Author: Chris Kirkpatrick
The ride takes place on Monday, January 30, leaving from City Hall at noon. It’s a brisk (pun intended) 30 minute ride through the downtown core highlighting the need for safe cycling infrastructure and that cycling is a year-round activity.
Post-ride hot chocolate will be provided.
This is a City of Toronto event. More info is here: http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/events
Our first pub night is Wednesday, January 25 at St James Gate Pub. The pub is located at 5140 Dundas Street West. It’s on the north side of Dundas just east of Kipling. Park in front, or behind the pub either in their free lot, or the super cheap Green P that lines the alley.
Come for dinner, a drink, or both!
Please confirm your attendance as I have booked their private room assuming we’ll have a good turnout.
Thanks!
Chris
It’s the start of a new year, and a great day for a ride. Start the year off right – on your bike!
Here’s to a great season of cycling, fitness, and friendship.
Yikes!
Le Tour De France starts in just over 6 months… and I am already excited. Videos like this really amp up my excitement, what about you?
The Walrus has a terrific article on Ryder Hesjedal, cycling, and suffering. Here’s an excerpt to whet your reading appetite:
A cycling team’s hotel floor looks like a geriatric ward: men lie prostrate on beds, pink feet pointing skyward. The hallway smells like baby shit, the eau de cologne of the endurance athlete — a day’s worth of fluid, food, and endorphins rinsed noisomely through the system. A cyclist gets up, eats, goes to the race, eats, races, eats while racing, eats once finished, returns to the hotel, eats, gets a massage, eats a lot, sleeps. There’s no outward sign that he is one of the best athletes on earth. If you came across him shopping for a Billy bookcase at IKEA, you’d assume he had just returned from an island survival challenge, which he lost. Badly.
Registration for the 19th Annual Paris To Ancaster bike race is now open. This is an event you don’t want to miss. The 2011 edition featured rain, snow, sleet, hail, and mud. Lot of mud. Lots and lots of mud. Here’s a pic of my bike about 55km into the race:
I’ve registered for the 60km race, wave 2. This is a terrific event, a great way to rally kick off the season, and an epic personal challenge.
Please join me on April 15. Click here to learn more, and register: www.parisancaster.com
Check out this cool project – The Copenhagen Wheel.
A power-assist, tracking, and monitoring device all in one. Cool
Check out these awesome new bike lights – scheduled to be released in early 2012. These would definitely make the early morning and late afternoon rides safer.
For more information check out Revolights.com.
The farmers are hating this weather, but as a cyclist this has been a terrific Fall – and a first week of Winter! Today, after making the drive from Kingston to Toronto I seized the opportunity and took an hour to get out on my bike for a ride.
The wind was at my back for the first half of the ride, and made for an exceptionally fast out leg. The return leg was much, much slower. But I can’t complain; riding on Christmas day in Toronto is all right with me!
Here’s my GPS download, as posted to a new favourite site – Strava.
When you bought your bike the store no doubt made some adjustments to make the bike better fit you. In most cases this isn’t enough. Not even close. A full fitting session takes a few hours and more often than not, requires the exchange of various components on your bike including bars, stem, saddle, seat post, and cranks.
Some local bike shops have great fitting services including certified fitters on staff. Alternatively there are independent fitters, and specialists available to you. My current bicycle is a Vitess, and included in the purchase of a Vitess is a full fitting session. At my session we ended up changing the bars and the saddle to better suit my body and my riding style. The impact of these changes was immediate and obvious.
Have a read of this article on fitting, and contact your local bike fitter before the 2012 season. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.