Uphill Battles: Further Indignities from the World of Cycling

Because global warming has turned spring into a pleasing fiction from the past, we quickly transitioned from Cold to Hot here in Toronto. Unfortunately, this means that I play Russian Roulette every time I cycle home from work. Will this day be the day my head finally explodes like that guy from Scanners? Or will that be tomorrow? Or Tuesday of next week?

My apartment is in Forest Hill, which is uphill from my job. Unfortunately, it is also uphill from the border of the prehistoric mega-lake that has since receded into Lake Ontario, leaving behind a  sharp shelf for my little black bike to climb. I keep on trying to find an ideal route that combines low hill grades with Toronto's limited bike infrastructure; I keep on failing.

Instead, every day I slowly pedal my way up Spadina until my face is turned a colour Pantone has named "geranium pink." Woe to any car that tries to cross me as I power through the streets at 0.3km/hour. With my dry throat and slack mouth, my violent threats come out as "If ffnyouuuuuurnntrythattttImmmmaklzznznjnyou," but there's no mistaking the look of murder in my eyes. I'll tear their throat out with my teeth! Or pass out on their hood. Actually, if they would just hit me, they could conveniently drag me uphill.

I could get in better shape. I could buy an e-bike. But at either point, I might just do better to move.

My Month-us Horribilis on the Bicycle

In happier times...

This winter felt like an endless concrete wasteland, with the exception of any time spent on the TTC, and then it was briefly a stinking jungle of sweat and GoreTex. So, you can imagine how happy I was to get my bike back a month or so ago. Bike freedom! The wind in my hair! Personal space! Being insulted by random drivers! Alright, the last one isn't so pleasant, but still. On the balance, cycling is better than transiting, and don't let a streetcar-themed hat or subway-printed tote bag fool you.

And then the universe decided to pop a squat on my happiness. First of all, I was horribly out of shape after a winter where my most active hobby was eating my feelings. My first ride was uphill, which quickly became a walk uphill. After a week of wondering if I was the slowest cyclist in Toronto (non-folding bike edition) I decided it needed a spring tuneup. 

But everyone else had decided the same thing, and so the bike spent a week in the shop. After I retrieved it, I had a glorious day and a half with my love. Everything was running perfectly, and the choir at the local Anglican church even burst into song as I pedalled by on my way to a friend's party via the Russell Hill bike path. I told Dan that, between the bicycle and the choral music, it was just like the opening of an Inspector Morse episode, and I half expected to turn up dead. 

Instead, on Monday, I had to solve The Mystery of Why the HELL Do I Have TWO Flat Tires? Because I live in Toronto, and I cycle, and the Sun and Star love publishing articles about the Menace II Society this makes me, my sense of persecution is overdeveloped. I called sabotage. Dan was less dramatic. His idea was that the shop just overfilled the tires.

We wheeled it to the local shop (a different one). There, three nice, young, and probably stoned men got really excited by my situation. "Double flaaaaaaaats" they drawled to each other. "Double fllaaaaats!" Twenty minutes later they were both fixed, the culprit identified as a piece of glass. From then on, I vowed never to call this shop "That Shifty Place", as I had done before, but "The Place that Looks Shifty, But Isn't."

A week later, I was texting my friend that I was late, but on my way, and should be there soon. "All hail the power of the bicycle!" I wrote, before I jumped on the bicycle and... nothing much happened. My chain was off, as another cyclist helpfully yelled out as he pedalled by. The chain guard, so helpful most days, wasn't being all that conducive to a roadside fix, which didn't stop me from trying. Instead, I gave up, walked it and my greasy hands to the closest bike shop (this would be yet another one) and threw myself on their mercy.

The heroes fixed it for free. "I'm not a hero," the guy insisted, "just a guy who works in a shop." Nope, he was a hero to me, and anyone else so inept with mechanics that they should probably just buy a car that's under warranty, and give up this cycling thing entirely. Oh well. There's always May. 

A Special Bike to Work Day Post: Cycle Fashion for the Unfashionable

Today was Bike to Work Day in Toronto, a day to bike with others, get free pancakes, and try to ignore the rank stupidity you just know will blossom in the comments from any blog posts covering the event.

Or, you could be like me and do none of those things.

Instead, contract some weird stomach bug in the morning, like I did! You'll miss the communal bike ride, the pancakes, and most of the comments as you crawl to and from the washroom.

I did make it to my bicycle after the rush hour had passed, and was very grateful that the city had finally re-paved the road near Bathurst and Vaughan. Contents under pressure should not be shaken too much.

All of the Bike Month coverage has made me start thinking about what I wear while cycling though. The Grid even has a helpful guide for us: Fight leering men with shorts under your dresses. My suggestion: wear the shorts or skip them, but give the assholes the surliest look you can muster as you bike by. Yes, they will probably tell you to smile, but you'll be far enough away (thanks to your two wheeled freedom) it will just register as an "Smmmugh."

As surly as my face can be, I will confess that I do wear shorts under skirts. Old WASP habits die hard, while chafing never sleeps. I recommend either cheap leggings (Old Navy>H and M>Ardene's) or stretchy black shorts. Pretend you're cosplaying and they're knickers.

You should also think about shows. My running shoes are undeniably the safest and most comfortable riding shoes. This fact hasn't stopped me from biking in slick-soled flats, Doc's, Birkenstock slip-ons and heels. Not only will you look great, you'll feel great in the way that only almost dying because your shoe slipped off the pedal can provide.

And finally, don't make the same mistake I did with the culottes. I found a pair from Club Monaco at a secondhand store, in a first-rate print. Thinking they were the perfect genetic splice between skirt and shorts, I bought them. The first day I biked down Bathurst the legs billowed out around my hips, like two great sails, while the crotch made it impossible to sit on it like a skirt. The stupid Dr. Moreau Chimera Bottoms provided absolutely no modesty. Just thighs for all!

Spring Biking: Further Indignities

This year, spring is a mean drunk. It's here, it's not here, it's dumping rain on you like it's trying to start a fight in a bar.

Well, no dice spring. I'm not going to fight you.

I'll just ride my bike anyway. 

I was on the chariot today, even though the rain was cold and bitter, while the wind threatened to blow me into every delivery van on Spadina. I even rode it last week - or was it the week before? - when it unexpectedly snowed, icing up my rear brake. However, you really only need 50% of your brakes, when you have Nature's Brake - the foot. 

The brake has since returned to working condition, at least to whatever degree anything is ever working on the Silver Bullet. As I've already complained on Facebook, the Bullet has declined to the point where unicyclists are passing me on my morning commute. This happened on Tuesday. I want to defend myself by saying that he had fenders a fender on his wheels wheel, and therefore was a professional at this unicycling thing, but still. Simple arithmetic tells me I should have been going twice as fast, right?

I have to do something about the Silver Bullet this season. Even though I've been commuting by bicycle since last summer, I still don't know what to do with a bicycle except ride it. I can't even put air in the tires, or grease the chain. Though I bought lube just a few days ago, which is at least half the battle, or even three quarters if I'm feeling generous with myself.

The physical form of the Silver Bullet doesn't invite tinkering. It's a big knobbly mountain bike creaking behind the sylphlike Linuses of the streets. There are bar ends and shocks and more gears than I probably need. Sometimes I wander through bike stores just for the thrill of imagining one of the sleek, colourful city bikes is mine, and that I wouldn't look out of place upon its Brooks leather seat. But the Silver Bullet works. It's cheap. And I sympathize with it. Though not pretty, it's reliable, and I can always trust that I'll find it chained to the ring and post where I left it.

So, the Silver Bullet stays, but with a few tweaks. Step one: pry off the bar ends. Then we can move on to step two, which is either figuring out how the air pump works, or greasing the rusty chain. I'll never have the stomach to do anything about the shocks though, so step three will be: 

The Indignity of Winter Biking

Putting aside the idiotic columnists and angry drivers, getting the Silver Bullet* on the road was one of the better decisions I made this year. As I coasted down hill after hill, free from TTC-induced psychosis, I thought the good times would never end.

And then summer turned to fall, which turned to the fetal winter we're having right now. Snow, slush, ice; all good reasons to stop biking for a bit. I also got a nasty cold in November. With phlegm clogging the bike's engine (ie my lungs) the Silver Bullet was locked up for a week, which stretched into two, and eventually became December. 

And what better month, I thought, to retire my bike for the season and buy a metropass? The city would once again be my oyster, or during rush hour, my sardine can. That lasted for about six days before the card was mysteriously misplaced around Bathurst station. It was kind of like taking $130 and gleefully tossing it out of the back window of the Bathurst bus. 

So it was time to put the saddle back on the steed. The first day wasn't so bad. Sure, my nose ran with rivers of snot, and my legs were as frozen as two fishsticks. My coworker, watching my approach, insisted that a Mercedes almost ran me over, but let's not dwell on that particular indignity. Instead, let's focus on the parade of shame that was this morning's commute. 

I knew it was going to be slushy out there, but I didn't realize how my fender-free tires would liberally spray me with the road's effluvia. Halfway through I regretted my decision to bike, as I opened my mouth to breathe (nose already plugged with cold-induced mucus) and tasted the salty bouquet of fresh road slush. Neither the road conditions, nor tidings of comfort and joy, deterred the drivers from crowding me as I lurched down Spadina. And yet, somehow, I managed to arrive at work (please see "artist"'s rendering, above), only to leave and almost instantaneously go airborne as high winds whipped my bike at the curb, and cardboard boxes and recycling bins at me. 

Which is why I don't understand people who hate cyclists. Save your anger for something else, because eventually the inanimate objects and meteorological events will take us out.

*So named because it is rusty and slow