Planning a Lunch Ride...

Yesterday I knew I wanted to go for a ride on lunch. I just felt like a ride and not a run as it seems has been my choice most days lately. I was not sure which loop I wanted to do. I decided that I wanted to do this loop based on just a feel for a "road ride".

I had ridden in on a mix of road, gravel trail, and very little singletrack on the Cross bike. This gave me the options of pretty much riding any surface on lunch but I just wanted to push out on the road. The ride was good but I just wanted to go further. I want to plan a longer ride today but with fixed length lunches I am not sure it is a good idea. Paul was able to do a decent job of keeping a strong pace on his Fixie but noted some leg stress on certain sections of the ride.This had me spinning slowly (recovering) and waiting up a bit. I think it's time to convince him to get a CX or Road bike for longer faster lunch loops. I think today I will stretch it out a couple KM's but keep it within the 1 hour including prep and shower time...

Anyway babbling on about nothing... I'm out...

Important Message About Tonights City Council Meeting

Here is a message sent to me today regarding cycling in my city. If you know people in the region please urge them to attend. Thanks

"
Dear fellow cyclists,

Please consider attending the Kitchener City Council meeting tonight, Monday evening, June 13. Your presence could easily be the difference between success and failure regarding cycling development in the city for the foreseeable future.

The City of Kitchener's Cycling Advisory Committee will make a brief but important presentation to this meeting of City Council. The point of the presentation traces back to Council's last-minute decision to cut the cycling funds that had been called for in its new Cycling Master Plan (passed in August 2010). Of course, with neither staffing nor discretionary funding, the Cycling Master Plan is largely reduced to words on a page rather than an action plan for developing Kitchener into a cycling-friendly city.

When news of this slashed funding got out in February and March, many cyclists and non-cyclists alike contacted Council members to let them know of their unhappiness with the decision. The Cycling Advisory Committee also urged councilors to fix the situation at the earliest opportunity. As a result of these efforts, councilors have now approved in committee the hiring of a permanent half-time staff person to act as Cycling Coordinator for the city.

This is a crucial part of implementing the Cycling Master Plan. If it's nobody's job in particular to see that cycling development is maintained, it just won't happen. So getting the staff in place, while only part of the battle, is a very important part of the battle.

But the staffing decision has not yet been formally approved by Council, and recent events have proved that a last-minute change of heart or loss of commitment cannot be ruled out. With this in mind, I urge you to attend the meeting and bring your cycling helmet with you. The City of Kitchener Cycling Advisory Committee will be one of several delegations to speak, so arriving for 8 pm is probably safe. It should take little more than an hour of your time; but your support may have positive effects for local cycling that last for decades.

Thanks for your time,


Brent Ellis
Waterloo Cycling Club
and
Tim Kenyon
Chair
City of Kitchener Cycling Advisory Committee
Contact: cycling@kitchener.ca
"

A perfect day!!

December 9 #bikeschool Q1 - extended

 Bam!! Darryl layed down the first question of the night last night. I immediately started thinking in 140 characters. I answered simply that I would point to a blogpost on the subject by either @bikerly @lovingthebike or @egggman (me) and tell them to join. This is what I do when people ask me right? Then I started reading other (Better) answers and it got me to thinking.

If Someone asked me what is #bikeschool in any forrum other than twitter how would I answer??

#bikeschool is the #secretevilplan that wasn't... Or was it? One night at the cottage watching a fuzzy at best tv screen after a movie ended it was twitter time. My wife was checking in on facebook friends and plans for the next day. I sat back with the iPad and read a tweet from a newly followed wild man @bikerly to @lovingthebike. The tweet went something like: "so how is the #secretevilplan coming". I jumped in with a snide remark about it cant be so secret let me in. From there @bikerly started taking about filling water bottles with vodka. Back at home a week or so later I poked the pair on their #secretevil plan in jest and we started chatting about fictional possibilities.

One day still in summer @bikerly decided to stop the whole idea of the #secretevilplan joke and make it into something. His idea... you guessed it #bikeschool a hashtag linked to blog entries about life lessons learned by bike. The idea grew in dm's and e-mails between the 3 of us and then on August 10 2010 it was on a 3 linked blog post under the theme #bikeschool. Many other bloggers joined in quickly and lots of #bikeschool tweets happened through August and into September. The idea was fun and had worked but it was slowing down.

Blog posts #1: Bikerly Blog , LovingTheBike , OldSinglespeed

@bikerly decided it was time to kick up the heat and we chatted some more #secretevilplanB took shape. Based on some interesting twitter chat sessions he had seen he pitched the idea to us. Sounded great. We could have a couple people get together every week at 9pm EST Thurdays. We sent out some tweets and had a team blog post again Tuesday October 19th making another #secretevilplan #unsecret again.

I don't know what the others expected but the first week was amazing. @bikerly hosted and it was fun. I could not believe the amount of people who showed up. I learned alot quickly about people and their cycling habits. More though I just had a fun hour on twitter with new friends. Week 2 @lovingthebike was in charge and it was great again.

Week 3 was my turn and I was a little nervous about running out of inspiration. I wrote out some questions and let a few things pop off the collar and it was again a fun session. From there it is history. We have had guests ask questions we keep meeting new great friends. It is really becoming a fun community get together. It has now stretched as far as England and Australia although it wreaks havoc on their schedule due to time shift.

Week after week fun times. Stay tuned next week as @bikerly takes over again! And as @lovingthebike says "enjoy your ride!"

#notsosecretevolplanD really needs to be a #tweetup group ride somewhere sometime with ridiculous amounts of fun included!!

Riding in the debris lane...

Photo Credit: Jim's Bike Blog

I "always" ride with caution when sharing the roads with motorized vehicles. My city has recently started to put in place "cycle lanes" a place you could continue to ride safely but be a tiny bit less cautious and take in a little more of what is going on around you. If you remember a couple weeks back I had a great day. Would the day have been as great without a bikelane flat? Probably not. Does this excuse the chunk of mesh metal that was in the cycle lane brushed off the "road"? Also probably not.

The last couple days I have had amazing lunch hour rides! Absolutely amazing for November in Ontario. 8 and 9 degrees Celsius and sunny. I did a 16km loop yesterday and completed the planned route from two weeks back with a cell phone in my pocket and route plan passed on to Paul (lesson learned). Today I took an alternate route to my regular commute and surprised my wife with a luch hour visit. The rides were things of lunch hour dreams. Good climbs great cadence(just kicked a cold), etc...

I rode both of these rides watching my surroundings but also with one eye on the lane. I was amazed by the amount of vehicle and other debris that was shoved into our space. I saw chunks of metal, rusted tailpipes, nails, bolts, indescribable sharpness, but the worst offender of all was an old style manhole cover where a cycle wheel can be swallowed whole that was lengthwise and was the whole width of the "cycle lane".

I don't really have a whole lot more to say on this subject. I was just shocked that while the road seems to be cleaned of debris regularily that our space alongside seems to be the lucky recipient of their trash.

I seemed to loose my frustration while writing this. Success!! 

Anyone else have thoughts/experiences on this matter?? I'm out... 

A great afternoon...

An afternoon in review...

Was it a #bikeschool lesson?? Well for me no but it definitely has some #bikeschool type lessons involved for those thinking of starting a family etc...

Wednsday anyone who follows me on twitter knows that there was a contest being held for Jonas Brother tickets and my daughter really wanted to go. My wife and I tweeted like crazy to try to win these as we had not planned ahead on this one...

Our weekend plans were to close the Summer off as we had spent most of the summer. Head north to the cottage, Swim, canoe, maybe I may sneak in a ride here or there on my old Singlespeed Nishiki. Plus there are a few summer ending celebrations going on up there in the evenings...

Thursday came and we did not win the Twitter contest, all stays the same right? I am at work and get a tweet from a dear friend that she has been offered 2 free tickets to the 2pm Friday concert for my wife and daughter. We snapped at them still planning to head north early Saturday after the show... Well I think that is a good backgrounder -- lets get on with the story...

Friday I worked from home as someone had to watch my son and the little guy my wife watches on the side. This was easily worked out at work as it was a last day before the long weekend and things would be quiet. Got quite a few tasks crossed off and 3:30 came quite quickly. The extra little man was picked up early and my work day was done...

My wife and Daughter had been in or on route to Toronto since 9:45am and were not expected back until later in the evening. The boys needed something to keep them occupied, and what would a guy like me think of...... Hrm... A bike.

Little guy was happy to hop in the back and head to a park an then dinner. We had a blast at the park dinner then another park. He was running out of gas and there were signs of rain. I put up the roof of the trailer and we headed for home.... Well that was the plan, ran into a friend that had seen me messing around on a longboard at my daughters school pick-up last year and told me of his extensive skateboard collection. Perfect time to check out a couple toys. He grabbed 2 sweet toys and his wife went and grabbed another that was in mint condition but recently converted into a bench for the front hall of the house.

I took an old Tony Hawk board for a little ride around his court and pulled a couple tricks that I had not even tried in years. Then the little guy decided to try it and held my hands as I dragged him around the circle. He had a blast so I took a pic of him on the fun toy.

I was amazed at how much effort it took to climb some of the hills around here on the fixie with the trailor attached. I had taken the trailor out on a variety of different bikes in the past and never had any issues. I did not have to step off at any time but had to fight it a couple times yesterday.

the little guy and I had an amazing afternoon-evening and he is still a little whipped today. Weather conditions and just an overall crazy schedule yesterday kept us home from the cottage but I don't think anyone here would change a thing. Cant wait for our next impromptu father son/father son/or family adventure!!

Taking it in

Although today was a bit of a fail in a couple ways the lunch hour ride was amazing. First, why a fail? All day meeting ran for about 45 minutes (Meeting Fail!!), second my originally planned 4 days of 5km running on lunch turned into 3 days of 5km running and 1 day of 15km riding (Running Motivation Fail!!).

Today's ride was along a familiar route. I have ridden this route regularly for the past 2 years. It is a nice 15km starting and ending at the steps of the hospital that employs me. Even though this ride was the same it was somehow different. I rode hard and pushed myself to do better (Same), but I noticed things, lots of things (Different).

I noticed lots of people on their bikes, Kids on their BMX's pedaling along and talking. People in work cloths commuting. People with large packs secured to themselves and bikes obviously on an adventure of some kind. Cyclists on trails, roads, sidewalks. People with helmets and people without. The cycling culture in the city is obviously growing, or I am just finally opening my eyes.

I also noticed other things, vehicles, pedestrians, road workers and summer patio dwellers. I may have to partake in the patio part at some point also. In the summer the city is alive especially late in the week over the lunch hour I assume.

Why are my eyes open? Why am I finally noticing my surroundings? Why am I taking it in? Watch here as well as @bikerly and @lovingthebike for more info coming in the next little while.

Perhaps I should have ridden with a camera. I'm out...

Shameless Plug - Singlespeed and Fixie Wear

I created a line of clothing a while back to catch the humorous side of cycling. Particularly to allow Singlespeeders and Fixie's to poke a bit of harmless fun at your geared friends.



I know there are many other designs that do this but was just fiddling around with The Gimp one night and liked how it turned out. Figured I would see if anyone else like it too. What do you think?

Back to normal blogging tomorrow. Im out...

Fixie Cycling - City Congestion

As mentioned in my last post I figured I should talk about the contrasts of riding the fixie near my house. I look out my front door into a busy overpopulated suburban subdivision with postage stamp lots and cookie cutter homes. I look out the back window and see farmers fields and a gravel pit. Huge contrast. Usually I find myself riding to work and into the urban side of things. As I have to work 5 days a week it just turns out that way. Yesterday working from home I had a great ride out the back. The positives were trees, farmers fields, almost no traffic. The drawbacks are that roads seem to be patched instead of fixed out there.

I did not really notice the difference until riding in this morning and smelling the city. Wow it was nice to smell country air. Think I need to work from home more often so I can get this wonderful air.

A great lunch hour ride in the country - from the city edge...

Well, after a long weekend of sloth... Or at least working in the backyard instead of training... I decided to work from home so that it would make it easier on the wife and kids for first day of school runaround. Well that means no ride to work or home. I decided I needed at very least a decent lunch hour ride. I do have a 6 hour solo mtb race on Saturday and all.. My first solo race.

Well I have started this post all over the place, lets hone in on the ride. It was amazing. Started out on an epic climb and then into the country roads around my place. There were 5 nice climbs and only 2 stop signs and 2 stop lights. 20KM loop of fun.

I took out the fixie as the mtb is at the office right now. Perfect tool for th job. Of course the plans to modify the fixie kept swirling thru my head. Here goes... Winter hits I tear this toy down to its smallest pieces... Remove all unnececary braze-ons. Take it to a place in town and have it media balsted and powder coated... Remove bar tape... polish all chrome... Rebuild brakeless, or new mini front brake lever (Undecided)... Install new grips, not tape... Post new pix... Have fun riding shiny new toy next year..

Yup, thats how the ride went too... Mind completely drifted off and ride was bliss... Until next time, I'm out!!

I think I was going to talk about trees and corn and stuff in the fields and lack of congestion on the streets... Maybe next time...