Critical mass ride for Friday, 27 October
Went down to Idealbikes to take a few pictures, and watched Dave playing about with his new tallbike - after seeing the one Martin made I guess he couldn't resist making one himself!
Next, I headed down to MEC to pick up a new tail light as one of mine had fallen off. I found a new item in stock, the Planet Bike Blinky Superflash, so I thought I'd give that a go. It turns out to be amazingly bright - the guys over at Hiawatha Cyclery posted about it recently and gave it the thumbs up too.
After heading back to Idealbikes and hanging the light off my backpack and swapping saddles over it was time to head off to Critical Mass, so I followed Martin - it was pretty easy to follow him as he was riding his tallbike for the ride. There were quite a few people there when we arrived, probably 30 or so, quite a good turnout considering the weather. Several people had got dressed up for the occasion, too. There was a new guy with a Dutch accent who seemed to want to take charge, he jumped up and started telling everyone how Critical Mass worked. Since almost all the people there had been on a CM ride before there was a slight air of bemusement amongst everyone else, and he finally would down after around ten minutes (although I have to admit after 5 minutes of his ramblings I wandered off to talk to a couple of other guys!) Martin finally managed to get up and start talking, and announced this was his last ride for a couple of months as he's going touring in Mexico, but Peter has agreed to take over what management there is of the ride - just as well, since he's been the best promoter of the ride so far!
We finally started off just after 6:30, and went for an extended ride around downtown. In honour of Halloween, we went visiting the graveyards of Halifax. Fairview Lawn Cemetery was the only one that was still open, and we all went riding through there - it was quite a sight to look back and see nothing but a line of blinking lights the whole way.
We finally finished around 8pm or so down in the park by the train station. Martin was interviewed by a reporter who came along for the ride, and everyone dispersed. There was apparently an afterparty at Martin's house, but I was too tired to go after a couple of long weeks of work and the prospect of an early rising the next day to go to APSEA.
The pictures I took are available for viewing here.
Distance logged: 27.551km
Time: 114:34
Average speed: 14.4km/hr
Max speed: 43.2 km/hr
Temperature: 7C-1C
Cumulative distance: 6814.904km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.38
Monthly distance: 656.564km
Monthly cost per km: $0.136
Next, I headed down to MEC to pick up a new tail light as one of mine had fallen off. I found a new item in stock, the Planet Bike Blinky Superflash, so I thought I'd give that a go. It turns out to be amazingly bright - the guys over at Hiawatha Cyclery posted about it recently and gave it the thumbs up too.
After heading back to Idealbikes and hanging the light off my backpack and swapping saddles over it was time to head off to Critical Mass, so I followed Martin - it was pretty easy to follow him as he was riding his tallbike for the ride. There were quite a few people there when we arrived, probably 30 or so, quite a good turnout considering the weather. Several people had got dressed up for the occasion, too. There was a new guy with a Dutch accent who seemed to want to take charge, he jumped up and started telling everyone how Critical Mass worked. Since almost all the people there had been on a CM ride before there was a slight air of bemusement amongst everyone else, and he finally would down after around ten minutes (although I have to admit after 5 minutes of his ramblings I wandered off to talk to a couple of other guys!) Martin finally managed to get up and start talking, and announced this was his last ride for a couple of months as he's going touring in Mexico, but Peter has agreed to take over what management there is of the ride - just as well, since he's been the best promoter of the ride so far!
We finally started off just after 6:30, and went for an extended ride around downtown. In honour of Halloween, we went visiting the graveyards of Halifax. Fairview Lawn Cemetery was the only one that was still open, and we all went riding through there - it was quite a sight to look back and see nothing but a line of blinking lights the whole way.
We finally finished around 8pm or so down in the park by the train station. Martin was interviewed by a reporter who came along for the ride, and everyone dispersed. There was apparently an afterparty at Martin's house, but I was too tired to go after a couple of long weeks of work and the prospect of an early rising the next day to go to APSEA.
The pictures I took are available for viewing here.
Distance logged: 27.551km
Time: 114:34
Average speed: 14.4km/hr
Max speed: 43.2 km/hr
Temperature: 7C-1C
Cumulative distance: 6814.904km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.38
Monthly distance: 656.564km
Monthly cost per km: $0.136
posted by steve at 10/29/2006 03:20:00 pm
3 Comments:
Re: Lights
Thanks for the tip on the Blinky SuperFlash. Even though I am mostly done commuting for the year, I started experimenting with putting a couple of blinking light on different parts of my bike.
Initially, I had two lights on the seat posts. But after the kids were playing with them one weekend I clipped it to the pannier. What a difference it made in the ride. Cars were leaving at least a foot more space, that would make it about 18" total, but still a big difference.
Since I ride with two panniers, someone suggested that I put one on each pannier, like brake lights.
I stopped riding a couple of weeks ago when my seat bolt broke and bruised my leg. Not that it was a serious injury, I just gave it time to heal and then it got pretty cold. Also the fact that since I broke a spoke a month ago, my rear wheel continues to make noise. Time for a rebuild.
One thing I've seen a lot of people at Critical Mass doing is getting the turtle lights from MEC and tying them on panniers, onto hubs, and taping them between spokes - surprisingly effective!
Winter is one of my favourite times to ride since I don't overheat so much. It's a matter of taste, though. The wheel with a broken spoke is fixable, but if you've broken multiple spokes it's probably on its way out. I've managed to nurse a wonky rim all year through (I even made it up to Truro and back on it) but now it won't hold a true for more than 30km or so, so next year it's going to need replacing. The BLT trail going down by St Margaret's Bay Road is definitely not the place to take 700c rims at any sort of speed!
Hello!
My name is Whitney Hooper and I am a journalism student at the University of King's College. I'm doing a story on cyclists in HRM and I'm hoping to check out the Critical Mass ride on the 24th. It sounds like you are a regular at these rides, and I was wondering if that was the case. If so, would you mind talking to me a bit about Critical Mass and your experience with it? My e-mail is whitneyhooper@msn.com, let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Whitney
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