Junk Miles

This week I finally conceded defeat to spring, put away my XC skis, and swapped the studded tire and snow boot friendly BMX pedals on my ‘cross bike for SPDs and mud tires (the skis got used twice, the ice tire once). It was actually a fairly good winter for regular street riding, which makes a change from two years in a row of snowmageddon, but I had my heart set on blizzards and ice so I spent most of February on the internets looking at snow pr0n from south of the Mason-Dixon line. I’ve decided that I better stop and get outside while my jeans still fit even if it is nice and sunny.

We did have a couple of wintry days though:

A spin on the ice with the Hearn power plant in the background (fear not, the ice here was pretty thick and the water is really shallow).
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Well, it wasn’t quite new year’s. The winter up til then was cold, but not doing anything else interesting enough to draw me outside during my period of circumsolstitial sloth until we finally got a bit of snow here in the city. So on Sunday the 3rd I ventured forth and rode out to the lighthouse at the enterance to Toronto Harbour.

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I finally got my country road bike out on some real country roads, and picked up a bit of real country mud. Ride report to follow, eventually, maybe.

As I’ve already noted, the thing with this bike blog thing is that when I have things to write about I’m usually not inside to write it. Well today it’s raining so I’ll write up a ride I did back in July.

One of the projects I gave myself this summer and only half completed was to explore the Toronto waterfront more thoroughly. I know the city lakeshore really well, but not the suburbs, and this part of the Scarborough lakeshore I’d only seen from the train. I accidentally found something else I’ve been searching for: the elusive pleasant bike route out of town to the east, through the dark and dragon-haunted concrete forest of suburban Scarborough. You can see the route on a map here if you want.
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Pretty much all the snow was gone down by the lake, so I was surprised to find it was still winter north of Danforth Ave. Old vid… most of the ice is gone now.

This list of dirt road races on the Flickr Back Road Bike group got me all jealous that none of them were local, then I found out about the Toronto Paris-Roubaix Challenge. It’s really tempting but I’ll proably decline…  with my leaden winter legs, just the mud slog to the lighthouse got me all tired out on the weekend.

Two things I noticed on Saturday:

1) A lot of other cyclocross bikes out there on my ride to the lighthouse.  This supports my hypothesis that if fixies are the new rollerblades,  cyclocross is the new fixed gear  (which would make offroad fixed gear the new roller derby).

2) While riding my ‘cross bike, I get to feel undeservedly smug about everyone else on the road…  even the dude on the Jake the Snake who passed me and would have dropped me spectacularly,  except he turned right to stay on pavement while I kept going straight into the mud.  I feel almost as smug as I did on my fixed gear back in the ’90s, before the fixter fad got ridiculous.

Yesterday I found a neato handlebar camera mount at Urbane Cyclist, that looks a bit more secure than strapping my mini tripod to the handlebars. I put it on outside the shop and made a time lapse movie of the rest of my ride home.

Of course it isn’t even March yet and there’s still time for another big snowstorm or two, but this week got downright springy. I dug the ‘cross bike (and the blog) out of winter hibernation and took the long way to the grocery store in the melty goo. The Cross-Check would have been a great snow bike and winter commuter, but I didn’t want to get it all salty… I may have to get another one to build up as a city bike.
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No way was I going to share the road (on a bike or in a car) with Toronto drivers on the first snow day of the winter, so I rode in the park and at the water factory. Fun, but I was hoping it would be another month before I got to do this.

I almost crashed twice but only actually crashed once, when the wheel caught on the edge of the invisible bikepath.