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.

Ah, larceny.

So I commented a couple of posts ago about the whole "U-lock Bic pen thing," and a friend's response sent me off onto YouTube looking for the truth. And the truth is, yes you can pick a U-lock with a Bic pen. But, not a straightforward key lock - in this example anyway, it's the tubular lock. The one you get with the circular key (which you can fit a pen body into, once the ink cartridge has been removed, twist, and voilá.) Which isn't to say you can't pick the regular key-lock kind either.

The YouTube click-trance, however, just delivered me directly to the land of the paranoid. From the loud and amateur movie insisting that all you have to do is spraypaint the bike, because a sprayed bike already looks stolen, to the British high-quality film advising, essentially, that you spend 20% of the value of your bike on locks, and even then lock and pin everything before leaving your bike even for a second... well... I started getting pretty freaked about leaving Mike unattended anywhere. I went to catch a movie screening downtown this evening, and outside the main branch of the public library, on a major, well-lit street, in Ottawa of all ridiculously safe cities, I made a point of running my cable (which has a safety rating, according to Kryptonite, of about 1 on a scale of 1 to 14... basically it's a deterrent, the equivalent of tying a length of rope around the bike, as far as any serious bike thieves are concerned) through the frame and both tires.

But I think I'm a victim of the availability heuristic. And a lot of the really paranoid videos were also assuming that your bike costs a couple of thousand dollars. (And the people writing comments were laughing at that fact because, like me, they got their bikes for $20-$50 dollars.)* And that you live somewhere where bike theft is rampant. And that you leave your bike in dark, secluded, out-of-the-way areas. Oh, and did I mention they assume your bike is worth a couple of thousand dollars?

Who even has a bike that costs that much? Other than Lance Armstrong?

Sure - that tubular U-lock trick is a bit of an eye-opener. Although... any lock can be picked. But someone's bound to notice someone sitting near my bike, even in the late evening, on a main street, with a lockpick set. Or someone trying to listen to the tumblers on the combination lock I've got now. Or hauling out the industrial shears to get through the cable. You figure? So as long as he's not all alone in a back alley or an industrial park parking lot, at three A.M., I think my paranoia's a bit unjustified.

*In fact, if memory serves, I got Mike for $50 and a Dave Brubeck ticket.

Self-destructive Rodents

Why is it, anyway, that squirrels, when they suddenly make a dash into the path and freeze, inevitably then dart right back in front of, rather than away from, the oncoming bicycle? (Causing me to slam on the brakes so as not to find out what it feels like to run over a squirrel on 2-inch tires.)

Is it related to the four neurons in a moth that just randomly fire, telling it to drop, rise, swerve right or swerve left, when it's pinged by a bat's sonar? What, exactly, is going on in their furry little minds?

Chilly Morning

There were frost stripes on the way to work this morning: lines of frost on the grass that matched up with the shadows of the trees. That's one of the things I think I like about November. It was probably hovering around freezing, bright and sunny. Where the sun hit my black jeans was warm, but I had wool mittens on to keep my hands from getting too cold. And where the sun hit the ground the frost just vanished: on the east side of the street, though, in the shadows of the houses, the grass was dusty-white.

The weather and the daylight are getting more tyrannical as winter comes on. They dictate more. It's interesting, in a way. My headlight died back in September or sometime, and until I get a new one, I have to stick to lit streets or get myself off the pathway before dark actually falls. With sunset falling at 4:35 (as of today), I need to get on the road by at least 4:20 in order to make the main streets by the time it gets too dark to see. It sets a real, cosmos-induced limit on my schedule - not something we're used to in the 21st-century West.

And I have to check the weather before I head out, too - is it cold in the morning? Will it get warmer through the day? Should I pack the raingear? It makes a bigger difference than in the summer, when getting rained on doesn't really inconvenience you much. Now, I'm starting to think I should just have my raingear with me, at all times, in case of snow or sleet or rain. I got caught a couple of weeks ago. When I got home with soaked clothing, after a terrifying ride through the dark along a major street in the rain, I was completely surprised when I started trembling in the elevator to my apartment. I hadn't thought it was that bad, until I got home, and got the shakes.

So I stick to the daylight when I can (I biked in the dark to my rock gym last night, but it's a well-lit, wide street. Had it been raining, I might have opted to bus it just that once.) And I have to plan ahead more. It helps, though, with some of what I find hard about winter. We're usually disconnected from the seasons, and so we wind up, in winter, working through the day, arriving in the dark and leaving in the dark, and wondering why we're depressed; standing shivering waiting for the bus with the wrong jacket on a damp night and wondering why we're sick. Biking is actually forcing me to pay a little more attention, and that makes the season a lot easier to live with.

Separation Anxiety

It's the strangest thing. I had to leave Mike behind at the office today. It was a combination of things: I was starting to get a bit sick; there was a meeting at the office that ran until after dark, and my headlight broke down not long ago, so I've been trying to avoid the bike path when it gets dark; and I needed to stop for some errands on the way home, but I left my bike lock in a friend's car last weekend, so I couldn't exactly stop at the mall and leave Mike unattended in the parking lot. (I know, I know, it's paranoia. But how stupid would I feel if I left him in the parking lot of Billings Bridge Mall to run in for a new alarm clock and some coconut milk, and came out to find him gone?)

I did, actually, leave him in the lot yesterday, to run in and do some banking and grab a bottle of wine. And I spent the whole time I was inside the mall half distracted by knowing he was out there, unsecured. It was such a relief to see the reflective patches on his panniers glowing away at me when I got out.

So, I had to stop today for a new lock and some groceries and an alarm clock. And, all told, I thought it made more sense for me to leave Mike at the office - I bring him inside and park him in the storage area - and catch a bus home.

And I feel just ever so slightly silly that when I went into the storage area to take the pannier off his rack so I could take it home with me, I ... felt bad. Leaving him there. All ... parked and waiting for me to carry him outside and put him on the road. With my helmet slung on one of his handlebars. I kept wanting to apologize for leaving him behind.

I blame the fever. I was in a strange emotional spot. That must be it.

Bank Street Bike Racks

I missed it, because I had a meeting (and because I had the date wrong) but yesterday was the official unveiling of the new Bank Street North bike racks.

I meant to go, even though I'm conflicted about them. While I applaud the idea...

This is one of the bike rack designs. Artists were asked to create a line graphic that could be used as the template for a bike rack, to be installed along Bank Street. Note, this whole project was called the Bank Street North Rehabilitation Project. So clearly, it's a city beautification project, meant to try and build a sense of community on Ottawa's major downtown street. Bike racks make a street feel like a community, right? And public art makes a street feel like a community, right? And David Byrne's New York bike racks were a terrific idea, right?

The problem is this: Byrne's racks were designed by a guy who has been cycling, in New York and around the world, for 25 years or something like that. And his racks are useable. Big, open, steel frames that you could probably get a few bikes onto if you didn't mind sharing. But look at this one, from the City of Ottawa project. Where, exactly, are you supposed to thread the lock? Especially if, like me, you have a U-lock?

The panels are, to be fair, set up in frames that are lockable. But still awkward, and the space between the panels and the frames is pretty narrow. Not a lot of space to negotiate a long U lock and actually get it through the frame and wheel. Especially with a metal panel blocking where you can settle your handlebars and pedals to get in close to the frame. They're awkward.

I've already caught myself getting frustrated trying to use the racks that previously stood on Bank, which consist of short poles with shallow metal semicircles on either side - again, they look fine, but with a U-lock I usually find myself giving up and locking my bike to one of the metal tree cages nearby instead. A couple of months ago I really wished I had a camera so I could post a picture to this blog, of the bike rack standing empty and my bike and two others chained up to the trees nearby. Ah, city - it's the thought that counts, huh?

I also heard an interview on CBC Radio a month or two ago, when the racks started going in, in which the interviewer, talking to one of the artists, actually asked him whether he objected to seeing bikes chained up to his art. Whether he was annoyed by the design actually being used. And he did say that it was a little disconcerting for him to see the bikes parked up against his design.

Wasn't that what it was for?

I have to admit, though, that I do like this one - partly because the design allows you to lock through the frame or through the panel. It's spacious. There's room for my bike in this one.

And maybe I should just get a chain and ditch the U lock. Even though the city recommends U locks as the safest ones. (You can pick them with a Bic pen cap, though, apparently, so maybe I should be getting a combination chain anyway...)