Rides and Races - Toronto Fixed Part 2

The old TF thread got too long to load easily...so here's the TF Part 2 thread.

Shiznaz 4tw!

Btw: F1r5t p0sT

Looks like philly is in the lead now...

Well, looks like we have some work to do! Let's schit this place up like there's no tomorrow!

Hopefully this time next week I'll be rolling my Chris King wheels. Tru balla 4 reelz.

http://www.killingfloorthegame.com/ buy that and play on steam with us kthx.

Ohhh way fast - although I was hoping for 50,000 posts.

Rob, there is no way I will play that. I like to sleep at night.

Also, Don't play hockey the day after an 8hr race. I stretched and had a long warm up, but on my first burst of speed... there go the quads... I was useless the whole game :(

Toronto Fixed Part 2: electric boogaloo

http://www.t-lay.com/images/breakin2.jpg

oh this 'ish is epic ;)

Nice, well done guys! Just stopping in to say 'hey' and check out the new digs.... hmmm... looks very much like the old digs.
now I'll go back into hibernation for another 10-12 months I guess.


do you play tf2 by any chance Rob?

http://www.killingfloorthegame.com/ buy that and play on steam with us kthx.

Sweet, new thread!

This Jarvis thing seems to have people up in arms, I've not really read anything about it - but I do feel Jarvis is an odd street to choose, and yeah, why not just fix Sherbourne? That'd be a fantastic route if it weren't for the terrible road surfaces.

Got slick at times out there today, was strangely nice though - enjoyed it thoroughly (maybe the lack of harsh wind was part of this :))

B-17 out of the box, comfy ride.
Flyer, awesome right away.
Team Pro, like riding polished marble.

Well eff - I couldn't let the new joint stay all new car-ish for too long without stinking up the joint a bit with a visit from the Dr.

Hey all... back from the dead, (still) with a shaved head.

I'd trade losing the ****ty attitudes for more bike lanes any day. Maybe the next press conference can involve Miller just saying, "listen, if you can all just stop being dicks to each other and thinking you're the most specialist in the whole world - we can prolly all just get along an not have to draw fences around you to keep you separated. Cool?"

Although I have to admit I am partial to starting a counter war with cars claiming they eat babies.

When they kept arguing about Jarvis on the cbc in the morning I felt like calling in and suggesting they just fix Sherbourne, but then I thought "well I'd rather have two options so I'll just stfu.

**Does a happy new thread dance**
WTF is this Philly is in the lead ship?

If I see one more person riding along ... perfectly content to run over every curb sided manhole cover, practically pedal striking the curb with every revolution, all b/c they think that's where they should be. Not to compare it to anything much more important in our time, but it's beginning to feel like a civil rights/liberties issue. Make threatening someone with your car an automatic grievous assault holding a minimum 2 years less a day.

When they kept arguing about Jarvis on the cbc in the morning I felt like calling in and suggesting they just fix Sherbourne, but then I thought "well I'd rather have two options so I'll just stfu.

I think the original plan they had for that stretch was to widen the sidewalks and plant trees and such, removing one lane. IIRC an environmental assessment was done for this. The cycling advocacy folks got bike lanes on the agenda. Now the ire of drivers is focused squarely on cyclists, when in fact the road was going to get lose a lane anyway.

Takes some stones in this fiscal nightmare to talk up a 6+million dollar "Boulevard beautification " project

I'd trade losing the ****ty attitudes for more bike lanes any day. Maybe the next press conference can involve Miller just saying, "listen, if you can all just stop being dicks to each other and thinking you're the most specialist in the whole world - we can prolly all just get along an not have to draw fences around you to keep you separated. Cool?"


Seriously. Sometimes I think if people just stayed out of it things would be fine, rather than flaming up some kind of war, blaming us for ****ing up their commute, whatever else. I can get to work quick without getting hit by a car, I don't really want anything else.

B-17 out of the box, comfy ride.
Flyer, awesome right away.
Team Pro, like riding polished marble.

i hear that! i've always found the pro and other models too narrow for undercarriage. no offence there.

on a related note i picked up a new brooks to replace the b17 that some crackhead stole off my road bike some time ago - urbane seems to be honouring the old pricing on any stock they still have around so i managed to pick up a b17 special for $130! i'm locking this one down well this time...

i hear that! i've always found the pro and other models too narrow for undercarriage. no offence there.

on a related note i picked up a new brooks to replace the b17 that some crackhead stole off my road bike some time ago - urbane seems to be honouring the old pricing on any stock they still have around so i managed to pick up a b17 special for $130! i'm locking this one down well this time...

The recent brooks thefts prompted me to lock all 3 on last night. Old chain came in handy. PM sent.

Crap, has there been a rash of Brooks thefts again? Ah, summer in Toronto...

Are V-brake bosses on a frame in the same spot that canti bosses are? I have an old mountain bike that a friend wants but he doesn't like cantis (neither do I) and I was thinking of popping some old V-brakes on there....

Seriously. Sometimes I think if people just stayed out of it things would be fine, rather than flaming up some kind of war, blaming us for ****ing up their commute, whatever else. I can get to work quick without getting hit by a car, I don't really want anything else.

It's like anything else, though: 99% of the biching is done by people that participate 1% of the time. People that commute throughout the year (most of us) just accept the situation and adjust. Additionally, people with more experience riding through downtown traffic tend to know the safe & fast routes and pick our way through traffic in a much more hawkish manner than those with less experience. We just anticipate where the cars will go and react accordingly. Additionally, we are more clear with what's expected of us: keep a good pace, ride in a straight line, etc...

While more bike lanes, placed in a coherent network would be nice, I haven't found myself in danger for lack of them. On the contrary, I tend to ride with much more trepidation when in a bike lane, because I never know if car drivers are checking their blind spots before making turns, or who will be riding in the lane with me (it's much sketchier to pass a slow cyclist in a bike lane than a regular lane). Furthermore, the lanes get outright abused by parking cars, joggers, and skateboarders.

If the city is really, honestly, and truly interested in placing bike lanes, they don't need public debate ad nausea: they have planning experts, traffic flow experts, and crews to lay the lines. Either schit or get off the pot. I'm sick of relentless and circuitous debate.

Have spray can .... will make bike lanes. Honestly I feel BL's are the purview of the unimaginative. I do, however, respect the need to be able to move the masses. With that in mind I propose the elevated, enclosed BL with the wind turbines at regular intervals, to provide 70kph tailwinds in all directions. Cost 500 million dollars, from Hamilton to Montreal. Lakeshore to Barrie.

Crap, has there been a rash of Brooks thefts again? Ah, summer in Toronto...

Are V-brake bosses on a frame in the same spot that canti bosses are? I have an old mountain bike that a friend wants but he doesn't like cantis (neither do I) and I was thinking of popping some old V-brakes on there....

It shouldn't be a problem, just make sure the levers are compatible (some of them are switchable from canti to v).


The recent brooks thefts prompted me to lock all 3 on last night. Old chain came in handy. PM sent.

Careful with the chain stuff. My friend had his stolen even with it on. Might be better just to QR the post/seat and take it in with you.

Yup... bike lines create a false sense of security IMO, and they are generally too slow. They basically move the bikes out of the way of cars so they can forget us, and then right hook us. There was a study done in Copenhagen (http://www.trafitec.dk/pub/sujpubfile/artikler/119_Road%20safety%20and%20percieved%20risk%20of%20cycle%20tracks%20and%20lanes%20in%20Copenhagen_Tra fitec_2007.pdf) and accidents increase at intersections with bike lanes.

I don't know what's the solution. Basic courtesy and respect from cyclist and cars, education... The catch 22 is that nobody really gives a crap since what 1% of people in Toronto actually commute by bike everyday? It needs to be 10% before people realize it is an issue, but how to encourage people to ride their bike?

Yup... bike lines create a false sense of security IMO, and they are generally too slow. They basically move the bikes out of the way of cars so they can forget us, and then right hook us. There was a study done in Copenhagen (http://www.trafitec.dk/pub/sujpubfile/artikler/119_Road%20safety%20and%20percieved%20risk%20of%20cycle%20tracks%20and%20lanes%20in%20Copenhagen_Tra fitec_2007.pdf) and accidents increase at intersections with bike lanes.

I don't know what's the solution. Basic courtesy and respect from cyclist and cars, education... The catch 22 is that nobody really gives a crap since what 1% of people in Toronto actually commute by bike everyday? It needs to be 10% before people realize it is an issue, but how to encourage people to ride their bike?

Yeah but people in copenhagen generally, well everyone learned to ride a bike on the road with cars BEFORE driving a car. Not so in Toronto.

I honestly get worried when you hear about initiatives that change the status quo for something that I personally see as being for the worse.

As it is right now, we have two entire lanes to work with. If we need to get out of the right curb, we can pull in behind a car in the right lane. We can split between lanes to move through stopped traffic. We can take the left lane if things are ugly in the right lane. As has been said, we have the knowhow to get around safely and if you know how to work traffic, you have a lot of room.

So when we start seeing things like the TCU discussing "protected bike lanes" which (in New York at least) are bike lanes on the inside of a row of parked cars, (so there would be the roadway, a barrier of parked cars, then the bike lane on the other side) I can't help but wish people would just leave well enough alone. Rather than having the entire roadway you're going to be fenced in between a sidewalk and parked cars, in a door zone with nowhere to go outside of it (unless you like riding the sidewalk), nowhere to go if there's an obstruction, and no room to give slow erratic cyclists space to pass if you're coming down on them at 40kph.

It's like when they started discussing rumble strips to seperate bike lanes. Half these ideas suck and will serve people who want to ride around at 10 kilometers per hour, but make it all but impossible to ride quickly in the city as the safest place is and always will be with traffic.

someone has to rig a beater bike with ring clamps for yellow spray cans to be mounted out from the chainstay.

make it a single speed conversion so the defunct downtube shifters can pull the can forward and thus activate the spray in a nice, controlled fashion!

(or the oil slick for some spy-hunter action!)

The Bl's in Copenhagen are completely separate, with a parking buffer zone, AND their system of lights in places. The Star article I was reading even said the lane itself in some places is green LED lit at night to ward off drivers. To do that here would cost about as much the entirely of the Jarvis project. Imagine motorists being confronted with a bikes-only set of lights. *snikker* I'm still amazed how many see it as a war against cars and not a modern attempt to clean the air, alleviate congestion and generally make the city centre more functional overall. I still want to see a core tax for motorists....especially cars with single occupants.

Having read many of the hate filled missives from motorists on the paper's site, you'd think it was a personal attack, as if we were coming to set fire to their cars in the middle of the night. There has to be motorists out there that don't fail to see the eventual benefit of all this. London's streets are supposedly sooooo much better since the congestion tax went ahead.

I don't get the hate. I mean there are not many cyclist on the road at all: I encounter two or three per day on my route. There is just something about driving a car that increases your stress. I've experienced it: waiting more than 10s for whatever the reason makes you nervous... it's as if time elongates. Take a deep breath, imagine the bike is your mom in a car who drives slowly, and pass it courteously. Besides you only need to use half a lane for the overtake.

I've heard horns go off a fraction of a second after the light turns green if the first driver isn't already moving forward.
I still want lane positioning on our 4 laners in town to be addressed, the curb lane drivers,parkers and riders all get squeezed by cowardly rightist centre lane drivers. I had a curb lane driver move two feet to the right as he came up to and passed the streetcar this morning, from perfectly sharing to not even caring, b/c for some reason he felt threatened by a giant box of metal rolling right beside him, one that WAS NOT going to carve right. Oh the irony.

impatience by drivers and unpredictability by cyclists seem to be two of the biggest issues

as usual, a few bad apples spoil the bunch, most cyclists who have been riding in the city for a decent amount of time know what they are doing and most drivers don't want to be responsible for killing someone just to get somewhere 2 seconds faster

but when drivers have to deal with those bad cyclists here and there, and when cyclists have to deal with impatient/bad drivers here and there ... you think the worst about everyone and are defensive and vocal about it, especially for cyclists who have their lives on the line. And drivers have their own reasons with their anger brewing in heavy traffic.

would be nice if everyone could get along, but i don't see it happening if we're sharing roads

I've heard horns go off a fraction of a second after the light turns green if the first driver isn't already moving forward.
I still want lane positioning on our 4 laners in town to be addressed, the curb lane drivers,parkers and riders all get squeezed by cowardly rightist centre lane drivers. I had a curb lane driver move two feet to the right as he came up to and passed the streetcar this morning, from perfectly sharing to not even caring, b/c for some reason he felt threatened by a giant box of metal rolling right beside him, one that WAS NOT going to carve right. Oh the irony.

If you want to experience this to an offensive degree: Christie between Bloor & Harbord. I cannot understand how drivers fail to observe the lane on that stretch of road. They *always* drive into the bike lane, and its very, very dangerous for cyclists, because we get pinched between cars parked on our right and drivers entering our lane on the left. On that part of Christie, I usually take the lane.

I don't ride with a bike computer anymore, but I would be curious to know how often I go over the limit and drivers behind me proceed to do the same due to lemming-brain.

If you want to experience this to an offensive degree: Christie between Bloor & Harbord.

same with st. george/beverly, everyone turns on the bike lanes, makes no sense

nice to have laws, and bike lanes, etc ... but none of this stuff is enforced

instead of ticketing people on bikes during the bike safety blitz, they should be ticketing cars during the bike safety blitz

The thing that grabs me is all the complaints by motorists about cyclists, are , for the most part, exactly the same as ours of them. I had this lady this morning driving Queen East like it was an F1 course, down shifting and high engine revs, no signal lanes changes, intersection lanes changes, crossing solid line lane changes, less than a foot from the car in front...in the wet. I swear man she committed enough moving violations from Jones to Broadview to lose her license strictly based on points. At Pape one driver rolls her window down and is yelling at her, she just does the hard stare forward. THOSE are what we need off the road., and I bet she does this every damned day. But you have to shoot at someome from your car to get pulled over at rush hour.... if you can find a police car anywhere near rush hour... most are still at breakfast.

The thing that grabs me is all the complaints by motorists about cyclists, are , for the most part, exactly the same as ours of them. I had this lady this morning driving Queen East like it was an F1 course, down shifting and high engine revs, no signal lanes changes, intersection lanes changes, crossing solid line lane changes, less than a foot from the car in front...in the wet. I swear man she committed enough moving violations from Jones to Broadview to lose her license strictly based on points. At Pape one driver rolls her window down and is yelling at her, she just does the hard stare forward. THOSE are what we need off the road., and I bet she does this every damned day. But you have to shoot at someome from your car to get pulled over at rush hour.... if you can find a police car anywhere near rush hour... most are still at breakfast.

Left foot braking for the lulz!

so i finally got my refund from canada customs for some mislabeled bike parts

except they sent me 2 cheques for the same amount, so i called and they said it was a computer mistake and they would send me an envelope to mail back to them, they send me an evelope without a stamp

cheap *******s, it was their mistake

don't actually care, just funny that they want me to spend money to send them back their money

Include an invoice for shipping and handling and request payment within 30 days. See what they do.

Include an invoice for shipping and handling and request payment within 30 days. See what they do.

Opportunity costs says this is more than price of a stamp.

$15.00 plus GST seems reasonable to me

Careful with the chain stuff. My friend had his stolen even with it on. Might be better just to QR the post/seat and take it in with you.
Even though my own supreme carelessness got my brooks stolen, I will never ever walk with a seat on a greasy post.

See you guys at the Crit!

Anyone know of any shops carrying a good front rack that'll hold a lot of weight in this city? Something like a CETMA that won't take three months to arrive would be rad, I'm gonna turn my winter bike into a winter/cargo bike for groceries and hauling **** across the city.


EDIT: Oh and also if anyone knows a shop that sells trainers that'd be helpful too

Best race to watch of the year and not a single word about it here.

You are all pathetic.

Good one.

Best race to watch of the year and not a single word about it here.

You are all pathetic.

I was fixing my bike that got all jacked up over the winter.

I hate me too though, so it's all good.






pssst, what race are we talking about?

The crit has been talked about in here and the old thread, the giro has been talked about but not worth spoiling every day.

So there must be some awesome super secret awesome race to watch that only he knows about and we are all pathetic.

I love being pathetic!

I have to bail early for dinner, but I'll be stopping by fo' sho'.

Regarding troll-boy: User Control Panel > Edit ignore list > type "newb242" > Save changes

Anyway, I'll see you all at the race tomorrow. I'm planning on heading for the tail-end of the 6pm race and sticking around to see the beginning of the 7:30 race. Sara's feeling under the weather so I want to get back home fairly early and make sure she isn't laid out on the kitchen floor, etc.

Even though my own supreme carelessness got my brooks stolen, I will never ever walk with a seat on a greasy post.

See you guys at the Crit!

WTf

Regarding troll-boy: User Control Panel > Edit ignore list > type "newb242" > Save changes

Anyway, I'll see you all at the race tomorrow. I'm planning on heading for the tail-end of the 6pm race and sticking around to see the beginning of the 7:30 race. Sara's feeling under the weather so I want to get back home fairly early and make sure she isn't laid out on the kitchen floor, etc.

This newb is obviously another incarnation of ewitz. I for one am looking forward to battling out on the i nternetz with noob trolls like him

Especially one that rides ******bag bikes like specialized allez. K thx bai.

Also

lawl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_lAoXUGE9A

This newb is obviously another incarnation of ewitz. I for one am looking forward to battling out on the i nternetz with noob trolls like him

Especially one that rides ******bag bikes like specialized allez. K thx bai.


Oh you!

PS, is there anyone here doing the Ride for Heart and possibly the 75k? I can't remember who said what.

Oh you!

PS, is there anyone here doing the Ride for Heart and possibly the 75k? I can't remember who said what.

ok