Rattle Cans

Painting stuff is fun—not to mention satisfying. (There’s something startling about the complete cosmetic makeover a splash of paint confers.) But painting stuff with spray paint? Now that’s an absolute blast. 

Messy? Of course, as with many fun activities, but that’s part of the thrill. Bad for you? Oh, yeah. Those fumes are nasty, even with full Darth Vader-style ventilator mask on. These days, what with everyone all bully on the ozone layer, we just don’t get to spray much of anything, except for the odd squirt of whip cream, air freshener, or insulation foam. The ozone layer’s well being aside, this is a shame.

February Fugue State

Went out for bananas the other day and somehow ended up at the bike store.

Not sure exactly how this happened. I have no distinct memory of deciding to stop at Revolution Cycle on my way to Safeway. It just sort of occurred. One minute I’m pulling out of my garage with fruit on my mind, and the next thing I know, I’m snapping out of a reverie in the bike store, standing there on the shop floor, fondling the Large Marges of a Surly Moonlander.

Here’s my theory: Some kind of February enchantment drew me there.

Dusty Lens (Archive) #9

An Expensive Ride

It's February again, and anyone who knows me also knows that it's time for my annual pilgrimage down to Arizona for the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.  This is, historically, an expensive race for me--now even moreso because I'm coming from Canada. That I am gouged by both airline and government every time I cross the border is obvious to anyone who has taken a similar trip.  But racing the 24 has always cost me a lot of coin, even when I lived close enough to ride my bike to the venue. Nevertheless, my bags are already packed.

Skicycle

Cycling and cross-country skiing are the two sides of the same shiny coin, mirror sports of sister seasons. One’s classic summer, the other perfect winter, but the two activities share a sensibility. In their purest forms, they embody a fluid, graceful state of efficient, self-propelled motion. Simple technologies—no motors, few sounds—enable impressive speeds with relatively little energy output.

You can spend a lot of money on expensive gear for these pursuits, but in both cases, anyone, regardless of skill and with even the crappiest gear, can still enjoy the essential experience. I’ve routinely seen the same idiot grins on the faces of cyclists and skiers alike, of all ages and abilities, ecstatic just to be out breezing through the world.

Vélivre: A Thread of English Road

In A Thread of English Road (1924), American Charles S. Brooks, author of numerous forgotten travel books and plays (including the strangely neglected Wappin’ Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates), travels quietly by bicycle around villages of southern England, with two companions, rambling along the back roads between London and Bath. Not much happens on the trip. They encounter neither “high excitement” nor “raw adventure.” In fact, “Our days were as tame as a kitten by the fire,” he admits on the second page. This volume is more of a mood piece; Brooks’s prose and Julia McCune Flory’s illustrations capture the quaint pace and gentle air of 1920s rural England. Although at times the book feels a little too tame (some readers may wish for a frightful pirate or two), it has its moments, stringing together some memorable beads on its “thread of road.”    

Tour of Alberta

Here in sunny Alberta, far from Oprah-land, we’re pretty excited about pro cycling these days, because of a major announcement made late last year: the creation of a new professional cycling stage race, the Tour of Alberta, which will take place September 3-8, 2013. According to the T of A website, this will be a UCI-sanctioned 2.1 (whatever that means) event, featuring 16 teams, including eight international teams. The race will start in Edmonton and cover about 850 km before finishing in Calgary; the route will include “open prairies, rolling foothills, and . . . majestic Rockies,” with most of the stages taking place in rural Alberta. 

Sandy McTire

When Gil and I decided to stud our own bike tires a while back, we set out for supplies (a box of 5/8”metal screws) to the most aptly named store I could think of: Canadian Tire. Those of you who live outside the Great White North may not be familiar with this nationwide retail chain. It’s long been as much a part of Canadian culture as Tim Hortons and maple syrup. For generations, at least prior to the big box revolution, Canadian Tire was the place Canadians went to for just about any cheap-to-mid-range thing you might need, from automotive supplies to garden tools to hardware to kitchenware to sporting goods and electronics.

Dumonde Tech G-10 Bio-Green Chain Lube Review

When the subject of chain lube comes up, I am generally a pure agnostic. A simple Google search will reveal a plethora of heated, perpetual, and simultaneously partisan and inconclusive discussions about which little bottle of oil is the right one.  My position, generally, is that your chain needs oil and as long as that oil shows up regularly, it doesn't really matter which oil you use. As a result of my not particularly caring about what oil I use, a lot of little bottles have come through my garage.  Given that background, I figure the bottle I grabbed for my trip from Vancouver to the Mexican border deserves a little write up.