Proper spring

I was out looking for photos for the
Centretown BUZZ. Found this.

Today was probably the first taste of proper spring. It's gritty and wet (my back fender fell off a couple of days ago, because the zip tie holding it on broke: left the house without it today and regretted it within five minutes when I had a soggy, gritty patch on my ass.)

Oh, but, but...Gritty, wet, sure, but it was above freezing. I could wear my helmet without a toque underneath it. There were patches of dirty snow creeping out into and across the bike lanes, but I rode along, way out in the lane to avoid the potholes and puddles, taking up my space like a boss and thinking, "There's hope for the universe yet."

Spring always does that to me. Somehow riding your bike when you're not bundled up, head and torso immobilized by coat and scarf and hat and shoulders hunched up against the chill - riding when you can loosen up and let down the defenses against the elements - the first day you really get to do that in the spring is so liberating. It's like you have so much more room, control, grace, power. You're not carrying around a ton of tension, prepared for black ice, slippery slush, that hidden pothole, the car bearing down from behind, and shrunk into yourself because it's -20 out there beyond your eyelids... nope. Not anymore. Now you're a lane-taking, curb-hopping, pedal-cranking machine, with your head on a swivel just because it finally can be.

Or maybe it's just me.

Long live the first yawns and stretches of spring.

Jaw dropped, for two reasons

Out of the internet ether comes this crazy bike fact: 

There was once a bike that went 127 miles an hour. 

It looked like this:

And it went like snot. It was ridden in 1962, in Germany, by a crazy bastard named José Meiffret. It's worth reading the full story, which I stumbled upon via ThumbShift and Grist.com. Everything about this bike and the ride strikes me as having a sort of inspired, delirious madness about it. 

And while we're marveling at inspired craziness from the past, here's some from the present: I was on the way home tonight when I heard CBC's As It Happens running a story about Boris Johnson's cycling initiatives, announced this morning. Boris Johnson, in case you don't know, is the mayor of London, England. I've posted a video on this blog of him riding a "Boris bike" with Arnold Schwarzenegger when they got instated (incidentally, the Boris bikes are actually the Bixi bikeshare system, bought from Canada). I knew he was a cycling supporter. 

But to the tune of 913 million pounds? That's how much he'll be spending on infrastructure to prioritize bikes, get more people cycling and relieve traffic, according to the Guardian. There will be a 15-mile "crossroad for cyclists" - a fully segregated bike freeway, co-opting parts of existing motorways. There will be three "mini Hollands" in the suburbs - areas where bikes will supplant cars for internal transportation almost entirely.

As Jeff Douglas said on the show, "If you're a regular cyclist in a Canadian city, you might want to plug your ears and hum loudly for the next few minutes. Because this story may make you a tiny bit envious. Or unbelievably, unbearably envious."

Yeah, Jeff. You nailed it. 

A bike made of cars

I've stumbled across another cool (if somehow hipstery) video. This is a bike made out of junked cars. There's a lovely sort of metaphor in that. Also, blowtorches are cool.

It's that magical time...

When potholes spring up out of nowhere! Like daisies! Or possibly fungus!

But to bring a little joy into a pothole-ridden day, I have just discovered a total gem of the Interweb: there is a website called www.pothole.info. There really is. I found it because I wanted to look up something on how potholes form (because it seems to me like they're worse on higher-speed roads and I was looking for some sort of explanation for that). Go. Click it. It's really entertainingly written.

Anyway, the pothole report from here: there are days when I feel, as I turn in to my driveway, that just getting home unharmed was an achievement for the day. And I feel a little badass as I put on the brakes in front of my door and pick the bike up to bring it inside... that's right, I just made it home. UNINJURED. What have you done recently?

I was on the way home today and ran into this nightmare: this is on the way south on Bank, near the intersection with Randall, I think. The problem here is the high snowbanks on the side of the road which eat the bike lane (while it lasts) and then do a quick duck further into traffic where the bike lane ends. By the time you've made it through all that, you're a little sketched about the speeding cars on your left. And you're climbing a hill. Then you encounter this:

Note the snowbank.

Anyway, I started taking pictures.

The thing about potholes of the size and grandeur of Bank and Heron potholes is, at least they push you to take up space. It's scary to get out there into the lane when you can hear the cars coming up behind you, and I have to remind myself over and over that I'm actually safer with my tires a metre or so out from the edge, rather than hugging the side, taking up as little space as possible, the Apologetic Cyclist. "Nuts to that! Take up space!" I tell myself. But it's really hard to actually do. It's so easy to hear the car coming up behind you at speed, and cringe sideways. And every time I do, and the car passes close to me and I flinch, I'm actually madder at myself for cringing than at the car for buzzing me.  . .

Anyway. There are spots on Heron that sort of force you to merge left, or face disaster. Like this:

I mean, it's almost magnificent. Just look at the sheer extent of it! I actually did have to ride (slowly, and standing on the pedals) through that mess on the left, because there was double-barreled traffic coming by and I couldn't swerve into the lane. Slammed on the brakes instead. I'm happy I ride a mountain bike.

There's also this one, just in front of Saint Patrick High School, which has been there a while. It's almost an axle-breaker, and I know that a couple of weeks ago, while I was walking past, I got drenched when a car went over it:

I'm going to have to break out my Pothole Rating System (TM) soon, I think. It's only going to get more interesting.

The thing is, like I just said about them forcing you to take the lane, they do kick your awareness, and your bravery, up a notch. Potholes make you ride more skilfully. In case you're looking for a silver lining to that late-winter-early-spring-riding cloud.

Genius.

Seriously, how cool is this? Snap-on, instant - even portable - snow tires. Because I've never needed studded tires all winter (and changing my tires frequently is not my idea of a fun time), and it's not really icy often enough to warrant the expense. But if I had these puppies... I would carry them with me just in case of bad weather. I'd probably catch myself watching the sky and hoping for storms, just so I could whip these awesome little gadgets out and be all like, "yeah, that's how I roll."

They're designed by a Dutch guy named Cesar van Rongen. And I want them. Like, a lot.

The 1800s

For quite a while, I've been fascinated with the late-1800s bicycle craze - the huge leaps in technology and attitudes that happened in cycling then, the experimentation with design, the way people thought this - this - was going to be the future of human transportation, the "working man's horse." Bikes symbolized progress, freedom, innovation and a brave new world.

Once people settled on the "safety" as the model for bikes, their basic design never really changed again - those bikes are totally recognizable today. Would be rideable today. But no one really saw cars coming, did they?

Still, the 1880s and 90s were full of pioneering, adventuring cylists (in completely fabulous outfits). Wheelmen and women who would decide to do things like ride a bicycle on some kind of incredible long-distance trek. There was quite a fad for riding around the world on your safety or - in some cases - your ordinary. My personal favorite case was Annie Londonderry (she started out Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, then named herself after a bicycle brand as a marketing move), who was the first woman to circle the world by bicycle and did the whole thing on sponsorships. Lots of these travelers were funded by bicycle, gear, camera and clothing manufacturers, and by newspapers, who would ask them for regular columns.

Anyway, I get a regular email newsletter called The Writer's Almanac, and yesterday there was an entry about one of those world-circlers: apparently January 7th was the anniversary of the first of those journeys - undertaken on a tall wheel of all things. I'll quote it here, because I find this stuff just fascinating.

"On this day in 1887, Thomas Stevens became the first person to circle the world by bicycle. Born to a grocer in the suburbs of London, Stevens convinced his father to let him sail to America, when at 17 he had already saved enough to cover his passage. Once in the States, he found work as a rancher and, later, in a Colorado mine, where he hatched a plan to make a name for himself by being the first man to ever cross the U.S. by bicycle. Seven others had already tried and failed. Stevens managed to stash away enough of his wages for the trip west to San Francisco where he promptly purchased a 41-pound 50-inch Columbia tall wheeler, called the "Ordinary." He had never before set foot on a bicycle and had no idea how to ride it, but after giving himself a crash course around Golden Gate Park, he soon set off toward Boston with a change of socks, a Smith and Wesson revolver, and a thin coat that he also used as a tent.

In 1884, there were no interstate roads or rest stops, and when crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains, Stevens had to push his bicycle across railroad bridges, sometimes hanging his bike over the railing when an unexpected train passed. He scared off a mountain lion, was bitten by a rattlesnake, and was arrested in Chicago for riding on the sidewalk. He rode into Boston 103 days after leaving California, having traveled 3,700 miles.

That winter, he published an account of his trip in Outing magazine. Its publisher, Albert Pope, was also the owner of the country's largest bicycle manufacturer, and he pitched a worldwide tour to the young cyclist, offering to pay his way. Stevens accepted, and the following spring the 30-year-old set out from Liverpool headed east. He crossed through Europe unscathed and into the Ottoman Empire where he was often the first white man and first bicycle that locals had ever seen. Towering nearly four feet above others while on the bike, Stevens drew a lot of attention, and in Turkey he had to fend off would-be robbers at gunpoint. He had planned to travel through Russia, but was refused entrance by the authorities, and was arrested and deported as a spy while trying to work his way around Afghanistan. He doubled back through India and kept heading east through China, where he narrowly missed being stoned to death. Japan was more welcoming, and after pedaling 13,500 miles of since leaving California, Stevens rolled into Yokohama, then took a steamer on to the San Francisco Bay where his trip began.

Stevens published a two-volume account of his adventure, Around the World by Bicycle (1887), which was based on his letters to Harper's Magazine throughout the trip. It became an instant best-seller. He became a sought-after speaker and continued exploring and writing, famously tracking down the missing explorer Henry Morton Stanley in rural Africa, and riding 1,000 miles on horseback through pre-revolutionary Russia, where he interviewed Leo Tolstoy, for his 1891 book, Through Russia on a Mustang."

Courage is a muscle

About four months ago, I got a work contract that has me commuting out to Val-des-Monts roughly three days a week. It's 40km each way, on the highway - not something I can do on the bike. So, I drive. Which means I'm commuting by bike a whole lot less than usual. And lately, as I head out onto the road on the days I do bike, I'm noticing a difference.

I'm jumpier.

I've experienced the same thing in the springtime, when the outdoor rock climbing season starts and I've been indoors all winter. Climbing real rock is a whole other headgame from climbing plastic in a gym, and the first time I get out there on the real thing, I feel this weird flurry of nerves. The first time I lead a route (yet another headgame) it's even worse. Time away means you get a lot nervier.

And lately, when I get out onto the fast, wide, scary road right outside my building, I'm way more tense than usual. I can be fairly sure that traffic hasn't gotten faster or more reckless in the last few months, so it's a gimme that what's changed is my nerve. Cars coming up behind me drive me way too close to the curb, so when they pass I feel trapped and flinchy. I've screeched to a stop a couple of times as large trucks rumble by me. When they pass, I feel my left hand flex the way it does when I'm spooked. I've screamed out loud a couple of times as cars and trucks have gone whizzing past too close for comfort, and I stopped at the side of the road to call OC Transpo and report a bus that gave me a little over a foot of clearance a couple of weeks ago.

And when I get on the road and feel that tension and fear creeping in (it doesn't help that the first mile of my commute is the worst) I remember that it wasn't always quite this bad.

It seems like a no-brainer, but maybe worth saying: Courage is a muscle. You use it, it gets bigger. You don't use it, it slacks off. I keep insisting I'm no braver than anyone else, and when people tell me "I'd be far too scared to bike to work," I tell them it's not that bad and "you get used to it," but the last few months have reminded me that courage - the ability to hold your space on the road, the ability to ignore the roar of the truck you know is approaching you from behind, the ability to shoulder check and make the call before you merge left, the pigheaded refusal to cede your lane just because the driver behind you is breathing down your neck - all of that is something you have to do regularly, every day, or it starts to be harder to do. 

And why that really matters is for all the new riders, trying to get out there on the road - or the folks that put their bikes away over the winter and get them out again in the spring. It takes some time to get confident, or to readjust if you were confident once and have been away.

Good news is, like any other muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.