Wow, I rode in rush hour a couple of days in a row. Normally I try to arrange my highly flexible schedule to avoid that. WHAT A FRIGGING ZOO! Amazing congestion and amazingly poor driving all around.

On the way home I bought a desk lamp and was carrying a highly awkward load on my back as a result. The messenger bag wanted to slip off despite the stabilization strap. So I actually rode on the sidewalk on a very congested narrow arterial (Yonge St. south of St. Clair). Normally I would have either tried to lane-split (exciting, given how narrow the lanes are) or just taken my place in line and waited, but going uphill with that kind of crazily-behaving bag... nah, sidewalk was the way to go, even with all the peds. Only spent a few hundred metres on it anyway.