i was going to say i don't really ride to doughnut because it's not my crowd but you took the words right out of my mouth..

I'm a hot shot? I'm still young? YES! WINNAR! :D

I love it when a driver doesn't shoulder-check/signal and then acts like it's MY fault when they nearly run me off the road. Oy gevalt.

Yeah, happens almost daily *sigh* But above all else, that bothers me more than anything. People who just don't check are simply dangerous - I've rarely had the chance to try and explain that point to the driver though - I honestly don't know if it'd do any good.

Had a guy last night on a minor street in the east end (at least I was right by TEGH in case ;)) cut a left turn right in front of me... He stopped (in the middle of his turn/the intersection) when I threw my arms up, I ducked left to avoid him and yelled "WTF AM I? CHOPPED &*&^ing LIVER?" and added some other incoherent F-bombs noticing my headlight on full, my hi-vis vest was on and visible, etc. etc. All that risk to MY life for his 10 seconds. A-holes FTL.

anyone see this?

im glad the biker won...but bike rage?? huh??

That rocks! no fisticuffs, and the driver gets ticketed by bike police afterwards...yea boooi!

A black jersey of DFL shame? I sOOOOO want one.

haha, i love that he not only got a ticket, but got a ticket from bike cops

Just another example of how complacent people are with road safety. It really pisses me off how easily people disregard other peoples' safety on the road, and riding a bike is a sure way of experiencing that first hand. Glad the driver got ticketed, but it's only a nick in the armour - I'll regularly block the lane at Bloor/Avenue to prevent people turning right on the red (illegal as per signs) because it pisses me off that these folks just aren't aware of the road situation around them - probably not great to do, but if they have a problem, I point at the sign and turn around and ignore. I love laughing at people honking others in front of them when they can't get past, but the guy turning has to wait for oncoming to clear - I hate that people are in such a hurry they can't afford 15 seconds to wait when necessary. I also had a guy hovering on my ass just after Yonge heading east on Bloor going toward all the contraflow stuff... I waved him off my ass once I'd got through the HUGE holes in the intersection and promptly gained 2 blocks on traffic because of all the people wrestling for positions to get into the single lane area. People don't read the road, they don't pay attention to the road, and it bothers the hell out of me.

Bloor needs repaving BADLY, Bay/Bloor is getting disgusting, and I don't know why they couldn't have fixed the stuff when they were tearing it up and had it blocked off before Xmas. Bah.

Man I'm rant-y today... Sheesh :p

The worst is drivers that think they can play "chicken" when the cyclist has the right of way. This happens to me on a daily basis when I come down Christie from St. Clair; drivers that want to head south on Christie off side roads stop with > 50% of the car past the stop sign, and then proceed to start-stop merge, even though they see cyclists coming down Christie. Its pretty easy to hit 40km/h going down that hill, and if some ass that wants to merge makes the mistake of thinking you're going 15km/h or feels that you will stop to let them pass, you're pretty much dead. And they don't give a $hit.

Good story: I was heading east on Bloor, just before Spadina at around 8:40 AM. Lots of drivers need to merge to the right so they can get south on Spadina; I know this, so when I see a car in the left lane signal to get over and turn south on Spadina, I take the whole right lane and give this guy room to merge. Next thing, I hear a horn behind me and this cabbie pulls up next to me and starts telling me how, "it's my right to take the lane and ride where I want," but, "please don't." I tried to explain why I took the lane: to let someone in front of me merge, but this ****** wasn't listening. I gave up, gave him the finger and proceeded on my way. Cabbies are dirtbags. 100%.

Heh yeah, drivers that misjudge our speed is a real problem too - I suspect that's what happened last night to me and the guy who tried to cut in front. I don't care guys do that, just don't do it close - I'm on the road to try and impact traffic as little as I can - so if they can make the turn without waiting for me and there's room - I'm cool with that.

Re: your Spadina/cabbie experience - that's pretty priceless :p He acknowledges the right, but just tells you not to anyway? Heh. It's even worse because you're actually *helping* traffic flow with what you're doing... Ah well. :)

I usually tell them to get the **** out of the car or **** off and drive... It's been a long time since anyone got out of the car and the last time someone did he went toe to toe with me, made a fool of himself and got back in his car and drove away dejected... I made fun of him the whole way back to his car. ******...

In defense of cabbies - studies have shown that they are, in fact, only 98.6% dirtbags.

Drivers typically misjudge what an adrenaline pumped, almost-been-killed, cyclist is capable of. Usually to their detriment. Sir do NOT get out of the car, SIR DON'T DO THAT, aw jeeees..... I don't wanna embarrass you in front of your wife/gf, just stop driving like an idiot.

Rush hour U-turns account for 26.8% of all cabbie dirtbag behavior.

the news doesnt! they are all road raging psychos!!!! ;)

PS they dont agree with me in the A&S forum thread i posted... :D

Matt/TJ: posts of the week. :D

:lol:

I'm not entirely sure if the frames listed by that new forum sponsor (http://www.smartcycles.com/frame_closeouts_list.htm) are legit/rebadged, but DAMN this one is hot:

http://www.smartcycles.com/zar/guer_..._tig_white.jpg

I know this is Toronto, but I thought it'd be my best bet.
I'm heading to Montreal in 2 weeks for a conference at McGill, and want to check out some good bike shops. Any recommendations? Not looking to make any purchases, just check some local stuff out.

Ohhh man - this reminds me of a pretty funny story... I'm whipping down Queen one day in the summer and a dude decides to pull over to let his wife out of the car... the only problem is that I'm beside him. I squeeze through and, rather uncharacteristically, keep riding. My girlfriend at the time had been on me to keep my temper under control so it felt good to let it go... but then he honks and gives me the finger! What the ****?

So I turn around and go at him... he starts telling me "I've been riding for 15 years and I shouldn't pass a turning car on the right... blah blah blah" and I tell him "I wasn't passing on the right, I was riding on the right and I was beside upi when he decided to pull over." The argument degenerated into a "You go home" / "No, you go home!" type of sandbox argument so I figured I'd finish it with a nice loogie on the windshield and ride away...

He started to get out of the car and I was like "dude, trust me, you don't want to do that" and then a friend and his buddy who had heard the argument from a little ways down the street comes over and gets between us and is like "seriously, you do NOT want to get out of that car" and the dude says "why, because there are 3 of you?" Obviously not...

Anyway, the guy's wife gets out of the car super pissed off at all of us (husband included) and he drives away. I run into him at the next stop light and roll up and put my hand on his door (open window) and say "It's just me now, still want to get out of the car?" to which he apologizes emphatically. He totally just couldn't deal with admitting fault in front of his lady.

Ok, maybe that wasn't so funny as it is embarrassing for me giving into a simple middle finger but the macho, alpha male side of me is laughing inside whenever I think about his face when I rolled up on him at the stoplight.

Most of my friends from Montreal come here to buy their bike stuff - fixed stuff anyway. ;)

Check this forum - they'll be able to give you any info.

http://www.fixedmtl.com/

'course it doesn't hurt that you're like 7ft tall Matt!

:p

I stopped giving motorists the finger when one of them tried to run me over once I'd flipped him the bird. It was just me and him along Bloor near St.George, it was a dead Sunday afternoon and it was way before cell phones, like in 1993 or so, so I had no way out except to stop and hope that he would calm down. I guess he realized just what the hell he was doing, attempting to kill someone with his car, so he split pretty quick but it was a damned close call.

The concept of sharing the road didn't even exist back then, we have come along way, believe it or not, hehhe.

Yesssssssss go Matt.

I used to be pretty confrotational then I realized why the F should I get all bent out of shape for no reason - let them do it.

hahahaha. When Shamil told me about this I thought to myself...that sounds like Raisin Boy. Sure enuf...it was Raisin Boy. For the record this guy spends more time arguing with illegal turning cars then delivering packages. The irony is that this guy is one of the most dangerous idiot cyclists out there. Case in point. Many years ago, when I was still on the road, I was cruising west on King just west of Bay. As I passed First Can this clown comes hammering East along the sidewalk and just jumps off the sidewalk into traffic the wrong way. Normally this wouldn't bother me but the fact he crashed right into me made me lose it on him. Several weeks later he was yammering to some driver at Yonge and Queen about the same crap. He put his bike down on the road in front of the guys car and was screaming in the guys face. Driver thought screw this and just ran the idiots bike over. Now I don't condone behavior like this from car drivers but this guy is extremely over the top with his antics. Sadly this clown now lives in my building :(

Calm and happy is the way to go. Nothing angers raging cagers like a smile and friendly wave. They only want to make you angry and when you don't get angry, they lose it.

well that certainly puts a different spin on things....
I'd not be pleased with curb jump to wrong way collision
less than impressed actually

Huh, I just watched that video, it looks like the driver only gave up because he/she saw the cops coming. I think I agree with the cyclist though, making an illegal right turn during rush hour and almost running over a cyclist is really stupid. It is great that the cops were there, they are never there when I need them though. I wonder if the cyclist pulled up alongside of the SUV to watch him receive the ticket. That would have been kinda sweet, the devil in me hopes that he did ;)

Bwa ha ha! I couldn't get the video to load in Opera and was thinking, oh well, until I read Shamil's thread in A&S and the comment from someone about the "nasally voice". And I thought: Hey, I know that guy! You should hear his end of shift rants to random passers by outside my window.

Yup, this is the truest fact about cycling in the city. It takes a lot of time to learn it but this is the best way to go. I think it comes with age too, now that I am 35, I am way more laid back about things on the road.

Yeah opera doesn't load the vid so I had to fire up firefox (no pun intended).

Inexpensive wheelset on CL http://toronto.craigslist.ca/tor/bik/540318137.html