Shiznaz

Darn! I saw a mother and her 2 kids get tidal waved up to about the mother's neck this morning, right outside of my house. The kids disappeared under the brown wall of water for a little while and then the car blew the stop sign and tore off. The kids just started WAILING! I was very close to getting caught in the same wave. That sucks about radio. If you want blood... you've got it.

darkmother

They are from MEC (big surprise there) and they are sort of treated nylon. They have a velcro seam up the back. Looking at them now, they are soaked through, but they kept my shoes reasonably dry. They look funny, but I care not.

TRaffic Jammer

^^^ RE: Shizy...there otta be a law^^^
I mean how evily disrespectful, of ppl on the sidewalk. With kids to boot, because you know that poor family either had to go home and change or the little ones will will damp all day.

DM ....big yellow reflective strip up the back and velcro strip under to hold the shoe? Snow gets packed in the bottom hole?

somnambulant

ditto.. good stuff. It feels so good to ride in the rain and be totally and completely dry.

tj: forget the motocross squeegees, you need the tear-away google lenses. Personally I just throw my glasses in my bag when it's raining, but whatevs.

edit: darkmother: sounds like we have the same ones.

TRaffic Jammer

I had tear-aways on a set of Scott moto goggles, waaaaaay back in the Alberta redneck moto days. Can't stand not having my eyes covered at this point. Rain, dirt, wind etc.... I'll peek over the rims if I have to, I NEED my glasses to see what's ahead.

darkmother

Everything else I was wearing is saturated. I can the water dripping on the floor of my office. Gotta love climbing into cold, slimy wet cycling gear at the end of the day. Delightful.

If one more person asks me:

1) If I rode my bike to work today
2) If I got wet this morning

I am going to go on an campus-wide orgy of killing.

That is all.

TRaffic Jammer

Is it raining?

jet sanchEz

In the mail yesterday I received the flyer regarding the next City of Toronto Auction. It is down at the C.N.E. and I am sure there will be a lot of bikes as usual.

The last one really sucked as there was some pretty heavy media coverage about the bikes and there were hundreds of people there. This was because the cops were getting rid of their old Aquila mountain bikes and I guess they wanted people to bid high, so they really got the word out. Lots of people who didn't know anything about bikes or auctions were there but I am sure there was a lot of money raised.

The funniest moment was the second bike up for auction, a pretty beat-up Rocky Mountain that hit $400! The guy who bought it rushed up and said "I didn't know it was me bidding, I wanted to bid on a different bike!" and the auctioneer just looked at him like he was nuts and said "All of these people knew what was going on; next item!". Hopefully this time there will be less stupidity and some better bikes.

More info here

Shiznaz

I'll have to bring my housemate along to that. He was too slow and lazy to take up Keith's offer of a free miele, so maybe he'll come to this.

cavernmech

Best "getting soaked by some jackass" story.
There was this messenger guy named Dave. He was an odd sort of guy...real quiet, seemed very passive and rode a recumbent. He was heading up Bay street one rainy day when a van came tearing up the bike lane...narrowly missed Dave...and proceeded to veer to the curb at full speed to hit the massive puddle right next to the bus stop. Needless to say everyone at the stop was totally soaked. Dave caught up with the Van at the next light and started to tell off the driver as to his errant and inconsiderate driving. Upon getting an earful of profanity , he decided to lay down his bike in front of the van and tell the driver that he was calling the cops (apparently this type of maneuver is illegal) Making the assumption that this recumbent riding bike geek was not going to delay them any further, the driver and passenger got out of the van and advanced menacingly on our hero. By this time a small group of people who had witnessed assclowns ******like behavior had gathered on the sidewalk. Dave told the 2 that they were not going anywhere until the cops arrived and/or an apology was offered to the unfortunate folks who got soaked. At this point the enraged driver and passenegr decided to take matters into there own hands and took a swing at Dave. Unknown to them (or any of us who thought we knew mild mannered Dave) was that Dave was a third degree black belt. 2 successful throat punches later the 2 jackasses were on the deck. The bus stop folks were on the scene as was a passing cop car. Details were divulged to the cops and our messenger hero went on with his day.

Shiznaz

Sweet! Neck punches alway win!

The rules about splashing people are kind of grey... you can't purposely splash people, but you shouldn't do anything unpredictable to avoid a puddle. You shouldn't even really drive through puddles if you have a choice... Splashers are just jerks. I got head to toe mud splashed when I was 6. I was on the curb of the school about to start grade 1, first day ever, and some ****** in a red honda tears by the school zone and dumps a whole puddle on my head. My mom had to drive me home and I had to have a bath and change and I was really late and stressed by the time I finally started school!

TRaffic Jammer

Fun retribution....Only thrown by those in the know lest you accidental crush their windpipes and you kill them. Note a third dan BB.

God.... listening to these wonks ***** and moan about how difficult the drive in the rain was, the reasons they were late, and I'm sitting here thinking ...screw you. Is that bad?

cavernmech

The best part is that Dave really was the guy you thought least likely to ever get in a violent confrontation. I never looked at him the same way ever again.
And no....it is not bad.

Shiznaz

I hear complaints from the cubicles around me, "Some jerk with the seats in front of me is ruining my leafs season tickets. He keeps selling them to all these loud obnoxious people. I switched to the red section to get away from these guys!"

TRaffic Jammer

The ones you least think so are the ones with scary degrees of ability. I had a roomie once and unbeknownst to his mates he taught, at 19, the police in contact point kung-fu and literally had a get out of jail free card. If he was picked up say in a fight, the card from the police identifying him as an instructor who wouldn't use excessive force and not to detain him. He could knock me down with his thumb.

cavernmech

Its called a fan...something most of the inhabitants of the platinums know nothing about. Ever notice at the beginning of a period the platinums are almost empty as the "privledged" are busy "networking" at the platinum club. I hate the fact that the real hockey lovers are restricted to the nosebleeds (if they can even afford to go) and the choice seats are filled with people who are only there to be seen. End Rant!
Edit...if I ever get fortunate enough to inhabit the platinums I am not gonna bathe for a week...wear my well worn but unwashed hockey jersey....and try to start a wave at every opportunity.

jeremywhitehorn

now that i've been to a soccer game in south america, i am spoiled for seeing fanatic fans. at the first game of the season there were people lighting road flares, women in bikinis throwing confetti, playing instruments and EVERYONE was in team colours or jerseys (even me), no one sat at all or stopped singing during the game and only a fraction of the seats are reserved for tourists.

i would love to see some of this hysteria brought to hockey but i don't think that's going to happen due to our country's over polite british upbringing.

jeremywhitehorn

with all this talk of wet weather, has anyone tries the new cycling waterproof jacket from MEC? i'd like to reaplace the goretex ski jacket i'm using as it is sweaty and bulky as hell.

TRaffic Jammer

It used to be like that.... when Canadians would watch the games outside.

cavit8

Is that the whoosh jacket? I may actually break down and get waterproofs this year. Similar to Keith, the olde goretex isn't what it used to be.

Heads up that CBN's bike swap is Oct 22 https://tinyurl.com/egdnt.

Keith, check your PM's.

Shiznaz

Are you talking about the 'NEW' Hydrocycle jacket? I was asking one of the MEC clerks about it and he said there was a production flaw (the factory in china used the wrong fabric or something) and the release of the jackets is being pushed back to some time in november. I like the look and functions of it though so I may bear with my crappy cycling jacket for a little while longer.

somnambulant

I think mine is the Whoosh, but I could be wrong. Either way, I totally *heart* it.

jeremywhitehorn

no, it was aboutr $100 and a companion to the pants they sell. i saw it on their website the other day but it appears to have been removed.

jeremywhitehorn

yeah, i think that's the one. for $100 it sounds like a steal.

what's with the $500 brand name waterproofs that MEC is selling these days? i thought they were supposed to all about value and functionality.

darkmother

I've always stuck with non-waterproof cycling stuff, as I find goretex always = sweat sauna for me. Maybe the technology has improved though. Anyone have a jacket that is waterproof that you can actually excercise in?