I found an interesting article on Fuyu Li, who recently joined Team Discovery, and is the first Chinese road cyclist to be signed to a ProTour team (the highest level of road racing). A pretty good read, and fits in well with all the other social changes that are happening in China; white-collar, middle-class demographic are emerging from within China’s metropoles, and they have money to burn – on new cars, new mortgages, leisure, vacations, luxury items, status. The hugest untapped market in the world, and as scores of 50 lb. Flying Pigeon utility bikes head for the landfill to be replaced by Mercedes-Benz SUV knockoffs that have just rolled off the production line in Nanjing, the way most people see bicycles in China is becoming much like ours – as vehicles for recreation and sport, not a mode of transportation.

Is utilitarian cycling going the way of the Flying Pigeon, being carried off into the land of antiquity and hippies?

PS: On a sort-of related note, I noticed on my ride to work this morning that road workers spraypainted in some rough lines in preparation for a new section of bike lane between Park Rd (just west of Church) and Jarvis. I hate Bloor because the cabs are vicious, especially around these parts. Maybe this will help.

The vision…

The realization.

Quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. If his online personality was any indication, and from the few conversations I’d had with him, he was probably the brightest guy on the whole forum, with a sense of humour that bordered on offensive or outrageous – but it always made you laugh. He hauled ass on his bike with the best of them, and was well known for his collection of various funny bikes (of the pursuit and fixed BMX varieties?!). This summer, he decided to go on a solo bike tour of epic proportions, which he named The Double Cross.

He was on his way home to Toronto, after passing safely up and down the West Coast and through Western Canada. He died on the Trans-Canada highway halfway between Calgary and Medicine Hat, Alberta, struck from behind by a drunk driver. May your days in heaven be rubber side down, traffic-free, always with the wind at your back. You will be missed.

I never thought myself a fearful person, but once in a while, I am shaken. On Saturday night my good friend Jason was hit by a car edging out from a side street as he rode west on Queen St. He was on his way back from Toby’s Disco Inferno alleycat (though he had already dropped out when the accident happening, thus ruling out any reckless cycling in the equation). As he approached Trinity Bellwoods, the car gunned out suddenly, sending him over and across the hood. He dislocated and broke his right shoulder in three places, and the driver did not stay at the scene. Presumably he either panicked, or saw that Jason got up on his own two feet (hardly an indication of being ‘okay’) and sped off momentarily. A group of pedestrians walking by helped him off the street, jotted down the license plate, and called an ambulance.

This particular moment bothers me, because at the moment Jason was hit, I was probably absentmindedly twiddling my fingers at a checkpoint across from every Toronto hipster’s favourite joint, The Boat, waiting for the last racer to come through. I would sign his manifest, and he would pull a frantic U-turn and head back in the direction he came from. Twenty-one of the 22 racers pulled through my checkpoint. The other guy manning this checkpoint, Paul, called Toby to find out whether this guy was coming at all. Toby says, I dunno, I have no idea who it is. I waited until 12:30 a.m., but decided to pack it in when I figured any rider as slow as this mystery racer wasn’t worth waiting for any longer. So I made my way west on Queen, passing by a crowd of onlookers staring, probably as Jason was being loaded into the back of the ambulance, lights flashing into the darkness of Trinity Bellwoods at night. I hesitated for a moment, knowing how awful it is to ride that section of Queen, and presciently, feeling bad because it was probably some poor cyclist that got hit.

In the last month, I have seen many of my friends explain other stories… how one cab clipped his handlebars and sent him tumbling onto the road before speeding off, close calls and arguments; that night, in fact, another rider in this race clipped the back of a car after it suddenly U-turned. On the ride home from the alleycat, a cab swerved into me. At the next red light, I nearly smashed in his windshield with my lock after he told me I ought to be riding in the gutter, and he would have no reason to signal or check his blind spot before turning if I had been there in the first place.

It wasn’t until Sunday that I got a call from Drew, worried after Jason never showed up at his place the night before. Several hours later, we would find out he was at St. Mike’s recovering from surgery.

Which leads me to think, really, if any amount of altruism in this fucked up world and saving one gallon of petroleum at a time in the name of curbing global warming makes any difference at all. Being drenched in sweat, bumped, having doors opened on me, honked at, bullied into street curbs, breathing noxious fumes from the tailpipes of assholes, secure in their bigger faster stronger vehicles… Is any of it worth the risk?

It’s not, but for the illusions of weightless, unencumbered flight, the fleeting moments of tailwind and abandoned, buttery smooth stretches of asphalt at 3 a.m., I’ll deal with it.

My new favourite spot in the city: the top of Kensington Market parking garage. A secluded, quiet spot to murder your friends.

PS: Ryan has a really nice bike. Champagne-coloured Gobbo track frame with Columbus SL tubing, vintage Campagnolo drive train and Chorus pedals, Alex DA-19 rims. Enough to kill for.

Through the acquaintance of a new (bike messenger) friend, I was offered a job bike messengering. In a small town. In Germany. On the edge of the Black Forest. Brain=explosion.

In an odd twist of irony, one that made me cackle with riotous laughter when I was first offered the job, I remember when I went hiking with my sister in said enchanted forest and ended up getting lost because the trail map was 100 per cent useless. It was a mailman in his cheery yellow cube truck that pointed us in the right direction after we ran down the dirt road, arms flailing and hollering at the top of our lungs to get his attention. I hope my mother never reads this, she wasn’t supposed to find out how we almost perished in the great wild of Bavaria.

PS: I was about done writing de damn tingz when Jessica saunters up, asks me what I’m still doing here (here being the school library on a bloody Tuesday at 10:30 p.m.), pulls up a wheely chair, and in the mostly-automatic process of sitting down, manages to wipe out on the ground.

PPS: Speaking of wiping out, I ruined my left hip and ass when I went down on a wet streetcar track last week. May God strike down the City of Toronto and their novelty trolley lines in a blitzkrieg of lightning.

Secondly, on the day before Remembrance Day, I’m appalled at the lack of poppies. I sat on the steps of an old house on Gerrard with Jessica yesterday, eating a sandwich and basking in the “way past Indian summer” Indian summer day. I counted 19 poppies in almost an hour of people-watching (hundreds of people passed us by), only 6 of which were pinned onto the collars of visible minorities. In Halifax this weekend it was easier to pick out the non-poppied people at the mall than counting who did remember, and Jessica suggested maybe it’s because in cities like Halifax and Edmonton, Remembrance Day warrants a public holiday — something worth remembering. Maybe it’s the multiculturalism in this city, the flood of first-generation immigrants, or the egocentric Toronto bullshit attitudes, but here, nobody cares.

In a few years time when those who fought in World War II are dead and gone, I will miss the strange brew of feeling I get when a veteran pins, with his two shaky time-worn hands, that furry plastic poppy onto my jacket.

It didn’t even bother me that my jeans were soaked and I could feel water sloshing around inside my sneakers as I trudged up that murderous hill at York Mills (just couldn’t mash it).

Because truthfully, I kind of enjoy the challenge of covering that route, especially lately, since I’ve been ranting to anyone who will listen about how most people are so disconnected to the reality of distance. Cars and subways and planes destroy the meaning of how long 20 kilometres really is. And that even though you can drive it, you would probably die trying to make it home on a bike like I did tonight. (Note: this is essentially the reason I ride bikes – ask me more on my fear of large numbers and distances!)

But I snapped when I eased to a stop at my car. And heard the delightful sounds of my rear inner tube hissing, leaking, dying.

FOR THE SECOND TIME IN TWO DAYS.

Fixing it wouldn’t have been so hard, because I like tinkering with my bike. But when I get home, I realized that I left my spare inner tube in my bike locker. Time to buy some Kevlar tires…

PS: Here is my route. I can’t quite remember the Critical Mass part of the ride so it might be off by 2 or 3 km, but this is my day’s total distance.

Sorry for alienating all you non-bike riding readers. (Not really. But sorry about that lame caption at the bottom. Not my pic – it was stolen from bikeforums.net.)

Images: Maki Hojo and Jake Dobkin

SQUEE!!!! This is the New York City Aeolian Ride. Brainchild of Jessica Findley, volunteers receive a costume that inflates in the wind or at low speeds, then assemble to ride around the city for a couple hours. They look like giant ghosts and bubbly molar teeth riding around – so cute. Someone help me campaign to have this come to Toronto!

What possessed me to do such a hippie thing? On an ordinary day, cycling from my house at College/Bathurst to school at Yonge/Dundas could include 3 or 4 near-dooring incidents, being cut off (or almost crushed) by trucks, and drivers who ignore bike lanes and side-swipe me. Thankfully, I’ve never been in a crash yet, but it’s bound to happen soon; in the wake of two fatal bike-car accidents this month, participation seems more relevant than ever. So I hooked up with my two bikester/foodster/gumster friends Jason and Matt to, you know, just go around, and take back the streets of downtown Toronto in blissful ecologically-friendly traffic jamming with 120+ other cyclists.

A plethora of photos follow…

Partners in crime.

The meeting place at Bloor and Spadina (click for a full size view)

Something… in my teeth.

Bikesters.

On Yonge.

Turning onto College at Yonge.

This guy was really stoked on being a bikester.

Crossing the DVP on Danforth Ave.

Bike vs. car

“I wonder what’s in the hatch?”

Going into the Eaton Centre

The route we followed (the pack kept going on after us, but we broke off to go get Mexican food. The foodster element of the night starts there):

It was appalling how pissed drivers got when cyclists got in their way. While turning off Shuter onto Yonge, a Mercedes SUV tried frantically to pass us. The woman in the passenger seat rolled down her window and made a screwface and screamed when she was informed we all intended to pass her. Her husband in the driver’s seat gave us the finger. How you like dem apples?