Rides and Races - Toronto Fixed

Wheres the best shop in toronto for fixed gear parts?
Ill be in the area soon, the american dollar has finally made some progress.
Preferable near the Rogers Centre area.

urbane (http://ucycle.com) is fairly close to the rogers centre and has a good selection of stuff

It is darn windy out there.

I'm pretty sure my gf is just letting the one, the only, DANHALEN pick out my bike nerd gifts over at MEC. Dan, tell her I need blinkies. BLIIINKIIIEEES!

noice!
THE danhalen?

No bikes or internet for the past week. In montreal right now. Its -27 outside. Will return to sanity / Toronto on the 26th. montreal sex shops are a good time.

Oh boy. I couldn't bike back home. Yonge was impossible so I took the subway.

2wheelsgood> you should post some pics here http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=286515

yeah, that thread was partial inspiration for the build. as soon as i take some nice photos i'm gonna post them.

2wheelsgood... damn that was you I saw there. I'm ******** I swear. That is indeed a nice upright. I want to hear how well those fenders clear. Any awesome MTB front fenders out there?

When I saw you I thought to myself, "hmmmm... I know that I know him from somewhere" too many safety meetings i guess. The fenders clear great. Due to a defective tire I had to return to urbane and the only marathon plus tires they had left were 28c I'm now running 25c in the front and 28c in the back with no major issues. the only thing i can complain about is that the front fender is two pieces and the front part of it shakes around and makes loud vibration noise. but that'll be fixed with some tweaking.

Well, that was a special ride home.

yeah king st hadn't been plowed yet when i was going home, so i had a much harder time than i expected; pretty much had to drag my (loaded) bike along the sidewalk. :( if there were no streetcar tracks and (impatient) drivers it would have been ok.

EDIT: also, bonking due to not eating breakfast or lunch is a bad idea.

yeah king st hadn't been plowed yet when i was going home, so i had a much harder time than i expected; pretty much had to drag my (loaded) bike along the sidewalk. :( if there were no streetcar tracks and (impatient) drivers it would have been ok.

EDIT: also, bonking due to not eating breakfast or lunch is a bad idea.

I gotta say King St was on my list of my least favourite streets to ride today. Wellington being the 2nd worst and Queens Quay being the bane of my existence. Bay st being shut down for half the day didn't make things any easier. Has anyone else ever had the problem of krypto evo locks freezing on them?

Damn it. I'm leaving 10-degree Paris weather to go to Toronto for almost two weeks? Wtf am I thinking?

That said, I'll finally be able to pick up my bike to bring back. Looking to get a few parts too. Can anyone tell me where to get:
- Toshi or Kashimax doubles
- a nice bell (love the ones that Velo Orange has)
- maybe even a clamp-on Keirin brake

I rode the TTC yesterday as initially had been planning to pick up my daughter right after work... She lives out of town, so that was a no-go. Luckily finished at 1pm so I came home, picked up my bike and headed out at around 5... Man, I'm glad I got stuck behind plows on Bloor, I tried College but it started getting shaky/close to the tracks, so I took Dufferin north to Bloor. The plows made things nicer, but very slow and I started getting cold, tried to get on the subway and they didn't let me (was still before 6 or whatever the cut off is). There were a bunch of cars stuck on my way, so I helped with those folks and just carried on heading east/ I came off a couple of times on Broadview, once was a 0mph idiot clip-in problem, the other the bike just flew around too quick for me to catch and I had to jump off it - was slow, and not so much fun due to the snow starting to get hard with the freze, but hey, I came to my buddies with a huge grin on my face regardless ;)

Yesterday I made it, zig-zaging, from Bayview to Yonge on a side street. But on Yonge it was impossible. The cars left irregular overlapping tracks on which I had basically zero traction. I could have tried riding in the middle of the lane... but I took the subway :(

I gotta say King St was on my list of my least favourite streets to ride today. Wellington being the 2nd worst and Queens Quay being the bane of my existence. Bay st being shut down for half the day didn't make things any easier. Has anyone else ever had the problem of krypto evo locks freezing on them?

that is somewhat mollifying, thank you... were you the guy on the fixie that passed me under the bridge to parkdale?

i've had trouble with (new york) krypto locks freezing if there is moisture in them, but more troubles with rust accumulating as an after-effect. hot water (in an emergency, with a good wipe after) for the former, graphite for the latter.

Drove back to Peterborough from Montreal today. I counted more than 30 cars in the ditch and/or flipped, including one camper pickup combo that rolled :S

What's the stars fascination with Igor? Seriously http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/556706

Handsome and magnetic???

The last few comments about being beaten in jail were interesting. One of the guys who helped me move said Igor was getting his sh** kicked in the Don. A lot of guys in there had gotten their bikes ripped off...

i loved the riding today and last night.... soooooo much fun

Has anyone else ever had the problem of krypto evo locks freezing on them?

yup, that's why i carry a lighter around with me in the winter now...

a can of wd-40 in the winter , tucked away in a plastic baggie can be a life saver.

that is somewhat mollifying, thank you... were you the guy on the fixie that passed me under the bridge to parkdale?

Nope, I was riding a green Olmo Grand Prix 12-speed, my fixed would've been way too steep a gear for that **** storm.

What's the stars fascination with Igor? Seriously http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/556706

Just think of it as mandatory recycling. Your bike is getting recycled into crack for homeless people whether you like it or not.

The whole article is a ****ing mess though. They make it look like having his bike stolen was some traumatic event that sent Igor over the deep end, yet they totally downplay the fact that he is reponsible for the theft of thousands of bicycles on the GTA. Think about the thousands of potential break-downs he has caused.

On the other hand, I don't believe that story for a minute, and if having your bicycle stolen causes you to freak out the way they said he did, you probably weren't playing with a full deck in the first place.

They call him "a perfect gentleman" and yet downplay the fact that he ordered a clinically depressed war veteran to do his dirty work for him.

They make him out to be some misunderstood diamond-in-the-rough, when really it sounds like he's just a mentally unstable thief and drug dealer. Handsome? Does it really matter? I don't remember reading any "chiseled jaw-bone" excemption in criminal law. Charismatic? Maybe. I never met the guy. But it sounds like he used whatever charisma he possessed to drive his criminal enterprise. Charles Manson was charismatic too. History is littered with charismatic sociopaths.

What's the stars fascination with Igor? Seriously http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/556706

Handsome and magnetic???

The last few comments about being beaten in jail were interesting. One of the guys who helped me move said Igor was getting his sh** kicked in the Don. A lot of guys in there had gotten their bikes ripped off...

I noticed the Star's apparent crush on Igor as well ... I don't know where they're going with articles like that, which can obviously be so easily torn to shreds. There was a (modest proposal-esque?) article on him in one of the free dailies as well. People were all over that in the online comments.

It's stories like this though that make me acutely aware of how much crap gets published in the press, either through a complete misrepresentation of the facts or with ridiculous devil's advocate articles that are probably just printed to bait more people into reading (in anger) to see what inflamatory tripe gets printed next. I rank these latest articles right up there with a common forum troll.

Skinny slicks kick ass compared to my studded winter tires. After trying the studded tires at 65-30psi to no great success I went out last night and today on the slicks. Way better. Riding on side streets with all that loose grey snow was crappy with the studded tires. Now a good set of tires might be better, but mine are awful.

26" or 700c?

i've been TTcing for the last two days. i need to get a replacement crank for my winter bike so my urbanite doesn't die a slow death in the salt...

awesome bail tonight. lost the front wheel to the tracks, unclipped dabed and got it out, then tried to hop on the seat and locked the back wheel and tried to pedal out, to only loose the front end and slide in the slush.

other then that quite an awesome ride

Got some nice slush build up on the ride home. :)

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr213/illmitch/IMG_3122.jpg

Anyone know where i can get some milk crates?
I need 2-4 of them urgently!!!
Any help is appreaciated

scope out the loading dock of a grocery store after they close...

http://www.hubstripping.com/pics/beauty_1.jpg

Nice ride. Is that your bike.

looks too much like a ghost bike for my tastes but it's damn clean and the attention to a theme really comes through. nice one dude.


As for milk crates, behind convenience stores also works, and (almost obvious) behind dairy stores are another great place.


EDIT: Valve stems aren't lined up :P (just busting your balls)

that's the fanciest coaster I've seen in a while. Is that photo taken in front of the drake?

Also, way to break the internet

I love to break the net. No, it's not my bike, just a fancy one. Someone else mentioned the ghost bike issue. The minimalist in me, likes the simplicity of it.

The simpleton in me likes the fanciness of it. ;)
I would have added a front brake though, just a coaster as the single braking mechanism on that speedster.... :eek:

just noticed the coaster on there - i still kind of like it though.

scored a replacement crank for my winter bike for a whopping $5 at urbane today. actually if they're having a huge parts sale at the moment - way too easy to spend a heap of money so stay out of there if you're strapped for cash!

anyone here riding west along bloor near high park around 3? i was in the car and spotted someone that looked like wes riding a white one speed wearing a blue jacked - i was going to honk but that would've been weird...

sweet build. what saddle is that? looks cool

Merry Crimbo, players and playettes. I'm heading home to visit moms for the rest of the week. Have fun playing in the snow (rubber side down, etc.).

PS. If anyone's up for another bike race adventure there's a couple of CX races happening at South Humber Bay Park on NYE day. The season's over "officially" at this point so this is just a drunken mayhem race for fun and cupcakes. Start times at 11:30 (slow-ish) and 12:30 (fast-ish).

Flyer: http://www.cyclocrossontario.com/files/newyearscrossd3c3108.pdf

schwalbe marathon tires are easily the best winter tires i've ridden. brad, can i get a witness?

Well I've got the winter marathons, which are studded so its kinda apples to oranges but so far so good.
In the snow, they're not much better than the knobbies I ran last winter, but on the ice or when there is surprise ice underneath they are great. The added confidence is also nice (no more ice surprises)

I do like the reflective sidewalls, and they're reputed to be fairly puncture resistant (really, who wants to repair a flat with a stiff tire like a schwalbe in -10C!)

ah, i didn't know you were running the studded versions. in any case, i'm pretty impressed with these thus far. i didn't have any super big spills last year running slicks (and definitely not with the cross tires while i was running those) but i've had a couple of moments in the last couple of days that i feel would have brought me down had my tires not held me down.

I bought my marathon plus tires based on their reputation for being near puncture proof. One thing I have to say about them is as far as road feel goes you might as well be riding solid rubber! In an unrelated story I'll see y'all in a week! It's mojitos on the beach in Cuba til the30th for me!

Just saw this on bikesnob nyc and thought I'd share

http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/bik/965585458.html

I particulalry like the oversized rear brake bridge. A sure sign of build quality!

it's a typo man. there's an extra 5

ok guys...... gotta admit something...... i'm a feaking idiot... i was setting up my chain line last night, and was trying to diagnose the drivetrain noise i'm getting. So there i was holding the bike in the air by the rear chain stay with one hand, and spinning the crank with the other... the bike decided to tilt to i went to grab it and........

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

RIP...BLOOD.... EXCESSIVE SWEARING!!!!!!! i ended up catching my left index finger between the chain and the crankring... holy crap does that hurt.. i ended up needing a few stitches so nothing was severed at least... I feel like such an idiot though

d'oh! Get well soon!
I caught my finger between a front derailleur and chainring before 'cause I was distracted by a kid watching me at close range. I'm not sure how impressed his mom was with the new words I taught him:o

Be careful.
(Potentially NSFW) http://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html#fing

oh sheldon... what CAN'T you teach us oh grand master!!