the active transportation hurricane

To begin - anyone else think the guy leaving comments on this post is a little bit too angry about something?

During my life in Toronto, I took part in a few cycling events, and organized that petition, but never really got involved with cycling activism the way I thought I should. When I moved to Orillia, I wanted to get involved in city life and look into bike issues, and so I won a spot on a city committee that deals with trails in general (more commonly hiking / nature trails) and a small group of us from this committee have started promoting active transportation issues.



This is fun stuff. Orillia has had a strong recreational cycling culture for a while, but very little of a commuting cycling culture. Cycling infrastructure doesn't really exist here at all - there are next-to-no bike parking posts in this town, and no bike lanes which are useful for journeying to work/school etc (i.e. no bike lanes going through or across town).

So - we're trying to get something started here. On Sept. 10th we're running a bike/walk to work day, and a Bike Rally (think a critical mass ride, but one in a small town where you're forced to get a parade permit from the cops). We've also been handed responsibility for buying bike parking posts, and we're planning an active transportation report which will wake council up to the importance of shifting planning away from cars to public transit/bikes/walking.

It's kind of like being at the beginning of a revolution - active transportation makes so much sense as a solution to so many problems, that you wonder why governments aren't being as vocal as these guys are about replacing car trips with bike and walking trips.

As they mention over at Dandyhorse - Bicycles lie at the intersection of two of today’s fastest growing trends: personal physical health and urban sustainability.

About time - we never should have fallen for the automobile dependence con-job in the first place.

damned derailleurs and farmers

So - regarding the below mentioned triathlon that I'm participating in tomorrow, I have a spot of bother. I haven't actually ridden the carbon Trek in ages, and ever since I bought it the bike has had front derailleur issues. I tried riding it around today and the derailleur kept throwing the chain over the big chain ring, no matter what I did with the limit screw.

I almost decided to put my road wheels onto my Jamis cross bike today, switching over the cassette, but in the process of lifting the Jamis and the Trek, with the Jamis weighing... I don't know... 6 pounds more than the Trek... I couldn't bring myself to do it. So screw it. I'm riding the Trek tomorrow and I'm not going to use the smaller chainring at all. I'll let you know how this goes.



Another dumb thing I did today - the day before a race - was ride 50 km (on the Jamis). I tried to go Friday afternoon (had the day off) but right when I was set to go, thunder started rumbling in the distance, with grey clouds filling the sky. So, fairly pissed (this has been a wet and crappy summer here in Ontario), I called off the ride, but was really anxious to go this morning.
Anyway - on Burnside Line - a quiet two lane 80 km / hour road that runs south into Orillia, I was cycling along with almost no traffic around me, when a pickup that was headed towards me veered over into my lane and more or less played chicken with me for 15 or 20 seconds, veering back when he was maybe 20 metres away from me.

And it wasn't even some stupid kid! It was about a 55 year old guy with white hair who looked like a normal guy that you'd run into at the farmer's market or something. Jackass. I sat up in the saddle and held my arms out in the "what the f*&K was that" pose, but it totally slipped my mind to get the guys license plate.

I can't wait for peak oil. You old guys and your pickup trucks... enjoy it while it lasts.