) we started our march from trinity bellwoods park to city hall. it was phenomenal, and not just because i was over-exicted at being asked if i'd be on official corking duty. it was executed beautifully. we had a strong crowd and the drumming group were on form, filling the road with their brutal rhythmic assualt. with a noise like that there is no stopping you. the sun set and the sky popped, raining us with colours, the buildings framing our sliver of rainbow sky. our banners waved in silver blues and yellows, red and black. the graffitied cream car in front, being pushed the whole way. you can't do cooler than that. honk honk honk. we danced on the steps of city hall. shouting and hooting. mj standing on the cenotaph with his trademark horn, doing a quick speech, and i have an urge to shout "mj for major". he looked and sounded the part, plus it looks good written down. and there's your unmissable party. we were up early the next morning to cycle our butts to hyde park for the bells-on-bloor ride. we got there in plenty of time to help out and feel genuinely useful. be proper scene. bells-on-bloor has been born out of takethetooker and a wish to have a more family-orientated less-radical campaign. i think less radical means getting permission and having police involvement, or something. in any other country this would be rubbish, but having a mass of police cyclists accompany us was slick. it made corking easier, a tactic which they'd agreed upon in advance and were more than happy to assist with. try getting that kind of service in new york. and it quickly shut up the more aggressive drivers when a police officer cycled up to lend us his authority. tell me i'm breaking the law now, mother fucker. the organisers were aiming for a one thousand strong crowd, which was an obscene and unattainable goal, but to their credit they pulled in a lot of people. shoot for the moon. it was easily bigger than any of the critical masses i've been on, and some of them have been gigantic. it was a fantastic turn out and it lifted my spirits even higher. and all along bloor people came out of their shops and cafes to ring their bells along with us. it was ding ding ding all the way. i rang my bell so hard i split the skin on my thumb. and i'm sure we went home a little further along the road to tinnitus. after the ride we tried to join the toronto smog hike, organised by the david suzuki foundation and the toronto environmental alliance, two reasonably big players. so what we'd pictured was two lanes of yonge blocked off and filled with smiling families, they'd have banners and ticker tape and all flavours of the wonderful. but no. there was just a few people walking silently along the sidewalk. we knew it was happening and that didn't help us find them. it was like nothing was going on. which is pretty much what was going on. shamed. we cycled up passed eglinton and retired for pizza. a weekend well spent. now i'm thoroughly exhausted. brint on critical mass..
20.09.2007: it's amazing what a different view you get of the city when you cycle through it down a new road and at a different angle. i cycled down university avenue, starting somewhere around eglinton (whatever it's called up there) and ending at queen st west. i had the pleasure of doing this during rush hour and i didn't even notice when i crossed bloor. the bus infront of me had driven too close to the dust piles accumulating at the edge of the road due to construction work and the ROM was completely obscured. from there down to queen was solid non-moving traffic. why do drivers do it to themselves? i spent the whole time balancing my bike between cars and curb so as not to hit them. bike lane anyone? queen st west was the worst. i've never cycled against (yes, "against") a more aggressive group of drivers. mentalists the lot of them. the way to save this city is to skip the congestion charge and jump straight to an outright car ban downtown. that many cars is completely unjustified. any number of cars is completely unjustified. and they all need to learn manners and patience. at my destination i suddenly realised i didn't have the keys to my bike lock. actually i had no keys, i'd left my wallet at home. after a minute of weighing up my options i figured i'd have some faith and i asked the beggar at the end of the street if he'd keep an eye on my bike. in a more sane moment i might ridicule this slightly stupid behaviour too, but five minutes later my bike was still there. i gave him some dinner money and apologised for treating him like a parking meter, he didn't seem to mind at all.
19.09.2007: the great thing about smog is the brilliant early morning jesus rays you get beaming through the trees. it's like cycling through a fantasy novel. but actually more like don quixote, with huge giants charging around everywhere trying to kill you with their bull bars and wing mirrors. the reason i haven't posted for a long time is not because the roads suddenly got much safer, drivers started being friendly to cyclists and vice versa (well that is never going to happen), and the city suddenly rolled out all its bike-friendly plans and then some. it's because i wasn't actually cycling. disappointing huh? sorry. so i get back on my bike after only a week and i'm having to deal with variable weather already. monday tricked me by being too cold, so the last two days i've been sweating all the way to work. and then some idiot in a toronto service van decides to drive three blocks up mt.pleasent road with his all his indicators flashing. at the lights i shouted at him, asking him if he was turning turning, but he couldn't hear me over his big fucking noisey engine. i'm sure driving with your hazard warning lights on is fine in some situations, but not when you're just driving up the road with all the other stupid cars. anyway. i'll see you on the streets. this weekend is a busy one, with car free day and bells on bloor. i was going to link to what appears to be the official car free day website, but they have links to autoshare on their homepage. talk about missing the point, imbeciles. they also link to car heaven, which encourages people to trade in their old cars for new 'environmentally friendly' ones. pricks.
16.09.2007: the other day, during a rather frantic bike ride, i had a few crazy ideas. against my better judgement i'm going to make them 'public'. the least of the crazy ideas is making tinted car windows illegal. all of a sudden this actually seems quite sensible. how many times have you been cycling along parked cars and not been able to see through the tinted windows to check if there's anyone in the car and, more importantly, if they're about to get out without looking? i'm sure there's a very good reason why some cars have tinted windows, but i'm sure it's not as important as reducing the number of people being door'd. the second idea is completely crazy, and everyone is going to disagree
