Calm down, drivers!

March 14, 2009

“Cyclists think they’re cars. They think they morally own the road because they are environmentally ‘aware’. Well get out of my way cyclists! Get out of the left turn lanes; you’re not a car. Look out, I’m a motorist! Get off the road and go home.” ~”London Peter” “THE TIGHTER THE SPANDEX, THE MORE LAWS […]

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Slipslidin’ again: the story of an unprepared randonneur

December 26, 2008

“Once I’d navigated a car track onto Lochside, the dim light from my headlight revealed a surface of hard-packed snow. This could work.” After a snow-bound month of December and with the Victoria New Year’s Populaire looming, it was time to get on the bike and check the route. I was looking forward to bicycling […]

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Bicycling over the hump

November 24, 2008

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6e_cQHOyYg[/youtube] Not over the hill Is it fate that the place I hail from—Wednesfield—is named in honour of the same Anglo-Saxon/Teutoic hero as my favourite day of the week? Some call it “hump day,” as though it were something to be “gotten over.” For me, though there will undoubtedly be some climbing involved, Wednesday is a […]

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Autumn on the Lochside Trail

October 30, 2008

Orange. On a sunny day in October, that’s the colour that stands out on the evergreen west coast of British Columbia. As bigleaf maples (acer macrophyllum) get ready to undress, Lindsay Martin, Patrick Wright and I ride our bicycles through a tunnel of gold. While the west is not renowned for its fall colours, like […]

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My hat-trick with Patrick

August 25, 2008

Third time lucky? Sidelined by an early- season injury, the author signs up for the final BC Randonneurs’ 600 kilometre marathon cycling event of the 2008 season, hoping to complete three “Super Randonneur” series in a row. Ten riders (Ken Bonner, Eric Fergusson, Gary Baker, Susan Barr, Ron Himschoot, Devon Mihalyi, Luke Galley, Jeff Oh, […]

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Full Circle: A return to the West Kootenays

July 28, 2008

More than 27 years had gone by since I last bicycled the undulating roads of the West Kootenays. That was too long, I’d recently decided, and made a visit part of my holiday itinerary, following duties at the Lake Louise control of the 2008 Rocky Mountain 1200 randonee. In Nelson, B.C. (533m), I readied my Rivendell Blériot bicycle […]

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