galloping geese

Fulfilling one of the goals on my Mighty Bike List, today I went for a bike ride with my family while visiting them in Victoria. We rented bikes in the Railyards and rode the Galloping Goose north until it turned until Lochside Trail.

We rode over bridges...



...through field...



...through forest...



...and through traffic.



Our goal and turnaround point was Mattick's Farm, where our initial intention of a summery snack like ice cream turned into coffee, thanks to fog that had rolled in and chilled the air.



Cons: I wouldn't recommend this rental shop, Selkirk Station. The bikes had no bells, baskets, or even bungee cords for the back rack (which basically rendered them useless unless you brought your own panniers, but who rents bikes if they have their own panniers?). The bikes were all typical hybrids (they didn't have any 'comfort' options, let alone any cruisers) and halfway through the outbound leg we were all feeling uncomfortable in such a hunched-over position.

The trail, although not busy (and not even comparable to the seawall in Vancouver), is not divided into bicycles and pedestrians. This becomes a problem when you hit a congested area, both inbound and outbound lanes are occupied, and you have to slow to walking speed while waiting to pass. Waiting to pass a bicycle is one thing-- waiting to pass a pedestrian (particularly old ones or those with small children) is nearly impossible. I ride every day and it was still hard to ride that slow without losing my balance.

Pros: The Goose/Lochside Trail is beautiful. How else can I describe it? For a trail that cuts across the city from downtown, it runs through an impressive variety of environments: farmland, rural roads, residential neighbourhoods, industrial parks, forest, bog, and across the historic Selkirk Trestle that spans the Inner Harbour. The route was once a rail line, so it's very flat. Road crossings and potentially confusing intersections are well-signed. There may be no "sea" involved, but this ride is justifiably Victoria's most famous recreational cycle route.

seawall: alternative transportation

This blog is called "On Few Wheels", after all... so no need to limit myself just to bicycles, right? Must avoid bicycle-elitism. If you're getting yourself from A to B on your own power (and hopefully still enjoying what happens between A and B), utilizing the efficiency of task-appropriate-sized wheels to speed up the process, then that's ace.


I'm not sure rollerblades count as 'few' wheels (8!), but if you add up their mass, the total is significantly less than that of even scooter or motorcycle wheels. So I'm saying it counts.


Bushy / tie-dyed / cut-offs. Crazy! (From the I-think-I-would-go-bonkers-if-everybody-looked-the-same department. I love my neighbourhood (the West End) for being a really accepting, "anything goes" kind of place.)


Sometimes you have to lean into it.


Yes, he's on a bike, but that's somewhat alternative for the police, a typically car-centric (or originally horse-centric?) group.


The gang's all here.
Photography, hockey, and an extra from a science fiction action movie.


Sometimes you just have to go back to your roots ... and walk.

on floor-length skirts

Mini historical reminder: From the 1800s (when the bicycle was invented) into the early 1900s, women wore nothing but long skirts on bicycles.

Nowadays, thanks to the valiant efforts of many women over the past century, we have significantly more options. (Is this a good time to say that I am eternally grateful with every fibre of my being to all the women who made this happen? Because it's really, really important to me. I like being a person, thanks.)

Perhaps it's because of all these other options that you don't often see long skirts on bicycles anymore. Or maybe because you tend to see floor-length skirts in only one of three categories: (1) boho-style hippy ladies who don't really care much about fashion, (2) formal gowns, and (3) summer maxidresses.

Number 3 -- maxidresses -- is what led me to this post. My skin is extremely fair (and if you ever use the word 'pasty' in front of me you will risk a punch in the nose as I like it this way and put considerable effort into maintaining it) so more coverage means less surface area to slather with sunscreen. Although I'm known to wear full-length pants even on the warmest days of summer, this year I'm experimenting with maxidresses (or, um, 'a' maxidress) as a seasonal alternative.

I don't think I need to remind anybody that my bike is not a step-through (#@$%!) and has no skirtguard. (Skirtguards aren't even standard on all of the old-school European bicycles and still seems to be considered somewhat quaint.) Supposedly a skirtgaurd would keep long skirts or coats out of the back wheel/brakes, so their itself existence did cause me to stop and think about how I would avoid such a scenario. And how I would pedal at all without getting tangled up.



Solution: bunch up the fabric above my knee and fasten with a hair elastic.

Despite that fact that the highest point of leg I'm showing is still far beneath the bottom of most summer shorts, somehow it still felt as if I was "showing some skin". Weird pyschological effect: rational brain overrided by illusion of long slit in dress.

Verict: worked like a charm! It stayed put while riding, I undid-redid it in seconds when I got where I was going, and the dark fabric didn't wrinkle much.

Coincidentally, TorontoVerve just posted a bike+maxidress photo yesterday.



The rest of yesterday afternoon (the day of this experiment) included novel-reading on the beautiful grounds of City Hall with good friends (and you know they're good friends when you can just hang out silently without having to talk) and writing on this seriously sweet (yet unbelievably empty) patio above the Starbucks at the entrance to Granville Island.

Ah, summer. I love you so much.

mighty bike list

Inspired by the combination of Mighty Girl's Mighty Life List and Let's Go Ride a Bike's Summer Games, I've decided to start a Mighty Bike List (you like that? so original) of bike-related things I want to do.

In no particular order:
1. Take my bike on the skytrain.
2. Take my bike on a bus (on one of those racks on the front).
3. Go on a group ride.
4. Be part of a Critical Mass*.
5. Wear a fancy party dress and ride to dinner at a nice restaurant.
6. Ride to the beach, complete with towel, umbrella, and a cooler/basket full of munchies.
7. Ride to a picnic in a rural-ish area.
8. Take a repair class.
9. Ride over the Lion's Gate Bridge.
10. Put a kickstand on my bike.
11. Ride a folding bike. **
12. Ride an old-school, steel, high-quality loop-frame bike. **
13. Ride a fixie. **
14. Watch a bike polo game.
15. Double somebody on a bike I'm riding.
16. Be doubled on somebody else's bike.
17. Visit another city and rent a bike there.
18. Try out a bike share system like in Montreal or Paris.
19. Ride all the bike routes in Vancouver.
20. Go on a tweed ride.
21. Ride with my family.

Footnotes:

* Jury's still out on whether I agree with how Critical Mass happens. The idea of not stopping for red lights, thereby disrupting the regular flow of traffic beyond simply going slower than cars, rubs me wrong. On the other hand, I can also see some benefits they describe, such as keeping the group together. That said, I don't believe in my full right to critique/analyze anything without experiencing it, so consider my participation as research.

** I really ought to combine these into "Ride as many different kinds of bikes as possible", but that wouldn't be as easy to cross off the list. Because who doesn't love crossing things off lists?

I've posted this on a perma-style "page" (as opposed to a post) and add things/cross them off there as I go. Hopefully I'll remember to take photos and post about them.

seawall: guys on bikes

From road bikes to mountain bikes to hybrids to cruisers, there's a bike that's right for every guy. I love seeing such a variety of ages and styles and when I stop clicking maniacally and start to go through my photos, it's a chance to slow down and remember: "Oh, yeah! All kinds of people look awesome on bicycles when they become an extension of who we are and how we live."


Cool hat cruiser. Does it look to you like he's whistling?


Storage galore.


Big wheels, white hat.


Minimal gear but still drinking 8 glasses a day.


Who says you can't wear flip-flops on a road bike?


Relaxin' and rollin'.


Anti-gravity hair!


Laid back and hanging out. Gotta love a guy that can rock pink wheels.

celebration of bike

Last night was the first of four fireworks shows for the Celebration of Light. My friends and I snagged a picnic spot near Sunset Beach behind the Aquatic Centre, looking over the seawall, the beach, English Bay, and Kitsilano on the far side. Naturally, this kind of view led to much people-watching (cute shoes, cute dogs, and not-so-cute behavior were all up for discussion) especially of the well-used bike path several feet in front of us.

To pass the time while the light dimmed, I pointed my camera towards this rolling show and practiced snapping pics of the passing riders.

Some were alone:







Some were with friends.





Sometimes I was too late.



Eventually it got dark. The bay filled with boats, the beaches with people, and moving objects became nothing more than a blur on my lens.



Finally, the sky exploded!



What happened after that was awesome, too. But I'll leave that for tomorrow.

free parking

Although I was skeptical about the implementation of on-street racks as the barrier separating the new Dunsmuir bike lanes from car lanes between Granville and Seymour, I'm happy to see that they are, at least, being used.



BCIT has a campus near that corner and I think there are a number of ESL schools nearby as well, which may account for the use (and possibly, unconsidered by me earlier, the initial decision to install them?).

While I remain aware of the potential negative emotions they may invoke in non-cycling drivers, I do concede that a full lineup may certainly invoke positive emotions in many others.

Like me.