Wolcum Yole: or, Winter's Here...

I happened to be up in the wee hours of the morning this morning (like, at about 4:30 AM) and so I saw the snow starting to fall, and I wasn't surprised when, after I went back to bed and got some more sleep, the roofs outside were all white. Last day of November, and there's finally snow.

But, it had pretty much melted by the time I made it to work. It was a tough slog, but maybe because of the lack of sleep, or maybe because the rainpants drag a little on my legs, or maybe because Mike's gearshifts really need a tune-up. Still, my eyes watered and I had to churn into the wind, but I stayed more or less toasty. When I bought my coffee, though, the girl behind the counter exclaimed at how cold the coins were. (Yeah, I said, I just spent 40 minutes on a bike with them in my jacket pocket, so it's not surprising they're cold.) It's cold and bright outside - heading down to -4 this afternoon, so I'm bracing for the ride home. And yet, remembering that you don't have to bike is sometimes just what you need to get in the saddle. I try to bring bus fare with me. That way I know I have an option, and somehow that makes me decide to bike.

I think it's related to the trick my ex-climbing partners used to use on me when I was about to give up on a particularly tough problem. "It's okay," they'd say, "you don't have to do it, you can come down if you want and try again later." It was the surest way to keep me up there trying the problem over and over until I finally got it or my muscles gave out on me.

My other sign of the season? The weekend's wind knocked down little chunks of dead branches all over the bike path, and they haven't been cleaned up. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, the maintenance teams' drawbridge is drawn and it's going to stay drawn till spring thaw, or a little thereafter.

Here goes, for real.

Illuminated!

A couple of days ago a co-worker said that she was heading to MEC, and did I want her to pick up a new headlight for me? I had been mentioning that I needed one, if only so I didn't have to leave work at 4:00 in order to catch the light, but it's hard to find the time to get all the way across town. So I said, yeah, sure, and went online to figure out which one to send her off to get.

I used to have a Planet Bike Beamer. A little LED that could be quick-removed from the mounting on the handlebars and double as a flashlight. But I discovered that it didn't really throw enough light to make the trip home along the path very comfortable. I remember midnight runs home, peering into the darkness, with a faint little circle of light on the pavement, failing to show me the potholes, rocks, and branches until I was basically on top of them.

I needed something that would provide light to see by, not just visibility to cars, like a Turtle light, but you can spend upwards of $90 on a commuting headlight, and MEC had one - "for 24-hour races and competitive night riding" the catalogue said - for about $400.

Then I spotted these (MEC brand "Sharks"), and the catalogue suggested that for $12.50 each, you could get two and double up. Well, of course! So, I did. They're super-bright: the day I got them I headed home around 9:30 PM from an after-work meeting, and was astonished. They cover the whole path. They're bright enough to light up the ceiling of the highway underpass. And it was actually quite beautiful, getting on the bike path with the city lights across the river all shining on the water, and putting on my headphones and zipping along in the dark cold, listening to "Ideas" on CBC as I pedaled.

It was even better last night, when I went out for a drink with some friends after a reading in the Market, and we suddenly looked up to realize it was 2:30 AM. It wasn't raining anymore - it had been earlier in the day - so I packed my rainpants into the pannier, flicked on my lights, and headed off for the canal. I had the whole canal path to myself, and it was still warm enough out that I didn't even need to wear my mittens, and at that hour of the night there's no stress. The streets are all yours. And I had plenty of light to see by on the pathways, and I knew that the cars that were out could see me. Freedom! I no longer have to scurry home before dark like some sort of small diurnal scavenger!

And come on, doesn't it look like Mike's got beady little eyes? Aren't they cute? Doesn't he look like WALL-E?
(The friends I was with last night think I should get four or six more and line them up along the handlebars like deerjackers. I'm half tempted. It would make Mike look like the low-tech version of a truck from a post-apocalypse movie. Which would be awesome.)

Kodak moment

I was meeting friends for breakfast at the Elgin Street Diner before the Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph in Ottawa when I spotted this bike, locked a foot off the pavement on the rail outside a bar strip. I had to stop and take the picture. I know, I know, my cell phone camera sucks. I still like this shot for some reason.

... more style!

A friend sent me this link, to a blog on academic style (or stylish academia?) called Academichic.com - a post on cycling style. Right now going through these pictures causes more jealousy than inspiration - hard to be stylish on a bike in Ottawa in November. I'm living in a daily uniform of jeans (one leg tucked into a sock) and three layers, the top layer being the zip-out fleece lining of a light winter jacket. Sure, I could bundle up in a nice coat, but I don't want all my nice winter coats to wind up with a spattered stripe up the back, and that's what happens. Ditto the Victorian walking boots I just picked up from Clockwork Couture - they'll just get soaked. And do heels fit inside the shoe covers I got at MEC? (Actually, they might. Would look hilarious.)

I guess I feel like there are certain limitations connected to the kind of cycling you do. I'm a couple of miles away from downtown by any estimation, and the roads I take to get there are big, loud, dirty, and busy. Mike is as burly and gutsy as he needs to be to get me from place to place, but he's not really conducive (as I've mentioned before) to pretty clothes. More than Mike, though, the roads aren't. You just don't see women like the one in this picture beyond the confines of the true urban. Heading out to the suburbs you see the folks in Spandex and clip-toe shoes, with the mirrors on their helmets, or you see people like me in jeans and hoodies, but you're less likely to run into a sundress and heels on the way down, say, Conroy or West Hunt Club. On the pathways, maybe: once the pathways run out, someone dressed like that starts to look a little like a Minnesota tourist family that's just wandered into the wrong part of Amsterdam.

But, for the kind of objective pleasure that flipping through magazines, or gourmet cookbooks, or watching Fashion Television affords, this post is just great. So are:

Girls and Bicycles
Copenhagen Cycle Chic
Let's Go Ride a Bike
Chic Cyclist (and I love the current post "You Don't Have to Ride Your Bike" because it states perfectly something I didn't even realize I wanted to say!)

And just to plug Clockwork Couture, because I loves me my steampunk (although watch out for their shipping department, they can be a pain in the ass): their "casual cycling capris" are want-inducing. Although they don't make them in my size I guarantees ya.

Fellow Travellers

I was having a terrible ride home today. It was raining, and by the time I was climbing Bank Street it was dark. I don't know why it is that people seem to be worse drivers in the rain - maybe it's a matter of my perception, maybe not. It's true that in the rain, the cars are louder. They seem to cut closer to you, and to be more impatient. I swore out loud at someone in a black truck that passed me with about a foot of clearance, and then again when a minivan nearly made a left turn right into me. I was bitching out loud at them all, and at the unfairness of having to worry about being critically injured or killed by my goddamn commute. (Once again, the thought crossed my mind that it's very strange how people who find out I enjoy rock climbing think I'm some kind of crazy daredevil, but don't bat an eye at my biking to work every day.)

And the traffic was just awful - backed up all the way down Bank. I was dodging around the cars trying to angle in off side streets and keeping an eye out for anyone that might be cutting in through the lines and turning left, and I got stopped up behind a bus that was trying to merge back into traffic, so had left no space for me to get between it and the curb. So I stopped, waiting for the bus to budge, and then I heard, "It's awful today, isn't it?"

There was a guy behind me on a commuter bike in a yellow rainjacket - older than me; I'm fairly certain he had grey hair under the helmet. I said something like, "Yeah, and they always seem to drive worse in the rain," and he nodded.

"Well, it's all clogged up," he said. "I haven't seen it this bad in a long while."

And then the bus moved a little, so I slipped between it and the curb and pedalled on up to the intersection. The light was red, so I pulled up. The guy was still behind me.

"How long are you going to keep riding?" he asked me.

"Long as I can," I told him, and mentioned that I use the River Path, so when the snow gets deep I'll have to find a streetside route. I also told him about the rumor I'd heard from the NCC about keeping part of the western path clear this year.

"Does that help you?" he asked me, and I said no, not really. "But it's a start, right?" I said.

"Yeah, it's a start." And then the light turned green and he said, "Have a good night," and I said, "Yeah, you too."

Biking on up the hill to my place, I felt a lot better. Something about the question: "How long are you going to keep riding?" There was a companionability about that question, and a sense that we both knew anyone out there in the cold mid-November drizzle in their rain gear was probably a committed cyclist. Still riding at this time of year, and in weather like that? The question isn't whether you're going to be riding in the snow - the question is how much snow you're going to try to handle.

Sometimes a little smidgin of esprit de corps can really improve your day.

Turning Signals!

...now come standard on almost all cars! No, really!

Black Mercedes-Benz, plate #AZNZ 999

(written, as a Facebook note, by Katie Malkovsky and reposted here for the edification of the populace. This incident happened in Toronto.)

If you should happen to pass said car, and you're carrying your keys in your hands, and a single key inadvertantly slips out from between your fingers, and as you walk by - oops! - you realize you've scratched said car with your key, rest assured: the owner is an asshole.

This driver felt that a cyclist had cut him off, so he honked. So far so good. Then, he sped up and drove the cyclist all the way over to the side of the road, and continued behind, a few inches away from the cyclist, forcing the poor guy on the bike to go speeding down the street in order to not be run over by the car directly behind him. When the person you're tailing is in a car, that shit is intimidating. When the person you're chasing is on a bike, that shit is murderous.

So the car goes back to the middle of the road and stops, and the driver gets out. He starts yelling at the cyclist. A car in the next lane stops to yell at the first driver. Now both lanes are blocked, cars are honking, and this psycho driver is still yelling and cursing at the cyclist. I walk by, pull out my phone, and say, "so, I'll just call the police then, unless you're just about done?" At this point the cyclist speeds off. Fuck. I meant to scare the driver, not the cyclist.

Driver 1 and Driver 2 continue to yell at each other. Driver 2 speeds away, Driver 1 pulls over and just sits there. I dunno why.

Sorry for the crappy photo quality. Cell phone cam. I was also trying to be discreet, so as no to anger the psycho.