1500 Pots of Flaming Flames.

from Torontoist.

Last Saturday eve I gathered up some people and deposited them at WinterCity, Hogtown's trompe l'oeil to the long, dull days and nights between November and April.
This French troupe of fire sculptors were paid to distribute hundreds and hundreds of pots of fire upon the town square, some of which were ingenious mechanical sculptures like the chimney of heat depicted in the photo, and others too various to describe. There were also cylindrical coal warmers that sparked when you blew on them.
I billed the party "Fire and Ice" as skating on the rink at City Hall was to be involved. Only two of us skated in the end, but so what. The atmosphere of that normally dead square was positively transformed as snow drifted down and a thousand fires burned against the darkness of the winter night. A bottle of spiced rum I'd actually had the foresight to bring made things even better. We city workers were just amazed at the absence of barriers, barricades, and guards barring the public from the sculptures. I even got a free all-white touque just for walking into a tent hung with single mittens.
"I could have burnt my hand fifteen hundred times over!" my colleague Cris reported gleefully to our liability-obsessed boss today.
More incredible still: They're at it again this Friday and Saturday eve, so get thee to 100 Queen Street West to sup full with wintry fire.

We Call It 'Bike Winter' Because We Bike in Winter

Bike Winter is here.

A Snowy Day in the Big City

No, this is NOT my city.

1. It snowed yesterday in what was once upon a time known as York County.



2. A Dean Sighting occurred yesterday, at Adelaide West and John Street. Longtime readers of Bottombracket shall recall me writing about Dean, Eternal Cycle Courier, the man who always appears to be sponsored by Assos clothing, etc. Today, on a snowy January Tuesday I saw Dean cruising eastward on a beautiful white Cinelli track machine, with dainty rear fender to separate the Eustace Tilley of bike messengers from the slop and slush of the metropolis floor. I really need to augment this with a photo of Dean, ideally with another courier sliding along behind him with a crappy thrown-together winter work bike and clothing.


Hayward, who's been around long enough to know, calls Dean 'the last one', the last of a breed of messengers who ride only the really high end machines in absolute defiance of all economics/common sense/etc. Last spring, Dean was rolling about on a BMC full carbon track machine - even the seat was carbon. I could list the others rides of his I've seen, but that would be boring.

3. Black Chevy Suburban. I had to pull foward enough to see his face; if only I'd had a camera to capture the look absolute contempt and disgust on his tough white guy face as he looked over at me, winter cyclist and subhuman . I'd started my commute in the rushour traffic of King Street West this morning as the snow fell, keeping nicely to my curb lane gutter and fortified w. helmet and visor, when 12v Douchebag accelerates past me up to a red light, followed by another red 300 metres later. On the first one he managed to roll past the white line and into the middle of the T intersection - where out-sized 4x4 trucks BELONG, of course.

I ended up riding past him for good a few blocks later, effortlessly.

4. Slush City! Finally today I am gratified by the slush and the slop, as my front fender was in full force today. The 2-4 cm of powdery whiteness in the bike lanes is nothing to be avoided, as you can cruise right through the fresh stuff, 'specially on a fixie; the problems begin with the cars who park/stop/drive in the bike lanes and crunch the snow down, compacting it too the point where road tires just bounce over it and traction is minimized. How annoying!

The Summer Past: My CHIN Race Movie.

In the dead of winter, what is a sometime cycle-sportist like myself to do, but close the eyes and daydream of summer days? Actually, I rode to work today as I do most everyday, this time fortified against the elements of road filth with a newly applied front fender.


After a mere eight years of owning my 'Paulie' black steel track bicycle, now in its fourth local winter, yesterday I ended an era and finally afixed a road-filth-blocking mountain bike mud guard to the rear of the front brake. When I did the test ride home, the roads were clean and dry, unlike in the snowy a.m. ride. Today is colder, cleaner and drier still on these Toronto streets. In fact we are into the Coldest Days of the Year now, which always come in late January and early February, when it is too cold to snow and anything on the pavement is frozen solid. (Finally a clear cold day today!)


So after a good few months of cleaning well-engrained filth from shoes, socks, shins, and of course bicycle drivetrain, I have finally taken action, using the free supply of fenders piled in the photocopy room at my most cycling-positive office. All after the @#$-ing fact.



Now I finally undertake another action: the short film of my race from the CHIN picnic criterium, which occurred seven short months ago at the end of June. I only saw this footage the other day, and it features a few blurry shots of a beard-and-legwarmer wearing chancer on a white bike clashing somewhat horribly with teal shorts. I spent that race hiding strategically in the first seven or eight wheels, so you can't see me so much. Tucked carefully behind the windblocking wideness beefy 'sprinters' (who of course fell away in the final lap or two), I conserved my energy perfectly for my final move, a trip to Florida. Seriously, you can just see me holding my position in the last lap for a fine 7th place finish in a field of over seventy:
http://www.veloomedia.com/2007_pages/2007_road/2007_CHIN_Cadet_Sr4_M3_Men.html

The editor of this fine piece of cycle sport documentary neglected to allow for a continuous shot from the pace car, which would give the viewer a clear sense of the technical course, with all its chicanes plus 100 degree lefthander. But still, kudos to Veloo Media who, for those especially interested, have films from road, cyclocross and even track racing from all of the southern Ontario 2007 on their website.

And now, Back to Work...

Route to an End Goal

New Year at Springreen

A simple winter sunset at the Farm where the snows were deep and the liquor flowed free. Andrew Bee made a rum-addled New Year's day brunch that was deep and delicious. "I drank more last night than have in the last six months", said he. And he seemed fine, labouring away over his oat-encrusted sausage balls and mountains of rum/cinnamon/brown sugar/maple syrup french toast. How did he do it? "You don't get hungover if you don't stop drinking", Mr Bee declared with a sparkle in his eye. And he returned to singing the Golden Girls theme song at full blast.

My good friend Marlena got some time in on the 'shoes. I took the technical pair and had fine times ascending and descending the forests hillocks in at least two feet of snow. That's the way to spend the final days of the year: in a silent winter wonder world following animal tracks over hill and dale.
My favorite moment was ending round one of a snowball fight from my rooftop redoubt by lobbing one over the front of the house blind and hitting the snowball poised in Kris King's hand, obliterating it. Cheers went up from my foes.