Originally Posted by Flimflam
Firstly, man what a difference I notice in the amount of work I had to do to maintain the same speeds. I was keeping a 22/23mph (maybe 35-37km/h?) pace nicely going south on Spadina but it sure felt like a LOT of work.
Cool! I keep getting impressed by your numbers. And to ride at this speed on the streets we have now, you gotta be pretty brave! I am simply afraid to go over 25 km/h at any point, knowing that my brakes can freeze at any time or that I could hit a patch of black ice... Chicken, I know.
Of course, I went and swapped my tyres around and the roads are mostly clear today - but I hear more snow is on it's way, so I'll stick with the knobbies (Kenda something or other, they came with the bike).
Wise move. I should take out my "winter bike" for a test spin (I bought it used, fixed it up and have only ridden about 5 km total on it - not enough to have confidence in its mechanical reliability). I'm just so lazy... I think I should take this bike down to a nearby gravel snowy bike path, and if it can be ridden there, it can handle the roads.
I ride up to my nightclass tonight, too, which I did a test run of on Monday night and seemed very easy going, had a driver beeping me going north on Spadina, I was taking the lane (favouring the cleaner road vs. the door/icepack zone) and I looked back a couple times, shrugged my shoulders and said "What do you want me to do? What?" and carried on. Nothing was ever said, but it made me wonder what the person was trying to achieve.
Morons. I wish I somehow could figure out a way not to get too mad about honks like that. Most people who issue them are probably not even bad people, just ignorant, but hell, they've no excuse to be ignorant, they've got a license, so they're supposed to know stuff about driving and rights of other road users. And given that in winter I wear those weird lobster-claw mitts, I can't even give them the bird!
I was almost being backed into by one of those lovely HUGE BMWs who apparently doesn't know how to check their mirrors.
Uh-oh. I was in a similar situation in a car - and it is scarier in a car. I was basically stuck between this backing truck on the driveway in front of me and a busy road behind me. Can't grab the car and duck onto the sidewalk they way you can with a bike... Fortunately a honk did attract the truck driver's attention. (Once again I recommend AirZound - except it doesn't work so well at low temps).
Other than that, had a great ride home, played chase to a car on a small side street - gave me a chance to feel the bike out with higher speeds in the weather, the driver, who was dutifully slowing for the stop signs seemed to be getting irritated that I kept behind him, each subsequent stop sign would be more engine revving and aggressive starts, heh. I was behind him, just using him as a chase-goal
Thanks, buddy!
LOL, those are funny. It's even funnier when you're in front of them - as I was on Shaw St. one day (it has lots of speed bumps). The driver just couldn't believe that he could not pass a cyclist! He kept revving up his engine and accelerating - only to brake sharply before a speed bump - and I just kept going. Almost fell off the bike laughing.
Edit: New temp. commute is ~3 miles, this morning took 13 mins ride time. Easily a ~10 min. ride in more favourable conditions. I'm now starting to look at how to increase that to around a 10 mile trip.
Considering moving or finding an alternative route?