State of the Traffic Union

I'm strolling along Richmond Street and bright flashing lights distract me in the distance. As I get closer I notice a motorcycle cop has someone pulled over. The criminal? A responsible-looking helmeted cyclist. The crime? Unknown. He hands her a ticket. Maybe she was endangering the lives of those cocooned in 2-tonne steel cages by not having a ding-a-ling bell to warn them she was there since checking mirrors is becoming passé.

The fine for not having a bicycle bell? $110. Cyclists are getting stopped for this infraction at random as part of the police's plan to make cycling safer entitled Safe Cycling – Share the Responsibility.

The fine for improper opening of a vehicle door? $110. The driver that recently committed that exact offense resulting in the death of a cyclist on Eglinton West? Not ticketed. According to the police ''If she didn't look, would that be negligence? It'd be very hard to label that as negligent,'' said Sgt. Burrows. Share indeed.

Over at I Bike T.O., many cyclists have weighed in with comments on their recent traffic tickets. Sadly, the police campaign is only serving to discourage cycling as a mode of transportation. As one reader points out, after receiving two hefty tickets (one for the bell!) for rolling through an empty four-way stop after deciding to take his bike rather than his car out, he'll think twice in the future.

I admit that my bicycle bell is sometimes useful in waking up drivers about to make a right turn off a side street without looking to their left. But the manic bell ringing seems to do nothing to stop the door flinging without looking. Maybe they do look, and they think whacking cyclists is funny.

Sure its safer to ride outside the door zone. But on narrow downtown streets like Queen, often doors open right out to the cyclist spilling streetcar track rut. Ride between the tracks in the only mixed traffic lane? Often its too congested, and way too slow moving for sanity - filtering next to the parked cars is the only choice. Faster moving? Gee maybe I would feel incredibly self-centered about slowing down a streetcar packed with 70 people on it, something that the SOV motorists making a left turn don't seem to give a second thought to. No streetcars and moving along? Better watch out for Angry Motorist (TM). After about two seconds of ignoring his horn, he will put his vehicle in park to get out and start a fistfight.

More effective than a bicycle bell for a cyclist alerting others to their presence is their voice. Clearly staking out my safe space in the center of a lane too narrow to share, I often find motorists, in particular cabbies, changing lanes right into mine so that if I kept my speed constant we'd collide. Maybe they didn't see me. Maybe they looked right through me. "HEY!!!" I bellow. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" replies the cabbie. Maybe he does see me. Maybe he just does not give a shit. Stopped at the next red light seems like a good time to have a discussion to educate him, but you know what, if he doesn't understand what he was doing wrong, no amount of conversation is likely to clue him in. In the interest of road peace I keep my eyes focussed straight ahead and my mouth shut.

Handheld cell phones are still legal while driving in Ontario. The premier might think about. Without fail, every single clued out motorist conflict I have on my bike, has one glued to their ear. Oops. Sorry, one exception. Someone was eating lunch with no hands on the steering wheel.

Clued out drivers it is possible to be defensive against. Actively hostile ones are another matter. And one only gets a split second to judge if someone is just a hurried honker, or may have potentially lost their marbles while in control of a potentially lethal weapon directly behind you. Anger seems to be going in the direction of gas prices.

You would think that downtown SOV traffic would be on the decrease with the higher cost of gas and the excellent alternatives - if pedaling is not for you, it is well served by public transit. 6:30 pm downtown (past prime rush hour) its more logjammed than ever and frustrating on a bicycle. My Kona Dew has pretty wide handlebars, and with the rearview mirror sticking out another couple of inches to the side, filtering through it is tricky.

My rule on filtering? I won't pass anyone that is likely to have to repass me in the next few blocks. Its just rude. But when all the wide vehicles have to merge to get around one parked car, a bicycle can use that dead space to continue right on by. Its frustrating when drivers squeeze up so close to the next stopped car that there's no way to reach the dead space.

I watch as the majority of cyclists squeeze next to one car stopped at a light. There's no room for the motorist to start driving where they are as the cyclist starts riding. I'd almost feel sorry for the motorists having to deal with repeatedly passing these vulnerable cyclists - but I don't. We simply don't have enough room downtown for everyone to be sucking up valuable public space with a wastefully large vehicle. If people do not-so-smart things that cause drivers to have to drive slower (and thus safer for everyone) and with more attention, then that is a Good Thing.

I'm not meaning to sound so gloomy and doomy. Some days though in the traffic madness its easy to lose sight of the bikey love. I give brief thought to trading in the bike for another way. But what better way is there? The speed, the freedom, the virtually zero cost, the familiar motions of legs moving in circles that distract even when sick, low hassle parking, connection to the surroundings, ease of interacting with people, and the smiles.

The whimsy of it all. Zooming along at 30 km/h, but in an instant able to flick up a kickstand and fill a wicker basket or milk crate with goodies from the sidewalk fruit market. Detouring off the road into the canopy of trees on a ravine path. The orange glow of dusk and utter silence except the chirping cormorants or the scurrying of a bunny at Tommy Thompson Park.

Smiling at other cyclists. The fashionista with a red PVC rain coat and flowery messenger bag on a matching red Dahon folding bike. The elderly Chinese woman with a wizened face toodling along a busy street, looking anything but afraid. Staring curiously at the interesting geometry of a Moulton. All kinds of cargo being carried solely by human power - from the precious cargo of a smiling infant, to paddles on cycles heading for the lakefront. A one-legged cyclist who I can barely keep pace with.

Life happens on a bicycle. At a pace we can see and interact with.

Good Bikey Karma

Sunday was the most glorious sunshiney unseasonably mild day. The perfect day for hundreds of smiling cyclists of all ages to make their way along Bloor Street in a cacophony of bells. A very pleasant surprise to see the bicycle cops ride with us and stop traffic at intersections. That works much better on motorist nerves than random corking. (unless you happen to be Trumpet Guy. Who can get angry at their own personal traffic serenade?)

My nerves have still been frayed in traffic lately. Yesterday I tried so hard to be calm and easygoing about motorist mistakes on my morning commute. After all, much of things that seem potentially dangerous are not aggressive-I-own-the-road types, but simply mistakes or bad judgement. (Although inattention does not help, and I wish Ontario would get around to banning talking on cellphones while driving already.) I was maybe slightly more to the Zen side of things than previously but still with much too much frayed nerves. But I was getting there.

Then I arrive at work and am riding into the parking garage and wrinkle my forehead. Huh did the wall shrink? There really does not look like room to get by the parking gate arm that I ride around every day. I better stop. Oh I'll just go around the exit side. Hey that looks smaller than a person width too. I feel like I'm having a moment like the guy in Amelie when he puts on the slippers that are too small, finds his lightbulbs slightly dimmer etc. Am I going crazy? Oh, I get it. "New gates?" I ask the parking attendant. He nods, and I grumpily get off my bike and pick it up to lift it over the curb. I think there's a conspiracy to thwart cyclists in the parking garage going on, but I'm happy to see the bicycle racks have not been removed. I really appreciate covered parking from the elements and less noticeable to vandals.

But today, today was good bikey karma day! The commute in was calm and uneventful. The sun was shining, the weather was lovely. I found the gap between the concrete curb and the parking garage wall so I could go nyah nyah I still don't have to get off my bike. Unfortunately with the angle and the downhill slope its not possible to do the same on the exit trip.

I wonder if the fact my mirror broke off my bike recently has something to do with my different perceptions of traffic around me. I pop into the bike store near work at lunch to pick up a mirror. They only have one style which is not suited to my bike. Instead however I am attracted by shiny things in my favourite colour (lime green). I am getting so frustrated by all the things that keep needing repair on my current beater. And I would fix it all up but it no longer seems to make sense. I bought the bike 9 years ago in California as a temporary bike to get around town for the summer, meaning to sell it when I went back to Toronto. Used and cheap, I couldn't be too picky, and I knew when I bought the bike it was too small for me. Somehow I ended up shipping it back, and riding on that bike I got addicted to cycling. And so I keep riding it out of sentimental attachment. But my back is now revolting at hunching over the small frame. And yeah I could get an extender for the handlebars, but you know what, I want a bike the right size for every day riding. Pretty. Green. I put enough miles on it.

Its just a basic entry level commuter bike, but I was hypnotized by the colour. Check out the Kona Dew Plus. They had a Kona Dew for $100 less which was the same bike but without disc brakes. Those seemed like overkill on pavement, but what do I know? I ride around most of the time with worn brake pads and haphazard DIY brake adjustment. I've never had a problem where I felt like my brakes let me down. But you see it wasn't green so it was not in consideration.

I happily pull out a 58 cm bike which seems like a good size for me out from the wall as nobody in the nearly empty store seems too interested in helping me out. Then someone asks if I want to take it for a ride and I'm like yup! Until I get thwarted by the fact I was not carrying my drivers license. Not really sure why a credit card is not good enough for taking a test drive, I'd happily leave an imprint for the full value of the bike. Oh well impulsive spending is never a good idea, I'm trying to save to buy a Baccheta Giro 26 for randonneuring and touring. That will really be nice to my back. But sitting on the bike in the store had me dreaming of a proper size commuting bike.

I found the perfect route to go home, and I found myself actually smiling when I got home for the first time in ages. I've been not so keen on Adelaide fearing Audi driver will try to run me over again. Though rode that way one day with a bikey buddy with a videocam on his helmet. Perfect! It feels much safer when "evidence" is being recorded. Queen - my beloved Queen - is great in off-peak times but in rush hour the jammed up traffic going nowhere is rather annoying. I resorted to trying to use the sidewalk yesterday as a passing lane, and then decided I was no good at being one of those sidewalk cyclists that tries to plough through everything because I don't expect anyone to get out of my way and instinctively dismount when I see more than 2 or 3 pedestrians.

Oh yeah back to the happy perfect route! Its up Bathurst (which has a wide enough curb lane for sharing) to Kensington Market. Then wander the market to buy fixings for dinner while at the same time feeling at home with all the other bikers around. Smile and chat to people while locking and unlocking bikes. Head along College/Gerrard with a bike lane. AKA the congestion bypass lane. I often dislike College because drivers don't know how to interact with bike lanes and the turning conflicts that occur, but all these are minor incidents that happen at slow speed and so can slow me down but are not going to be dangerous.

I'm almost about to lose my happy place when I'm confusedly riding behind two lanes of car traffic going hey didn't there used to be a bike lane here? Oh wait there still IS a bike lane here. I just can't see it because all the motorists in front of me think its a driving lane! Otherwise known as lets try to jump the queue and then push our way back into the main lane. I did grumble at bit at them as I made what probably seemed like a mad weave through various moving vehicles but felt quite safe. Low speed motorists do not seem at all threatening. And it wasn't the kind of thing that could wipe the big smile off my face.

But I'm smooth sailing again across Gerrard and as I approach Broadview it starts becoming congested and narrow. So I duck down a side street with a "Road Closed - Construction" sign, but its really not closed at all, I guess they don't want motorists using the residential street as a cut-through because of the construction on Dundas. Without the construction it would be a long wait at a stop sign to turn left again but with no traffic coming from the right its perfect. I do really like the bike lanes on Dundas, and I didn't think I would before they put them in.

As I near the end of my trip I hear a clunk clunk and look back to see my u-lock on the road. (oops should have done up the pannier better) But a nice pedestrian has picked it up to hand back to me, continuing the good bikey karma streak. And I end up at home with a big grin on my face. Because the whole ride was just... fun!

(someone makes a good point that I have too many posts tagged road rage but that's because I don't know what tags to put on the happy posts, I guess I will use bike joy)

Recipe for a Mood Booster

Sorry folks for the lack of posting lately! I am having far too much fun enjoying the lovely spring weather and always on my bike to be writing about being on my bike. Some rainy day I will get around to the backlog like fun with recumbent bikes, and a ride report for my recent 200k brevet.

Take one lovely sunshiney spring day.
Bring one fun vintage bikey that has been languishing in the basement out to play.
Pump up the tires.
Tie a milkcrate to the rear rack with old inner tube.
Put on bright shoes.
Put hair in a ponytail.
Just get on and ride - no special bikey wear required.
Gleefully pedal to favourite garden store with a happy back from a very upright bike.
Enjoy bouncing on the sproingy seat.
Enjoy how flared pant legs don't have to be tucked into socks (Twenty has a chain guard)
Load milkcrate full of trailing petunias.
Pedal home at a leisurely pace.
Try to make the petunia machine zoom along to catch up with a recumbent bike in the distance so I can see what kind it is. (a Burley SWB)
Tell recumbent rider "hey I like your bike!"
Coast down tree lined residential street going wheeeeeeeeee!
Arrive home with goodies.

Assemble petunias in homemade hanging baskets.
Determine there is a shortage of flowers.
Gleefully repeat pedalling steps and load up the milk crate at the store again.
Shrug that my homemade trailer project is not finished yet its a gorgeous day for multiple trips anyway.

Enjoy playing with dirt.
Water and hang baskets up.