These are some of the responses I got from a driver who passed me less than a foot away while I was going down hill at the speed limit.

“Don’t worry. I knew exactly where you were,” he says smiling.

“You were too far out into the lane anyways.”

-- Me: That lane belongs to me! You have to wait til it’s safe to pass me.

“Oh really? I don’t remember seeing a bike lane.”

-- Me: No, it’s a vehicle lane, and this (pointing at bike) is a vehicle.

There were a few more comments, and the vigorous debate quickly became heated. I called him an asshole and he told me to fuck off. I’m not proud of how it ended. There’s a good argument for avoiding these discussions altogether, but I can’t imagine this guy driving away with the idea that it’s alright to keep passing cyclists less than a foot away, especially if they’re doing 50 km/h.

The kicker: The driver not only had a roof rack with bicycle mounts, he had a bicycle in the back of his station wagon and was wearing his MEC cycling jacket.

Labels: bad drivers, commuting, Yonge Street

Friday evening ended with me pushing myself through a freak north headwind as I worked my way up Yonge Street. I had failed to find the memorial ride for Charlie Prinsep after riding all over Cabbagetown and the east end, following some guys on fixies around who were also looking for the group, and hanging around at Jet Fuel Cafe thinking people might return.

Since I heard about Charlie being killed by a driver on the transcanada highway, I've been reading his blog, and getting to know him, in a way. The whole thing is a painfully sad story. He was doing what I think many of us would dream of. And on top of that, as his blog proves, he was obviously a really nice guy, and would have been an interesting guy to know. He clearly had a big impact on a lot of people.

Riding into the city after work, I felt like there was a chance I was going to make it to the memorial ride on time, thanks to a freak north tailwind that was keeping me moving steadily at around 30 km/h. After about 10 minutes, I got a flat. It was my second flat of the ride this evening. As I looked down at my rim that was barely above the asphalt, I remembered what I had just read on Charlie's blog about glueless patches sucking. I didn't want to use one, but I had no choice, and now I'd use one again. The second time it seemed to work, and eventually got me downtown, although half an hour late.

Until I left work, my day was dominated with talking to people about my morning ride in. It was an eventful one. A driver of a minivan hit me while trying to pass me. I won't get into details because it's going to court, but I can give you a summary. A minivan pulls up at a red light behind me. We're on Yonge Street, and the lane is a little bit narrow here. The light turns green. He knows I'm in front of him. After we reach the other side of the intersection, he attempts to pass without changing lanes and hits me with his right side mirror. Fortunately, the mirror folded in, and I managed to avoid falling over. He didn't slow down, but I managed to get his license plate number. I called the police.

The police arrived in about 15 minutes and took my statement. I hear a lot of things about how the police in Toronto don't care about cyclists, but I have to say that my experience was the exact opposite. The police officer (inspector?) was very understanding and concerned about what happened. I would not hesitate to call the police if something like this happens. One thing I'm not sure about is calling 911. I called the non-emergency number, but I think I was routed to an emergency dispatch when I told them what happened.

To be continued (in about a year?) ...

Labels: bad drivers, cycling, group ride, mechanical, police, Yonge Street

Critical Mass, June 29 2007, Toronto.

Labels: Critical Mass, Yonge Street

It was a bit of an unusual ride in this morning. I waited at the corner for any other Bike Friday cyclists. None showed up.

I took the lane on Yonge Street when I was passing some parked cars. For the second time this week, a car pulled up close behind me. I turned around and yelled at him to back off. He did. I think he was just totally absorbed in a conversation with a passenger and tailgated me like he would any other vehicle on the street.

Then taking the hill down Yonge, where I can easily reach 50 km/h, a car pulled up straddling the line just behind me. He was going to squeeze between me and the car in the left lane. This is dumb and potentially unsafe, but wouldn't be the worst move I've seen. If he'd just wait 5 seconds, for us to be in different positions, it would be so much easier. I turned my head to say "no" to him, which usually works fine. He went anyways. I could see him smoking in his car, and then got a huge wiff of marijuana as he went by.

At the red light at the bottom of the hill, a guy yells to me, "Buddy!". I hear it as I zip past. I stop and roll back a few cars. He has his window down and doesn't look threatening. I'm kind of hoping he's going to ask me about riding his bike. "You're a good rider. I can see that, and that's great. But these guys out here are assholes. You're going to get yourself killed." I usually hear this from some idiot who thought I was in his way, but this guy seems nice enough. Frankly though, I don't want to hear it, especially if I don't know if the person has a clue about cycling in traffic. So I wave and ride on.

I should have asked him if he was about to get on the 401 and told him I was worried for him. Or asked him to write a letter for me to our politicians. I'm like George Costanza that way. I come up with all the best responses 5 minutes too late.

I had a little too much adrenaline pumping through my veins for one morning, so I decided to switch things up, and take my newly discovered offroad trail. It's only 2 km, but I needed a nice break. On my way there, a guy hangs his head out of a white van. Giving half a smile, he says "Ride on!"

Or maybe it was "Right on!". Either way, it was nice to hear. Yesterday, a guy gave me a thumbs up. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the same guy as last year.

The air in the forest was cool and refreshing, and the surroundings make me feel far away from traffic and aggression at the top of the hill. It was like a short lived vacation.

Labels: bad drivers, bike paths, commuting, traffic, Yonge Street

This story doesn't have an exciting ending, but if you're willing to read through, I'm interested in hearing comments.

It's Monday, after work. The weather is nice and warm, which seems to bring out a lot of cyclists. I'm passing under the 401 on a narrow path used by cyclists and pedestrians, mostly heading to and from work.

A cyclist is heading towards me, gunning it, so I slow down to make sure I don't brush my knuckles on the fence. A second after he passes, I hear a guy yell behind me. Apparently the cyclist behind me didn't appreciate the close call.

I ask if he's ok, and he tells me that the fast cyclist nearly made him crash, but he's alright.

Guy: Hey, how long does it take to get downtown from here.

Me: Maybe about 40 minutes, but it depends a lot.

Guy: Depends how fast you can ride?

Me: Yup. And what way you go. Are you going to take Yonge Street or do you know the back roads?

Guy: I don't know.

Me: Well, follow me, and I'll lead you on the back roads some of the way. You don't want to ride down Yonge over there.

We pull up to the highway ramp to wait for a break in the traffic.

Guy: Doesn't it feel weird being attached to your pedals like that?

Me: No, you get used to it pretty quickly. I used to have regular pedals with a strap, but this lets me go up hills a little faster.

He has regular pedals, no straps. I see he has sandals on, the kind you just slide your foot into without the thing between your toes. He's also half way through a cigarette. I start to wonder how much time I'm going to add to my commute home by waiting for this guy.

Me: Where are you riding from.

Guy: Yonge and Finch.

We're still waiting for the cars to let up. We make a few comments about the traffic. Eventually we cross and head over to a quieter street.

Guy: Hey, do you know where I could sell this bike?

Me: I don't know.

Guy: I have the instructions and everything. It's only 2 weeks old. It's a GT.

It's a yellow GT mountain bike. I don't end up looking too carefully to see the model or suspension type. It does look new.

Me: There must be some bike shops that buy used bikes.

Guy: There's one on Queen Street, right?

Me: I think there used to be, but I heard it got shut down by the police because there were too many stolen bikes. (I don't know how true that is).

Pedal, pedal, pedal. He's definitely not keeping up, even at a slow pace on level ground. I recommend he take the subway, but he's not interested in waiting the 15 minutes until they let bikes on.

Me: Have you tried Craigslist?

Guy: What's that?

Me: A web site. You can sell anything there.

Guy - nothing

Me: You don't want to ride that bike? It looks like a really nice bike.

Guy: Nah, I want to get something better.

We continue on to the bottom of the hill at Hogg's Hollow. I recommend he take Yonge now because the hill is too steep on the side streets. We split up.

The bike hasn't shown up on Craigslist yet.

Labels: commuting, toronto, Yonge Street

My commute lands me up in the Highway 7 and Leslie area, the city that hath no name. It's technically half Richmond Hill, half Markham, but that's beside the point. What does matter is that the employment area north of Toronto is so vast that it's difficult to have organized group commutes from one place to another.

Desparate for some company, this morning I met up with the southbound group commute from Yonge and Lawrence, heading to city hall. I would only ride with them far enough to qualify myself for a free t-shirt, which I decided was Eglinton Avenue.

The group was well formed upon my arrival at 7:25 AM. There were two cycling ambassadors who were busy giving out t-shirts. Two police officers were among the group. One sporting a bullet proof vest, one just wearing his short sleeve uniform shirt. They must have turned down the free t-shirts before I got there.

One cycling ambassador announced that we'd be leaving in about two cycles of the lights. We were told that we would try to stick together as a group, and if the group was separated by a red light, the front of the group would wait for the others. A police officer added that we should all ride to the right, in single file. Everyone looked around at each other, a little surprised by this. There were at least 40 cyclists here. The other officer asked if we could ride two abreast. They had a quick, quiet discussion and announced that we should ride single file, so the right lane was still available for cars.

I didn't ride in the group commute last year, but I did show up at the gathering point. In 2006, it happened to be on the day of the TTC strike, so Yonge Street was entirely jammed. That day the discussion was about whether to ride as a group behind the cars, or to try to "filter" up the side past the cars. The decision was to ride as a group in the right hand lane. I heard from others there that in previous years, the group used the full right lane.

Back to 2007. Eventually one person piped up and said it didn't make sense for us to ride single file. With this many cyclists it was safer for us to clearly take the full right lane. The officer reiterated his position that we should ride single file, but added "you don't have to listen to us". As surprising as that was to hear, it was actually a very truthful thing to say. The way we ride on the road is up to us. Each of us has to look out for ourselves, and essentially what the officer was telling us was just his advice, and not the law. At the same time, "advice" from a police officer carries a certain weight.

Although I don't commute South on Yonge Street, I use it often to get downtown. I know there are only about 2 or three short sections where it's wide enough to share the right hand lane with cars. The rest of the way, I take the full lane. One of the wide sections is just south of Lawrence, and another is just south of Davisville.

After sorting out what to do with the left-over t-shirts, we set off. The crowd spilled out onto the street and pedalled down Yonge Street. It felt good to be with so many other cyclists, and judging by the smiles around me, my neighbours must have felt the same way. One cyclist commented to me that riding on Yonge Street for a commute was a unique experience. I suspect many stick to side streets and the Don River trail. There was even a tandem bike among us. Its cyclists must have been happy to take advantage of this comfortable ride down Yonge.

For the part of the ride I was there, most cyclists in the front of the pack rode 2 abreast and chatted. The back of the pack was riding single file. Over 2 kilometres, one car managed to use the right hand lane to pass some other cars.

The ride was pleasant and casual. I turned around at Eglinton and headed north. Since I didn't make it to city hall, I'll have to speculate pancakes were eaten and enjoyed. I hope it was a good enough experience that a few cyclists are willing to keep going even without free t-shirts and breakfast.

(also posted on IBikeTO)

Labels: bike week, group ride, police, Yonge Street