Now's the time to go for ice cream, you don't lose any.

operator: Careful on the commute if the strike is on. I lost counts of times I just about got smoked during the last strike. Case in point, I was following a van off Lawrence onto Bayview (at the bridge where Glendon College is). They were sort of pooching along and I was thinking 'pass or not', decided not. The van slammed into the curb about two seconds later. Take the worst Toronto driver, make 'em drink a 26 of Canada club, spray paint their windows black except for a credit card sized spot in their windshield... apply this model to at least 50% of the drivers after doubling the number of cars on the road and you will sort of get the 'moving target' ambience of riding during a TTC strike...

I commuted up until I started getting some snow on the ground and it got too cold. Just wasn't worth it. I was going to start again last week since it got warmer, too bad next week is the last week of school.

Was doing close to 300k a week on commute for about 10 weeks solid. On average it took me about 1:15 to get downtown, 29.2k'ish and about 1:25 to get back. Downhill/Uphill.

Going northbound on Yonge st. down Hoggs Hollow (bigass hill right before York Mills?) gives a really nice long fly downhill. Touched 65kph on my ultra beater bike last year.

Dying to see (not literally) how fast I can get down it on my Bianchi. What's your commute like time/distance wise?

Tried to get some accurate elevation data (DEM) from the free GIS stuff from gov't Canada, no good. I think they were offering only close to 10m resolution? Well that and I could never pin down the coordinates. I calculated it was about 0.5% average gradient downhill to downtown. This is masked by a whackload of hills. Notably the 401/yorkmills on yonge st. Further down the summerhill dip, and the st clair (chum 1050) hill.

damn, that's awsome. Good for you to maintain that, I admire long distant commuting.
I've never hooked up a computer to my bike so I don't know exactly what the distance is I travel... but it's probably between 12 or 15km for me to get downtown under 20 minutes traveling east to west, though I'm trying to force myself to take longer routes.

We should do some kind of beer ride when it gets nicer out, where we quench our thirst with righteous beer at regular intervals. Also we could have a pie break.

hey don't forget the ice cream.

pie a la mode

ever the diplomat.

When I was In T.O. I was riding an old Gary Fisher beater that was fixed, commuted to work on it. It was stolen 2 days before I moved to India. When I return for good I am going to get a new one. If there are going to be some summer rides going, okay if I ride my c-dale? I promise not to change gears. Be nice to meet some of the T.O. fixed scene.

promise not to coast as well? just kidding.
we could plan a ride to little india in case ya get homesick. curry and mango lassi anyone... nice...

Replace pie with hot chicks and we got a winnar.

Just set my bike up fixed a few weeks ago and I'm loving it. I don't think I can go back, for sure not around the city.

Here here. Pyze guy and operator are the only outsiders now! Why don't you guys just follow by example and conform?

I sometimes do. I live at bayview and eglinton and that is the quickest way downtown for me. Never tried it during rush hour or anything-I work north of the city. The cars do around 80km/hr, and it is a little nuts, especially on a fixie. I just take the whole lane and let the cars go around.

I'm into that. Just grabs some cans and park it.

You'll never get the rebels!!

/seamlessly shifts to a 53x11 and powers away

:D

In all seriousness I was looking around for some track frames (locally). Nobody really had anything on the cheap. Got a messenger job lined up so I might need a fixed/SS.

And, where exactly is this ginormous mount pleasant road/hill you all speak of? We should ride this weekend if the weather cooperates...!

I think we established a while back that yoda rides fixed gear. Just find an old fixed wheel and throw it on your granny bike :D

Heres a track frame on ebay thats pretty local:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW
(some assembly required)

If we were going to bomb mt. pleasant we would have to time it for a low traffic period. I still have the heebie jeebies from being buzzed so many times when I was riding down it at night.

do you know where jarvis street is? it kinda merges into mount pleasant north of bloor. it's a fairly large street sandwiched between yonge and sherbourne (running parallel). hope that helps...

here's a link from mapquest. mount pleasant road is right in the middle.

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp...0v8pao1fIsY%3d

Well my POS bike here is a s/s so I'm not too much of a non-conformist.

I try to stay away from that area, the only problem is that all the roads south of St. Clair all have long hills, they are all scary and there is no way around them. My commute used to be on Bayview north of Sunnybrooke, that was a terrifing ride. The cars regularly hit 80km and the bike lane is horrible. Cutting across 3 lanes to turn into the Granite Club was a little hairy. My commute now involves dodging cows, ox drawn, hundreds of dogs, roads with no apparent rules other than might is right, no street lights and the majority of vehicles don't use their lights. Never thought I would miss T.O. drivers.

Anyone know of a place to buy cheap fixed hubs? I am going to fix my Atlas Nucleus and don't want to spend alot on a year of riding a crap bike. And I won't coast either.

Nashbar has some reasonably cheep hubs, also I found these guys NYC Bikes (who also sell a lot of stuff on ebay.) If the Fixed thing works out, I'll probobly get one of their hubs and build me up a rear wheel.

It's not so much that it's ginormous, but rather that the road down it sort of sweeps left then right. Traffic is really fast and tends to drift right because of the road orientation. At least that's why I don't like it.

watch out for the cow patties... it must be kind of surreal to conjure thoughts of north toronto while sitting in bangalore... hmm.. "might is right... majority of vehicles don't use their lights.." that's not too far removed from toronto traffic.

so who's interested in doing evening rides? Like after work... it's balmy outside and the days are getting longer

I'm in. Now that it's warming up a little I'm getting the itch to do some riding.

I'm in. I'm done school on Friday and then I can finally sleep! and ride

This Saturday/Sunday? I'm good for Friday too..! Shiznaz you going to ride your bmx hax?

how about down mount pleasant? :D

Heh, no fair, haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet :D Like we always said back in grade 2... you go first!

If I'm gonna be barreling down mt. pleasant brakeless on my bmx hack I'm gonna need a some sort of a devo costume, or at least a cape.
http://www.clubdevo.com/mp/images/di...its-misses.jpg