Weight?

Heads up to folks looking for something to do. "The Salsa" latin culture street festival is on between Winona and Christie on St. Clair. If that's on your route, it's blocked off, boyo.

nothing to do with fixed, but kona wah-wah pedals = teh sex. sticky icky.

in related news, the stickier the pedal the deeper it cuts when you slip off it like an idiot.

A shade under 18lbs

so i ended up taking the bike with me to the cottage and managed to get one ride in despite forgetting my cycling shoes. what a glorious ride it was; oh and as for the ******bag who hucked an entire 2L slushy at the back of my head (and connected) from a 100km/hr+ moving car....i'll see you in purgatory.

Wtf.

pretty much exactly as it sounds; minding my own business and the next moment i'm covered i feel a smack on the back of my head and i'm covered in slushy. did not expect that in the sticks...

Well, that's whut you git fur flauntin' yer fancy GAYmobile all over, NANCY!

Yeah, I would have expected a beer bottle at the very least.

seriously. i wasn't even in spandex or wearing bright colours. i have to hand it to the guy for hitting a target wearing all black and moving...

They get lots of practice throwing things at road signs, hikers etc.

You guys with thompson seatposts - are the words removeable or are they lazer etched?

I hope you never plan on getting sponsored. OTOH, if you ride often enough, in bad enough conditions, logos last about 3 months; everything turns brown.

This is for my good bike... :(

I think I need to start a new listing website: www.wordweenies.com

no chance for retribution with him going that fast...fk!

wtf is wrong with people these days, seriously!

I think a new level of jackassnesses seems to be completely tolerated as being normal nowadays. It's pretty ****ing sad actually. Not surprising or noteworthy, but sad.

yup...im also noticing alot more hostility towards bikers as opposed to less..

I put it down to jealousy and anger that they have to pay $1.34 a litre to feed a gas hog that they don't really need but bought to keep up with the Joneses or to act as a prosthesis for their ego. Hits them right in the cultural sense of automotive entitlement.

In other news, keep an eye peeled for a smallish Giant Bowery http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/bik/752916987.html

Not all that common so it should be easy to spot.

In yet other news, I just finished Michael Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion". There's a mention of the first vehicle to cross the Bloor Viaduct was a guy on a bicycle who jumped through the barricades and raced ahead before the planned VIP motorcade got across. I went to the Toronto archives and found this, which is my new wallpaper. The fullsize version is available at the Toronto Archives. http://www.toronto.ca/archives/photographs/index.htm
Search using citation number 246332
(sorry the old link expired)

http://cavit8.clawz.com/images/it0868.jpg

Great book. I remember writing an essay on it about 15 years ago it for a girl I was trying to date.

I too, truly love that novel. Hijack this thread: Books with excellent Toronto references... go!

I just read Fifth Business -Davies. Not necessarily Toronto, but southern Ontario. What a gem.

yeah, one of my favourite books. love his detailed descriptions of toronto, especially the waterworks in the beaches and of course the building of the viaduct. imagine the chemistry of toronto before it...

I was reading something by Hemingway last year (I don't recall what) and one of the characters was Canadian and was described as having
"impeccable social grace, as all Canadians do".

We have been really nice people for a long time now I guess or, maybe Hemingway didn't do much cycling in Toronto when he lived here ;)

Wow the Bloor Viaduct looks great in that pic! It looks much better without the suicide cage. Much better view.

I read 5th Business in high school, I'd love to do so again. My friend Liz (who was in my English class) and I had this weird joke where we referred to the book as (phonetically) "Fih Bihnih".

In other news 54cm R3SL is backordered for several months. So I'm getting an SLC-SL instead. Hopefully this week. I'm swapping out a couple of the parts that will come on it so if anyone is interested in a pair of 3T Ergosum Team Carbon fibre drop bars or a pair of FSA SLK Light cranks and bb in 172.5 let me know.

JW- WTF?

re: Fifth Business, the entire Deptford Trilogy is awesome and I have them if anyone wants to borrow.
re: In the Skin of a Lion- I love the descriptions of the Eastern European culture in the East End. So awesome.

re: everything except for JW's story, awesome.

Hands down the best ride of the year so far:

http://www.stridemaps.com/maps/view/146#

Starting at the Aldershot GO station, it's literally about 5mins before you're in the countryside. Like birds chirping wind in the grass countryside. Not that long, but up the escarpment 4 times (~740m total climbing) the hardest being the loose gravel climb up Kelso makes up the difference. The hill down bell school line from top of Kelso is a sweet, sweet reward for the slog up the hill, you lose about 120m in 2mins. I just tucked it and hit 64.3 on L'il hauler :)

The scenery is awesome, the roads are good (with a few fun offroad sections thrown in on sections of the bruce trail and through Kelso), the traffic was light and considerate and the lake at Kelso is nice for a lunch stop/swim.

Lucky I broke my camera on the way out, or I'd have had to stop every 3mins because of the scenery.
Awesome ride. Highly recommended.