One Day While Riding My Bike

One day last week, I took my camera to as I rode my bike to work. I picked a good day. First off, what a sunrise!
 
 

Then, on the way home, look up in the sky, it's a bird! It's a plane!It's a...blimp!?!
 

Let's Be Careful Out There

While riding my bike home yesterday across the Gorge Bridge, I saw a kayaker get in trouble. He was in a long Current Design boat, possibly a racing boat. He had just gone under the bridge and was followed by a eight-man sculling boat and the coach in a small motorboat.
I'm guessing that the kayaker did not see the motorboat go by, or he didn't realize that he needed to turn into the wake. Either way, the wake of the motorboat broadsided him and he went half-way over.
He shoved his paddle down into the bottom and stopped himself from going totally over. But he was stuck on his side, half in the water and half out.
There was little I could do up on the bridge except have my cell phone handy to call 911 if he needed help. And he did -- he was calling out.
Another kayaker and a pair in an outrigger were quickly there and helped right him. The coach in the motorboat puttered away in blissful ignorance.
So today's lesson, Grasshopper: even in calm, shallow, well-travelled and familiar water, accidents can happen. Let's be careful out there.

Make Room, Make Room

According to this report, car drivers tend to drive closer to helmeted cyclists than unhelmeted cyclists.
They also apparently give female cyclists more room than male cyclists.

Fall

I saw my breath when I started my bike ride to work today.
Damn.
Where's that box of winter riding gear?

30 Minutes to 25

I'm back on the bike I purchased last year, although late and cursing the fact that I haven't gotten out sooner. I have been riding in the gym as well getting my legs prepared for 3 months. Afterall I do have a bad left knee and both knees tend to creak. Tonight I rode my neighbourhood circuit in 25 minutes--shaved off 5 minutes. Not bad for the second time out riding it.

On a different note....a friend sent me an article on Lance Armstrong. I'm always impressed with people who are into professional sports, sure they make lots of money but I figure some of them really do work hard and it is gruelling to stay in shape. Lance is one of those people. Not all professional sports players maintain a healthy life, some do drugs, some drink and drive. What is interesting is Lance is different....physically different. I would put a link or two here, but it is more fun for you to go search. Search Lance Armstrong's heart and see what you come up with. I found it interesting to discover Lance and other atheletes are actually different from the average person. It isn't all training.

User Fees

I've been reading many letters in the local paper over the past few weeks calling for licensing and registration of bicycles and riders, the idea being that this will increase safety by decreasing traffic law violations by riders, and will help pay for bike-lanes and other bike-oriented improvements.
As a bike commuter, I say these are excellent ideas. There are some bad riders out there that make the rest of us look bad. We've all seen the example of how licensing and registering cars and drivers have reduced speeding, red-light running, non-use of turn signals and other vehicle violations to absolute zero. Our roads our much safer now, thanks to those fees.
While we’re at it, it’s time we stopped subsidizing roads and highways with our tax dollars and increase fees vehicle drivers pay. Gas taxes, licensing and registration don’t begin cover the cost of maintaining old roads, never mind building new ones. And that's also ignoring the costs of externalities such as policing, associated health care costs and environmental damage and repair.
Continuing the user-pay scenario, let’s start licensing pedestrians, too. Clearly there’s room for safety improvements in this sector of the travelling public, as many of them don’t seem to understand the simple phrase “Don’t Walk.” And somebody’s got to pay for all those sidewalks.

Different Worlds

With two trips in the last two months—one to Edmonton and now to Mississauga—I've been missing certain things from my now usual life in Victoria; mostly my kayak and my bike.
When I lived outside Edmonton, I seldom biked; there was never anywhere to bike to. Occasionally I would take my bike into Edmonton and use it for a day, or I would head out onto the secondary highway a mile away from the farm, but not often. When I left and spent time at Monica's remarkable mountainside farm near Nelson, I would take my bike into town and cycle about, sometimes heading up towards Kaslo, but most often just using it as in-town transportation. But this all changed when I settled down in Victoria.
By the time I got to Victoria, Paula had already acquired her trike and was making her own tracks around town. It wasn't hard to tell why: Victoria, for all its hills, is a terrific town to bike in.
Once I went back to Edmonton, I was newly sensitised to bike issues. Edmonton has no bike lanes that I noticed. Not that there aren't a lot of bike riders; Daryl Richel, the programme manager at CJSR Radio, for example, is a 24/7/365 rider. Yes, even at -40°C he commutes by bike. Not coincidentally, CJSR also runs the Bike Report, Canada's only bicycle traffic report. Currently the reports are given by Claire, who reports on local bike traffic conditions and bike related news from across Canada and around the world.
And while in Edmonton, I spoke to a rider having a smoke in front of Mountain Equipment Co-op. This kind of sums up biking in Edmonton; biking is a radical and individualistic act. So a bike rider who smokes, well, I wasn't surprised.
The rider I spoke to at MEC was a tough, aggressive rider—and acknowledged it. But he also acknowledged commute biking in Edmonton is something is an extreme sport and that in the end, even he occasionally bikes on the sidewalk for safety.
It was the same story in Mississauga; extreme sport, dangerous traffic, lack of bike lanes, and frequent riding on the sidewalk. Next to my sister's place in Mississauga is a park and part of the Mississauga trail system. Just like in Edmonton, where the trails are chiefly confined to the river valley, the trails in Mississauga are confined to parks and natural areas. But I borrowed my brother-in-law's bike and headed out to check out the trail.
The trail is lovely—winding, no big hills, paved and travelling through areas that Mississauga Parks are encouraging to return to a more native condition. This means more birds, small hardwoods, and native plants (and weeds) allowed growing unimpeded.
This natural area is not that unusual here; I've noticed several of these small oases in Mississauga. Much of the areas under the power lines in transmission corridors are given over to over to park. But the parks—and, importantly, the trails—are not contiguous. In ecological terms, they house “stranded populations”. The populations may seem healthy, but all are stressed by the very nature of their isolation.
And this holds true for the bike population as much as for the frogs and birds. The path/trail I found is about two kilometres long and connects nothing to nothing. Six lanes of commuter traffic chop it off at one end, and it heads off the other direction past Iceland (a year-round ice sports facility where my six year old niece plays hockey), past a natural recovery area with a stream, around playing fields to where it dead-ends at an off-leash park for local dogs. This would be where I wiped out and the resultant soft-tissue damage put paid to much more biking for the rest of my stay. The trail is good/valuable/worthy, but it is a trail from nowhere to nowhere.
According to the map I have, there are other trails/paths in Mississauga—some even look quite extensive—but they are miles apart, and are all supporting stranded populations.
Nationally, at least, we're trying to address this problem of stranded populations with the creation of the Trans-Canada Trail. Slowly, the country is being connected with this multi-use corridor.
Clearly I've been spoiled for the last year. Victoria has been quite aggressive in its development of bike lanes and multi-use trails, knitting them into the mass transit system and extending them throughout the city. All the users—particularly cyclists—that I speak to love the trails and lanes. And most all of them want to see the system extended, and most of them want to see it done by last year. Personally, I'd like to see a set target of, say, fifty kilometres of new bike lanes a year. Or before any road can be resurfaced, a bike lane must be added.
But honestly, we live in one of the most progressive cities in Canada in terms of traffic policy. An aggressive, vocal bike lobby, traffic engineers who give weight to non-car traffic (whether forced to or wanting to doesn't matter: it still happens), a pretty good mass transit system (almost every bus with a bike rack on the front and I just love the double-decker busses!), walkable neighbourhoods and extensive paths and trails, make for a very liveable city. Most weeks we need a vehicle one day a week and then only because we need to haul kayaks. Otherwise we've spent much of the last year not car-free, but certainly car-reduced. I know I've gone from what was a five thousand kilometre commute each month to a life where I doubt that I've driven five thousand kilometres in the last year. Good for us, good for the environment, and good for the planet.

Four Wheel Ride

Oh boy.
I've been wondering for a while why I can't find a bike built like a dune buggy. Four wheels. Seat low, near the ground. Enough room to carry a picnic cooler (or maybe a 64 litre Roughneck Tote, my favourite gear box).

There are a couple of models of pedaled wheels pretty similar to those specs.
Pedal car -- that's pretty appealing. But no cargo.
But the Rhoades car -- oooh, that's pretty. And appealing.
Go to www.rhoadescar.com and have a look at their designs.
4wheels, 1 person -- pretty damned nice. 1 gear, six gears, or thirty-six.
4 wheels, 2 persons -- also good. The long bed has a big cargo bed instead of a back seat for two more riders.
GoBoy -- also nice. GoBoy for 2 with a flat bed and a ladder rack... ooh, baby.
If any of these could carry a kayak, I'd be sold immediately.
Opinions?

Bonk Bonk on the Head!

So I'm walking through the Library courtyard yesterday, past all the parked bikes. One fellow is clearly not having a good day.
He is swearing and cursing and yelling. His bike lock has jammed up on him and his bike is now possible permanently attached to the bike rack.
He's beating up his lock. He's pulling on it, pushing on it, hitting it, kicking it. Finally, as frustration talks his toll, he grabs his ball cap from his head and slams it to the ground.
Oh, wait.
It wasn't a cheap and flimsy ball cap he snatched from his head and threw to the ground, it was his bike helmet. An expensive bike helmet.
He stopped cursing.
A quiet moment of recognition and reflection.
And then, the swearing and yelling began anew.

Sustained sensation of wellness

Gotta say, this riding a bike -- well, tricycle -- has been working out for me. As in me working out. As in breaking sweat at least twice a week with hard riding. well, hard for me. But even on slow, drowsy rides I have noticed that I have a sustained sensation of wellness. It's a pleasure to ride. It's been a year and a half since I bought this bike and hills are eaasier, flat stretches go faster, and I go farther and feel better during and after. What more could I want?
Well, a recumbent trike with a big basket and a custom Tony's trailer.
But that's for the future.
Ride the bike that's here.

6/6/2006

So 6/6/6 wasn't such a scary number after all, was it? I know that here in Victoria it was one of the nicest days we've had this year. And I took full advantage of the combination of a beautiful day and a day off from invigilating exams at the University to take my bike and power off to the end of the Galloping Goose Trail.
The Trail, named after an old locomotive and running on the old roadbed, runs from kilometre zero at the Johnson Street Bridge out past the Sooke Potholes Provincial Park to end at the abandoned mining village of Leechtown fifty-five kilometres away. I've never biked the length of it, and have always thought that the trip from Victoria to Sooke would be interesting. And it is.
The first section of the ride is alongside the main artery of Victoria, Douglas Street. After Switch Bridge, the trail parallels Douglas as Douglas turns into the Trans-Canada Highway heading up to Naniamo. As Douglas changes, the Goose veers south into Colwood. The Trail starts to become more than a commuter route at this point, as the trees lining the sides of the Trail start to close in and occasionally arch over it, leaving you biking through a green tunnel. It's here that you cross Six Mile Bridge, one of those typical places in Victoria—where a place of stunning natural beauty exists fifteen metres from fifteen thousand people. Or as I put it 24 years ago; “another f*cking picturesque view, eh”?
While the route that the Trail follows through Colwood is very pretty—lots of flowering trees and wild rose bushes—there seems to have been a distinct lack of commitment to the Trail by the local government during its construction phase. There are several awkward or impossible crossings (such as the one over the Island Highway at Ocean Boulevard) that could have been made so much better if trail users had been given a bit more thought (or respect). One also has to be careful crossing the Veteran's Memorial Parkway, as the Trail technically ends and then restarts across the way. But if you watch the signage here, you end up back on the Trail rather than on the pedestrian-only trails paralleling the Parkway.
Between Kilometre 17 and 18, if you keep watch, is a small post that says “Jenkins Trail”. This is an excellent turnaround point for a morning ride. If you turn north here, you end up in Glen Cove Park, with its AFPV (another f*cking etc) from a small bench in the boardwalk that cuts across the east end of Glen Lake. This is an excellent bird-watching spot—I spotted a redwing blackbird jumping from lily pad to lily pad and occasionally flipping up the edges of the lily pads, foraging for bugs. This isn't behaviour that I've seen in redwing blackbirds before, so I found it quite interesting. But I usually use this location for fish watching. The water here is usually quite clear, and the bottom is covered with a forest of plants, so if you watch closely you will usually see a number of fish of different sizes and types moving in and out of the shelter of the plants. But today it was only fry less that ten millimetres long zipping about in the water.
Leaving Glen Lake, you run into another terrible crossing, where the Trail, Glen Lake Road and the Island Highway come together. And particularly try to avoid this crossing during the Luxton Fair weekend—nothing but cars and people in every direction. Thankfully, the fair was a couple of weeks back, so the traffic was lessened.
After the Luxton fairgrounds, the Trail runs roughly alongside Happy Valley Road and becomes more distinctly rural in nature. Here farms back onto the Trail, and creeks run along side it, and the biking is a treat. It rained a few days back, so the Trail was still damp, and biking along it was a lot cooler than it was in the sun.
The next problematic crossing comes when the Trail crosses the intersection of Rocky Point Road and Kangaroo Road. It was a short while after this crossing that the unexpected happened between kilometre 27 and 28. I was cruising nicely, the gravel surface of the Trail here is a fine crushed gravel (say 8mm and under), and is well packed. Making good time, I came around a slight bend in the green tunnel and slammed on the brakes. I skidded to a stop while less than seven metres ahead of me a small black bear crossed the Trail. He (all bears are he, except for Polar bears which are she) was obviously still young and not anywhere near full sized. His coat was rough, not the late summer sleekness of a well-fed mature bear, and all I wanted to do was dig my fingers in and give him a good scratch. He jogged across the Trail and paused briefly on the down-slope on the other side, turning to look at me while I stayed quite still looking at him. Then he continued down the slope and stopped in the underbrush by the creek flowing at the bottom of the ravine.
I guess I never really believed that there were bears on the Island. I've seen the local deer—often on the Goose or Lochside Trails—and while the mule deer we'd see on the farm were seven hundred pounds and up, the local deer are luck to weigh a tenth that. So I didn't really think that bears would be able to live on the Island. But this area, particularly as you get closer to Matheson Lake, is still quite wild. Cougars are regularly spotted inside the city limits, and years ago one actually was spotted within two blocks of our house on John Street, but I have difficulty believing in them too. I think its because growing up in Edmonton, the urban and the wild were distinctly different things; with the wild being relegated to the National Parks like Jasper and Banff.
At approximately kilometre 30 is the cut-off to Matheson Lake Regional Park. Previously, this was the furthest I'd biked on the Galloping Goose. That was last summer when John and I biked out and Paula and Louise brought the kayak out. At this point you are just past halfway to the end of the Trail, and Matheson is a good place to stop as the lake is suitable for swimming, fishing, and boating.
The entrance to Roche Cove Regional Park is at kilometre 35, and this is where I stopped for lunch. The Trail has to be around a hundred metres up from the Cove, and provides some spectacular views. Roche Cove is connected to Matheson Lake, and Matheson is home to beautiful sea-run trout with orange salmon-like flesh (yes, back in the day I would occasionally drop a line into the water).
From Roche Cove, the Trail follows the Sooke Basin shoreline all the way over to Cooper Cove, passing at least one B&B enroute. It was only a couple of weeks back that we were out kayaking in Cooper Cove and Sooke Basin, so it was very interesting to see it from the Trail point of view.
After Cooper Cove, the Trail follows Sooke Road for a while before bending off to the north and heading towards Sooke Potholes Provincial Park, staying high up the side of the hill while far below the Sooke River tumbles along.
There are two spectacular trestle bridges here; the Charters Creek and Tod Creek trestles, both of which are high over their respective creeks. There are alternate routes over each creek for horse traffic. And the trail finally end at kilometre 55 in Leechtown—the former site of a gold mining community.
By the end of the trip I have to say that I was plenty tired. It has been months since I've biked more than fifteen or twenty kilometres at one go, so I biked back down to Sooke Road about kilometre 41, and caught the municipal bus back to Victoria, loading my bike on the front. I've never done this before either, and found the procedure quite straightforward, and the bus drivers quite understanding and helpful. But then most of the bus drivers here are understanding, patient, and helpful.
So I made it back to the house, tired, but not destroyed. And the next morning I experienced only a small amount of stiffness—about what I usually feel in the morning, so I was quite pleased with myself. Really, a terrific bike trip.

Bike to Work Week - Dénouement

Now that all the hoopla about Bike to Work Week is over, there's just one last thing to take care of: prizes!
The joke was all last week that we’d win a water bottle. Guess what? Yes, it’s true – we won a water bottle! And a hat, and two passes to various Greater Victoria Recreation Centres.
Ah, but now comes the tricky part. Who gets the prizes? As team captain, I decided that each day that a person rode their bike to work last week would count as an entry in our Prize Winner Determination Draw. I rode five days, so I get five entries. Same with Linda. Paddy rode three times, she gets three entries, and Jocelyn, who rode once, got one entry.
An impartial non-bike rider made the draw. And the winner is ….Jocelyn! Jocelyn who rode only once! Jocelyn who beat the 14-1 odds in our draw! Man, that sucks! I like that hat!

Bike to Work Week - Day 5

Amazingly, no evils befell me. No cars lept out of blind alleys, no strange and sudden meteorological anomalies rained down on me, no part of my bike suddenly disintegrated while I was racing down a steep hill.
How was the turn out? There's 24 people in our branch. 7 signed up to ride all week, only two of us, including myself, did. One person rode three days, one person rode one day, the other three didn't ride at all.

Bike to Work Week - Day 4

What a great week this is turning into. This morning I got "pot holed" by a car. First time ever. The car had me lined up, found a pot hole full of water and splatto - drenched from head to toe.
Thank you very much, Mr. Anonymous Asshole.

Bike to Work Week - Day 3

After yesterday's sunshine, the clouds returned. Cold and misty. But not bad for biking.
Except that my chain fell off again.
Sigh.

Bike To Work Week - Day 2

Tuesday was a much brighter day. Thanks to the nice weather, there were lots of newbie bicyclists on The Galloping Goose trail today. It was crowded!
This is why some experienced riders don't ride during Bike to Work Week -- it's too busy!

Bike to Work Week - Day 1

Well, what can I tell you?
It rained in the morning, my chain came off twice and I dropped my digital camera. Not a great start to the week. Out of the seven people at work on my team who were going to ride, only two did. One injured his ankle over the weekend and won't be riding at all this week.

Still, it looked like a lot of people were out, judging by all the amateurs on the trails. And the activites looked well attended, too. Maybe I'll have a better attitude tomorrow!

UVic's cycling/parking news

In August 2005 the parking rates at UVic went up 40% (UVic's president got a 45% raise) and a lot of employees were pissed off. At the time we hadn't had a pay increase in five years, and although we've won some gains, our parking rates will go up again this August. It is all in an effort to reduce the cars on campus, which in light of gas prices and cutting down on traffic is something that is commendable. However, at this point in time there isn't the set up to encourage staff to ride to work. A lot do cycle to work, and interestly enough most of them live close to UVic and sometimes even walk to work. In some cases my fellow coworkers live too far to cycle or have children to drop off and pick up after school. Cycling just wouldn't work in this case, nor does taking the bus.

I too drive to work, during the summer months. In the winter I take the bus using my student bus pass. I feel I'm doing my part. I would cycle to UVic, however there are a few issues that prevent me. 1) I use to work at Campus Security and one of my jobs was to do the stats--bike theft was pretty high at that time and I don't think the figures have gone down. 2) my supervisor had his bike stolen during Bike to Work Week 2004, it was locked up right outside our office doors. 3) there is a waiting list for the bike lockers, although more are on the way.

I think the bike lockers are a neat idea! I'm hoping that I can get one next summer and ride to work. I know I should do it this summer, but I already purchased my parking pass for the summer months, and it wasn't cheap! It is non-refundable, non-transferrable.

There are covered lock up areas on campus too.
Check it out the lockers, bike shelters at: http://transportation.uvic.ca/cycling/parking.html

Gear up!

Hey, I got my new gear!
My five-speed tricycle is still a five speed. But instead of gears 1 through 5, with a 36-tooth front gear wheel, it's now got a 40-tooth front gear wheel so the gears are more like gears 2 through 6. I go a little faster now, and never use first gear anyways but walk up hills that steep.
Zoom.
Now I'm looking for a recumbent trike or semi-recumbent. Time to test ride an EZ 3 at the Fairfield bike shop again, and try others.
But in the meantime, zoom.

Bike to Work Week

Hey kids, it's that time of the year again!
Bike To Work Week is May 29 - June 2. Sign up for fun, frolic and prizes. I'm a team leader at my workplace, and I'll bring you all the lowdown during the week.