Things that make me smile...

I just came across this entry in one of the blogs I follow, ThumbShift, and I had to pass it along. Not only is the "Mario Kart" bike lane in Portland a heartwarmingly happy example of urban guerilla art, but most of the pictures collected in the post also made me smile. This might be the most obvious example of cyclists owning the space they're given and the space they inhabit. Making their mark on their landscape.

The Opposite of Instructive

Last week, as I was attempting to tighten up my brakes (they were starting to bottom out on the handlebars a bit too much for my liking) I discovered a couple of things. One was that the living room of an apartment is never really the most convenient place to work on a bike. I had to prop it up against a doorframe, and then kneel on hardwood to try and get close to the brakes, or stand and lean over the bike awkwardly. The other thing I discovered was that the repair manual I had, which I picked up a while back and found fairly unreadable, but assumed would turn out to be useful when I needed it, was near useless. "Roadside Bicycle Repair" my ass: not sure you can call a book that, if it tells you that shortening your brake cable can only properly be done with (and I quote) "special pliers known as the "fourth hand," a solitary monk among tools serving few other purposes. Only the most devout mechanics take one on the road."

Well, thank you. Nice to know that to do what I want to do, I'll need a tool that, you assure me, I don't have.

The instructions to go on to say, "Lacking such salvation, your best hope toward redemption arrives with the barrel adjusters, which intervene along the cable's path to lengthen or shorten its housing, effectively decreasing or increasing the distance a cable must travel to execute decisions."

The style goes on like that, incidentally. The slightly-off verbs and prepositions alone are enough to make my little editor's heart want to scream.

I picked the book in question - Roadside Bicycle Repair: A Pocket Manifesto - up in a little indie bookstore because the author, Sam Tracy, had written another, much bigger, book, that the staff in the bookstore said was good. But this one was smaller, cheaper, and easier to include in the bike bag. And it had a very nifty neo-retro-Soviet red-and-black cover. So I picked it up, got it home, and sat down to take a look at it. I got about half a page before I found myself flipping on to another section, due to the prose style mostly, and the lack of comprehensible pictures, and then I decided that I'd just keep it around, and the next time I wanted to work on the bike, I'd break it out and find the section I needed, and then maybe the book would prove to be useful.

So I found the section I needed. How to shorten the brake cable (or, apparently, its 'housing.') I've been biking steadily for three years or so now. I can change and patch my tires, adjust my seat, tighten bolts, install racks and other accessories, swap out pedals, all that sort of thing. But I'm not exactly familiar with all types of bike, or brake. And naming a thing does not mean I will know what it is, or looks like. So, having just mentioned the barrel adjusters, Tracy goes on to say:

"We may find a barrel perched atop the brake itself or riding the lever's tip, but really they show up anywhere along the cable's length."

(Okay, but what do they look like? And where is the tip of the brake lever anyway?)

"We need to wind the barrel adjuster up and out of its base in order to increase the cable's tension and tighten the brakes, and vice versa."

(Vice versa? What? My internal editor is crying.)

"The barrel adjusters governng brake cables wear small nuts or knurled collars around their necks, which are spun all the way down to finalize a given adjustment."

Okay. I'm now officially lost. And there are no pictures. The pictures that there are in this book aren't really all that informative: they show you, in this section, a couple of different styles of brake, but don't identify any of the parts. I'm left wondering who this book is meant for. Not me, apparently, since he only manages to baffle me. But then, people who already know what all of the bits are called and where to find them on their bike probably also already know how they work, and warnings about having your brakes positioned too high (accidentally gouging your sidewalls), or about not riding a bike with a loose wheel, are probably a little beneath them. And dear god, someone should have stopped his prose style before it got as far as "There opens a Pandora's box of loose, loud, and less-effective brakes, against which we set the course of our mechanical energies."

To be fair, there were three pages that seemed pretty clear to me: on patching a tire. It was nice to know how long the liquid rubber needs to set before you put on the patch. An actually useful piece of information, and there was a photograph that illustrated what needed to be done. The initial "flight check" section seemed promising, too, but somewhere between checking to make sure the handlebars aren't loose or wobbling, and "keep an eye out for any tight chain links," he makes another one of those huge leaps over a knowledge gap. Perhaps, Sam, you could tell me how to identify whether a chain link is tight or not? No? Okay, then.

Putting the book down, I went online. It wasn't much more help, but I at least thought I knew where to start. But then, as I was testing the tension on the front brake, I felt the cable give, and the brake handle bottomed out completely. I could hold both brakes down full strength and roll the bike back and forth with no resistance. And when I looked, the front brake's cable looked unpleasantly thin, as though it had frayed down to one small, delicate line. So I swore to myself, packed up my tools, and resigned myself to taking the bus to work the next day, and to taking the bike over to the local bike shop in the afternoon to get someone a little more qualified to replace the cable.

And promised myself I'd find a better repair book.

I don't believe it.

I just spotted this article in the Seattle Times: Black Hawk, Colorado has banned bicycles.

Banned.

Bikes.

Why? Because the streets are narrow, and the town is full of casinos and therefore overrun with tour buses in the summer months. (Never mind that it's also on a very popular touring route, and cycling is a big thing in Colorado. I understand that gambling dollars trump whatever money you can squeeze out of banana-packing, camelbak-wearing Lycra-clad cyclists.) They claim that "...the [State] Legislature, at the prodding of cycling groups, passed a law in 2009 requiring that motorists give bikes 3 feet of space if passing. That would force traffic in parts of Black Hawk to veer into the wrong side of the road..."

Oh nos! Three feet of space! The wrong side of the road! Wait, when I'm driving and passing a cyclist, I pull out into the oncoming lane (given there's no oncoming cars in said lane) pretty much any time I can. So do many other motorists I know. Oh, and wait, I just spent a couple of weeks this summer in Scotland, where if you get outside the towns, most roads are only one lane - and a narrow lane at that, almost too narrow for an American SUV, with virtually no shoulder. What do Scottish motorists do when there are bikes using the roads? They slow down, treat the bike like any other vehicle, and wait until they get to one of the widened "passing places" before pulling out past the bike and moving on. And - get this - none of them suffers convulsive head implosion from the enforced deceleration.

Now, the town of Black Hawk apparently has a population of a little over 100, but enough casinos to warrant being very, very nice to the tour buses. If the town is that size, couldn't the tour buses park on the outskirts, and the gaggles of happy gamblers walk to their casinos of choice? Or take the free tram line that is already in place? Or maybe, since Colorado is a cyclists' paradise, maybe Bixi or some other bike share company could set up a rack of share bikes in the parking lots. The gamblers could get a taste of life in Colorado, and a little fresh air before setting up shop in front of the slot machines. Black Hawk could even put in a water bar where at the end of their grueling half-mile journey, they could get designer water and hand-picked bananas or locally-formed energy bars. It's a win-win.

Consultation!

What word better sums up the image of a happy and contented Ottawa than that? Really! The sun is shining, it's late summer, there's a looming but yet still oddly distant mayoral race coming on, and someone, somewhere, is having a public consultation. All's well in the nation's capital.

But sarcasm aside, I did go and fill out this survey, on the City of Ottawa website. If you live here, you should too. They're looking for input from cyclists for an evaluation of cycling safety in the city. Really, I don't actually have that many complaints: not anything that the City can do much about, at any rate. But I did go, and sign in, and include my $0.02 (mostly about the Queen Elizabeth/Colonel By pedestrian and cyclist crossings). If nothing else, the number of people that fill in this survey will give the city a better idea of how many of us are out there.

Good news, too: they're aware of Ottawa Biking Problems, which is a well-nigh overwhelming compendium of cyclists' trouble spots, as well as being a discussion forum. So when you've filled in your survey, cruise on over there and see if you can add to the brainstorming.

From Aberdeen

Yup, I'm in Scotland. I had to share this: I was walking around near the University of Aberdeen (in the north end of the city) and I found BeCyCle! I had mentioned this place before on this blog - a bike co-operative that a student of my sister's had been involved with, who, among other things, collect abandoned bikes, refurbish them, then lend them out for free. Anyway, after a really nice walk along the River Don, my sister and I were heading back toward campus (in search of a pint at the local) and stumbled upon it! Here it is, in situ (you can't quite see the hand-lettered wooden sign with the website written on it, by that open doorway. I didn't see any folks around, but I could spot some bike bits inside!):

Another note: given my one day of experience in Scotland, I do have to say that cobblestones look fairly uncomfortable to ride on: and having walked along one of the bike paths today, the 'rules' seem to also be kind of haphazard. I'm used to some pretty strict "keep right" rules on the rec paths in Ottawa: those rules don't really seem to get applied here. It doesn't help, I suppose, that on hearing a bike bell 'ting' behind me, I jumped to the right, not the left, to get out of the way. I felt bad, and silly, and foreign, for about thirty seconds - until I realized that no one on the path seemed to be keeping to any side at all. Ah. So that's how it's gonna be. I feel less like a clod.

Words of Advice for TO, Mukluks, and Scotland

I came across this article a few days ago: kind words of advice from a Montrealer to Torontonians who are about to encounter Bixi. I thought it was cute. Plus, hooray for Toronto for getting Bixi. It's a town that does lend itself to getting around by bike, as my brother found when he was living there: you can use side streets and paths to get almost anywhere (unlike Ottawa, where outside of the downtown core the side streets don't cross the waterways that run through the city, so you're forced onto bigger streets.)

On a completely different note, Salsa Cycles just introduced a snow bike that looks really cool for all kinds of terrain, not just snow: the Mukluk. Check it out here: I know it's hard to think about snow at the beginning of August (even if the cicadas have started buzzing and the nights have started getting cooler) but think about what this bike might do on sand, dirt, debris, gravel. If I was rich, I'd be looking at a bike like this for the winter, and then once I had it, I'd start itching to do some massive offroading. (Once, last summer, I decided to try one of the ski paths at Mer Bleue Bog, which are nominally hiking trails but actually sit under about six inches of water and muck for most of the trail, and are knee-high in grasses and weeds. I was dragged to a slogging halt, and finally gave up halfway to bushwhack my way back to the road, spattered with mud to the shoulders. Now with one of these bikes, I'd totally give that trail another shot.... on a day when I didn't mind getting really dirty.) 

And this might be my last post for a little while: I'm heading to Scotland for a couple of weeks to visit my sister and her husband! I can't say that I won't be posting (apparently there are some great bike routes in Scotland) but I make no promises. I may be way too busy having fun!

The Rideau Canal Festival

I just came across this (thanks to the Ottawa Festivals Twitter feed): The Rideau Canal Festival is this weekend, celebrating the canal as a UNESCO World Heritage Site - and a great way to get from one end of town to the other, I might add.

I love the canal. It's one of my favorite things about Ottawa. During the Spring Edition of the Writers Festival, this April, I made a point of shuttling authors from the Lord Elgin Hotel (our hotel) to the Mayfair Theatre (our venue) by way of Queen Elizabeth Drive, so they would get the really scenic route. The canal didn't let me down, with trees blossoming away and pedestrians and joggers and cyclists making the rec paths look so darn idyllic.

In the winter, the canal is the only bike path I've found that stays cleared, and it becomes my main artery from south to north, giving me a way to get around without having to worry about ice sending me sliding into the path of an oncoming car. And at night, I'll usually opt to take the canal rather than Bank Street home from the Market or Ottawa U, again to avoid cars.

The Festival is partnering with Bicycles for Humanity Ottawa this year: there will be bike parking onsite, and bikes for rent so you can tour the canal on two wheels.

Plus, if you adopt a metre of the canal, you can opt to have half your adoption fee go to support Bicycles for Humanity. Which is pretty awesome. (B4H collects unwanted bikes and ships them to communities that need them around the world.)