slowdad

The Slowdad Manifesto

What does being a Slowdad mean?  Are you a Slowdad?

Here's what we believe. And by we I mean me.  Anyone can join my club.

• We will be comfortable with our slowness.
  
• We will work hard and set an example for our kids, and for other peoples kids.  You don't have to be the best to try your best.
  
• We will not slow others down with our own dreams of world domination.  Sprinting and then crashing in front people who were enjoying a nice Sunday ride does not win you friends.
  
• We won't judge people who are even slower than us. We'll help them and encourage them.  This excludes people parked in cars, idling in the bike lane.  We will flip them off.
  
• We will encourage our kids to compete, for them, not for us. Well, maybe a bit for us. But we won't admit it to anyone who asks. 
  
• We will make sure our kids know the things we wish we knew when we were that age. Things like, "You'll be able to run your races faster if you learn to poop in the potty and wear big boy underwear."  ^{(actual quote)}
  
• We will ask for advice from those faster than us, and we'll listen. Especially when that person is our wife and she nags us for years to get outside and take up a sport.
  
• We won't buy gear that's too good for our abilities.  It's not the gear holding us back.

This post will be edited as lessons are learned.

My trip to the bike shop

Today was supposed to be a great day.  I was going to take the kids downtown, oh, and my wife as well, and start picking up pieces for my two projects.

The first one is a cross bike, I've got the frame, a couple bits and bobs promised and a desire to get out there and ride on some grass, mud and whatever objects they throw on cross courses. 

Here's the frame. Bare.

Now keep in mind that I've never really been to a bike shop looking for parts, other than maybe a chain or two, for several years.  Oh, and I've never ridden off road seriously ever...

Anyway, I am also looking to scrounge up a few components for my old Bianci.  It'll become a fixed gear, just for fun.

So today I headed downtown, on public transit, taking it easy. And I had my experiences with the modern bike shop.

The first place I went to was Urbane Cyclist.  It's a co-op.  It seems to have a hip, screw the man, ride what you want, kinda vibe to it.  They sell a lot of fixed gear bikes so I thought that they might have a pair of wheels for the Bianchi.

So I wandered on in, scanned the bikes, some of which retail for about $700.  Fixed gear.  Which, incidentally was about what I paid for my road bike a couple of years ago.

So I wandered to the back, looking at the cranks and pedals that I was also interested in, and looking for the $10 brakes a friend had recommended I pick up. I noticed that the prices, where I could see them, seemed to be a bit more than I had expected.  Perhaps I was looking at the good stuff, not the low end I wanted.

I cast my gaze upwards at the wheels.  The roof was full of colorful velocity rims in various shades and patterns.  Not for me.

Some dude, which, surely he sees as a title of respect, asked me if I needed help.  I proceeded to tell him I was looking for a set of CHEAP, fixed wheels.  "Sure" and he waved to a set at then end.  "Those are $240 a pair, and they go up from there." 

I mumbled something about that being more than I wanted to pay, and hung my head.  I don't doubt that those were cheap, to him.  But I am not some hip single guy looking to score while parading around on my screw-the-man-ironic fixie with too much discretionary income. 

Really I didn't know what to say.  "I don't want to buy your store, just a cheap pair of Chinese made rims with crappy hubs" came to mind.

So I left, passing the pedals which now I thought seemed too pricey as I could only think of the total price tag of what was supposed to be a cheap ride.

Next we walked up to Kensington Market, for a bit of ice cream.  Dad was now cranky, and hot, and kind of tired.  Kids and Mom wanted to be free of Dad and enjoy a treat.

And so I walked into some random bike shop in Kensington Market.  Bikes on Wheels I think it was called.

My heart leapt as I walked inside. "Retirement Sale" it said.  And I imagined an old shop keeper, getting ready to shut down, years of experience under his belt, running his business "The old way".  Surely I'd be able to find some old parts, marked down, gathering dust in wooden bins.

The first thing I saw was a set of hubs so shiny you'd swear they'd been polished by elves.

I wandered around. The place had quite a few color matched bikes, waiting for new "hipster" owners to parade them up and down Queen Street.

Now the weird thing about this place was that the vast majority of the parts were behind the counter, or under glass, that's fine. But quite a lot of the stuff didn't have any prices whatsoever. I'd guess it's the old saying, "If you have to ask..."

I wandered to the back, with two guys wrenching away on a bike, and, not seeing anything that passed for cheap, quit.

After arriving back home, I was somewhat depressed, having nothing to show for my journey, and, seeing as my bank account seems like more like a piggy bank in terms of contents, not much hope for the future.

But third times a charm? Right?  So I headed off to Gears, in Mississauga. Which I guess technically is my LBS. 

Gears has a lot of nice bikes.  And I think the folks in there know quite a bit, hearing them, from time to time, sell to customers. They do seem to care although they come off sounding like snobs. Except for their floor sales person, who is rather nice.

Having picked up a couple things from there, like chains, my kids used bike, etc. I knew they had some handlebars, and a few components.  I told myself that I'd just go pick up some handlebars that seemed reasonable, to satisfy my shopping urge.

"Hi can I help you?"

"Sure, I'm just browsing, looking to put together a bike and need some parts"

"Great, just let me know if you need anything"

"How much are these?"

"Those handlebars?  Let me check..."

"Those are $400" "Those ones above are $800, but since they are last years model they are also $400"

--Stunned Silence--

I, again, didn't have much to say.

How the hell are handle bars $800?  I feel like I'm in that movie where the Neanderthal ends up reanimated in the present day and doesn't know what the hell is going on.

No wonder people steal bike parts off of bikes on the street.

So kids, what have we learned?  Me?  I've learned that I am poor, or will be once these projects are done. I also learned that it's going to be hard to support my LBS when I can find cheaper parts online, even after shipping.

Here are my top X comments to bike store owners that I'd like to express after my trip today.

Display Prices

Stupid consumers like myself appreciate seeing prices displayed.  Ok, maybe they are expensive but don't put me through the embarrassment of asking.

Pricing

Explain to me how you sell bikes that are quite obviously cheaper than the sum of the individual component prices, by a long shot.

Webstore

Why would you have components that aren't in your store, on your webstore? Why would you also have parts in your store, in quantity, that aren't on your webstore?

Websites

Why do so many of you have crap websites.  I'm looking at you Gears.

Anyway, I'm probably just an out of touch oldster who remembers when $1000 bought you a great bike that made your friends jealous.

Oh, and I'll be putting my wish list up on Craigslist.  Maybe I'll find some parts in someones garage.

2 Days off seems like forever

It's interesting.  After not running, or seriously doing much of any physical fitness for so long, it seemed like such a big deal to train multiple days in a row.

3 runs a week was all I could do without getting far too tired.

Now, with today being a rest day, and yesterday skipping out on my tempo run to let my super tight, sore, hamstring a break, I feel like I haven't run in a month.

It's a bit crazy.

I can't wait for this marathon training to be over so I can get back on my bike.

Drinking while training is a bad idea.

Here's a few reason's not to get completely hammered while training.

• You make bad decisions and stay up late.
• You dehydrate yourself.
• You make bad choices and create retarded posts on your blog.
• Kill braincells
• Ensure that training will be sub optimal the next day.
• Beer = calories = extra weight
• Spinning, oh the spinning...

New Bikes and 32km

Today's run was uneventful. 32 Km.  Not to say it was easy or anything.  But there was nothing epic about it.  No tornadoes, no massive rainstorms, no hitting the wall like a hippo hitting concrete.

A guy did flip me the bird however.  I am not sure why.  He was riding along, on his Supercycle "mountain" bike, coming the other way along the waterfront.  Perhaps he didn't like my vintage Briko sunglasses or my bright yellow shirt. Maybe it was my bald head.  Regardless, he rolled on by, not even looking at me, just holding out his finger. Aiming it at me like some kind of ancient hex.

Weird.  Can't we all just get along and get rid of fucked up prejudices?

Anyway, what's better than getting outside, getting some fresh air and washing your bike?

Getting your kids to wash it for you.

These are my little mechanics washing my Scattante XRL Cross Frame.  Wow, what an unfortunate name.

I plan on having my kids wash the bikes like this every weekend.  What fun!  Even in the winter!

The goal is to build this up into a winter rider, and, if my fitness improves by several measurable leaps, I might just head out to a nearby hill and ride it in the presence of others, hoping beyond hope not to embarrass myself.

The next project is the Bianchi Quattro frame I purchased sometime in the '80s.  Well, my Mom probably bought it. But, it's going to get back on the road just for old times sake.

I've never ridden on a fixed gear so I think that'll be the destiny of this one. 

Don't worry.  It'll have brakes.  It won't have a Brooks Saddle and colorful wheels. Just something to beat around on.

Pace Run = Pain Run

What's better than a post run smoothie?  A milkshake with maple syrup to follow that smoothie.

That was about the only bright spot today. At least as it concerns my run.

Hal Higdon told me this week:

Ten miles at your marathon pace. In the early weeks of the program when I asked you to do "pace runs," you probably thought, "This is not a workout. This is a stroll in the park." But running 10 miles at marathon pace is serious business, particularly when it serves as a prelude to tomorrow's 20-miler. The cumulative effect of 30 miles stacked back-to-back will get you in shape to succeed in the marathon itself a half dozen weeks from now. Is the marathon only six weeks away? Oh my!

No Hal, I did not think that those early runs were a walk in the park. No, I thought I was crackers then and still do. Hal?  Why do I hurt so much?

 

My footpod, evil contraption that it is, told me during my run that I was running slightly slower than marathon pace, around 5:35 min/km.  Well, during the first part of the run I was running around goal pace of 5:19 min/km but I started to unravel.

The two dips in heart rate you see there are me stopping to stretch out my back and legs for about a minute each time.  I hope I won't have to do that during the actual marathon.

Turns out, that instead of running 16km as the footpod said, I actually ran 17.5 km.  The good news is that this means that my average speed was slightly higher than my goal.  The bad new is that I ran the first part too fast and am going to pay for it tomorrow during the 2nd of 3 32km runs.

The best thing was picking up my old Bianchi Quattro frame, and an used cross frame from a friend.  (Lets call him "Tom")

I plan on building those up into actual roadworthy  bikes in the near future.  The Bianchi has seen better days, and I think it'll become a fixed gear clunker, nothing fancy. And the cross frame just might get ridden in the dirt some day. 

I'll probably post pics of their progress on occasion.

CTV Hates Bikes Apparently

CTV, the (somewhat more right leaning than the CBC) Canadian broadcaster appears to have a hate on for vehicles in a recent spot they did. You can see the onside BS on their video of bike lanes.

This video makes me angry for so many reasons.

Here we see the old out of shape white guy, wearing jeans and an poorly tucked in shirt, sitting at the side of a road, waiting for a bike to come buy. The fact that there are no bikes, clearly indicates that that this bike lane is a waste of money.

Now I'm not sure exactly where this is, but it's not a core downtown street.  It's closer to mid-day it looks like, so there won't be many people commuting, and, there's no f'ing cars either.

 

Now he may actually be right, and this lane is a waste of money being in the middle of nowhere.  But the whole video is basically just a one-sided opinion piece of a person who wants to increase the number of cars on the road.

A bit later in the video, while commenting on their lack of use, Tom Hayes shows us the true value of Bike Lanes.  They are great for parking in illegally! We see two intrepid bicyclists, wearing their helmets, having to go out into traffic to get around some Ford SUV. 

If those bike lanes weren't there the driver of the SUV would have had to walk, probably causing a heart attack, thereby increasing costs to the heath care system.

 

It soon follows that bikes are dangerous weapons, that kill without warning.

Unfortunately a woman was killed by a 11 or 12 year old riding a bike on a sidewalk.  It's a very sad thing, but the video sensationalizes her death and lets the user assume that this happens all the time.

Soon we get a brief snippet of something strange. While talking about how it's crazy that more bike lanes are being added, we see a bike lane in use!  By Bikes!  And we see 10-15 bikes locked up along side the road.  We see cars on that road!

Could it be that having bike lanes on roads where people want to go is a good idea?

 

Then, to finish it all up, we see Tom Hayes, back standing on the same back road, not a bike, car or bus to be seen, telling us that we can expect even more wasteful bike lanes from City Hall.

 

Clearly Tom Hayes is the worst reporter in the world.

But don't blame him.  He's just giving the people what they want.  Here's my favorite comments from his online poll that shows that 64% of people don't like bike lanes.  I guess that his report rallied car drivers from around the city to speak up.  I think they need to take back the road and hold a day of action.

I'm sad that people think these things.

Jon
This is a perfect illustration of the disconnect between the ultra liberal elite snobs in city hall and the common citizen. The politicians push an environmental agenda past the point of ridiculousness only to be proven wrong by the public. NO ONE USES THE LANES. We need more lanes for cars, more parking and MORE FREEWAYS! Stop the insanity already!

Bob in Scarborough
Seems to me, Miller & his cronies are working to ban car traffic in this city, period. If it's not another tax on drivers, it's something else to create more congestion, on our already congested roads. Your story on the 6 0'clock news hit the nail on the head. I can't recall EVER seeing a bike in a bike lane, just lines of cars moving at a snail's pace, due to lack driving lanes...

bob
My car was hit by a cyclist riding on a sidewalk. He came down the hill and I was at a stop sign, He hit me and it cost me $900 for repairs. He claimed he had no money. He also said he couldn't stop because he had no brakes either. He did mention that I shouldn't have been at the stop sign.

Petrina Jarvis
I think if they are going to create lanes just for cyclist then they should be charging these people taxes on the purchase of their bikes, not to mention the fact that they should be licensed and registered in order to have them on the road.

patricia
Bicylists are reckless. They sure enjoy the freedom of lawlessness. They think they have avoided running over me and the tall wheels are not guilty of touching my clothings on the side walk, in subway train, inside elevator. Bikes should only be allowed in suburban residential area and should be banned entirely inside city.

Well this argument is likely going to be going on for some time.  My 2 cents on this is that we need to put bike lanes where cyclists want to go, not on roads where it's easy to cut out a car lane because there is no traffic there.  Few cyclist are going to add to their route to take a bike lane down a street full of stop signs, just like a car driver won't.

I think I'll go out and kick a car. My '96 Subaru might just feel the pain!

What is high Mileage?

So here I am, 12 Weeks into Hal Higdon's Marathon Training plan, having a crisis of confidence.

I'm not getting faster, that's fine.  But I'd like to break 4 hours in my upcoming Marathon.  Except for getting hurt and taking about 3 weeks with almost no running I've been following the plan pretty closely.

Hal's advanced plan starts at a 16km long run on Sunday, and Peaks at 32 km long runs. It's roughly 30+ km in week one and peaks at about 85 km in a week.  That seems like a lot.  In fact, it feels like a lot.

So today I pick up the latest Canadian Running Magazine, which incidentally is a pretty good magazine, albeit a bit earnest.  Well, a lot earnest. 

In it, in this article where they are too f'ing cheap to post the actual plan.  (Gotta buy the magazine) Their "low mileage" plan starts in week one with a 26km Sunday run, with a total Mileage of 67km! It peaks at 90km.

The "High Mileage" plan starts at 85 km/week and peaks at 122km/week.

So I don't get it.  Hal Higdon, god of marathon training, thinks you don't need to do higher mileage to get better, and this John Hill guy, coach at the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club, has a plan at a whole other level.

Either someone is wrong, or the mileage doesn't really matter all that much.  Or perhaps they are targeted at different levels of runner. Someone please explain it.

------------

Anyway, today is tornado day in Toronto.  In honor of this I took the family to High Park so the kids could visit the animals in the Zoo, and I ran up and down a hill, feet flapping the whole way.

 

It's funny, my heart rate, didn't peak quite as high as it as in the past, and I was definitely slower doing this than I was a month ago.  I really don't know what to think. 

Perhaps eating more ice cream will help.

Inquest needed into bike death | Editorial | Comment | Toronto Sun

Pedestrians should have a reasonable expectation of safety on Toronto sidewalks.

Not just from being hit by cars but by bicycles as well.

That's why Queen's Park and City Hall cannot ignore the death of Cheng Li Jiang, 56, a wife and mother killed earlier this month after being struck by a bicycle ridden by a 15-year-old boy on a Kennedy Rd. sidewalk.

via www.torontosun.com

This editorial in the Toronto Sun, the worst newspaper in the city in my opinion, does about as much to advance the discussion of cycling as a mode of transport as Car & Driver Magazine.

Now I believe that cycling on the sidewalk is a pretty bad idea. There's a pretty good chance that somebody is going to wreck your paint job. But I'm not going to send my little kids out onto the local roads any time soon.

Of course, the reason why there is any controversy is that Toronto City Council, with all the maturity of a pack of children high on cocaine, decided that they'll allow riding on sidewalks if your wheels are below a certain diameter. Never mind the age of the user.

So now I see old guys, smoking a cigarette, on an electric crotch rocket, cruising along at 30km/hr down the waterfront trails near where I live. Or some lady, careening from hazard to hazard on a fold-able contraption with wheels about as big as those on my lawn mower. (which is a push mower btw)

I might be slow, but I'm not stupid. The real issue is that certain cyclists are scared off the roads by cars and move up to the sidewalk. The fact that a lot of them aren't wearing helmets is a completely different issue.

Great run - Footpod FAIL!

I am fully convinced that my run today, 12 km of humidity and salt in my eyes, was the result of a large bowl of ice cream covered in maple syrup. 

Maple syrup is actually a next generation EPO style blood booster, which when used with vanilla icecream serves to boost growth hormone levels.

It also could be that I stretched a bit in the morning and my legs weren't stiff as boards the entire day.  But my money is on the ice cream.

The run was supposed to be 16km but I had to take the monkey to soccer to orbit the ball.  He got to go in net and made a couple of stops which was exciting.

The only other thing that was eventful was that my dang footpod decided not to work. No warning, no nothing.  Just a distinct absence of any sort of a signal.  Kind of like the SETI program. It was kinda weird not knowing how slow I was going.