Happy Tuesday everybody, and what a Tuesday it is.
The 1st of June, one of the best months on the books, four to five days from some important birthdays, and it’s day 2 of Bike to Work Week.
The wheels on the bus bike go round and round…
cc image from oedipusphinx on flickr
There have been a few posts here about how getting out of your car and traveling through communities by bike or foot or skate is an amazing way to discover your communities.
While that’s true, in the pouring rain it can also be one of the least pleasant, especially if you’re traveling through your and other communities early in the morning on your way to work, and are totally unprepared for the realities of self-propelled commuting.
A recent change of employment has meant that rather than living 5 minutes from work I’d be traveling from Burnaby to West of Main for work.
Friends, family, readers, learn from my mistakes. I give you:
Pointers for Practical Pedaling in the Land of Persistent Precipitation
1. Get thee nikwax
Seriously, go spend the $15 and enjoy renewed water repellency. I’ve used both TX Direct spray-on and wash-in and they work wonders. Nothing spoils a super fun blast in the rain faster than soggy sous-vêtements. Remember to do your pack or pannier too!
2. Give yourself extra time
It’s not a race unless it’s actually a race. Being all hot and sweaty can be awesome, but it looses it’s appeal at 9:45 or so when that hot sweat has transformed into a crust of salt.
3. Get out during bike week and Velopalooza
You can start riding anytime, but rolling around during these celebrations is intoxicating. There’s about five-thousand things to do over the next few weeks. Check out http://www.biketoworkmetrovan.ca/ and http://www.velopalooza.ca/ and get yourself connected.
4. Spend some time and very little money at Our Community Bikes
Their experts will help you wrench on your ride, and their parts are practically unreasonably low in price. They’ve got all the tools your could need, and their mechanics are an awesome resource. You’ll learn to maintain your ride in an awesome environment, meet some serious characters, and support a great group of people in the process.
5. Smile and wave, especially at kids
People are cool, especially kids and people on bikes. I’ve learned some great tricks for generating good on my way to work:
– Make goofy faces at kids under the age of 10 or so. Also, get really wobbly and pretend to nearly fall while waving enthusiastically, and then wink, kids love it.
– Give cool-kid head nods to kids older than 10, they’re totally way to cool for goofyness.
– Unplug your headphones. Music is cool, but you can’t hear the awesome old-guy say high or tell you your backpack strap is about to get caught in your spokes.
6. Have fun
That’s it, the final tip is to remember that biking is awesome, fun is awesome, and you’re awesome for having fun on a bike. The world is a playground, come out and play!
I kind of feel like I might be committing heresy with this, but am I the only person who finds Our Community Bikes annoying? Maybe I’ve only been in when it’s been really busy and the staff are hungover and get annoyed if you try to ask them something. Maybe I’m just not assertive enough when asking for actual service.
I like the idea of OCB, maybe just not the execution.
Brenton, I think you just have a knack for prescriptive problem solving and uncanny insight towards things that can be changed, innovated and improved. I like that you have high expectations.
Also, this really cool discussion recently developed about BTWW on the ol’ Bookface (which is still going strong after about 35,000 people quite the service yesterday): http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=39354016609&topic=16060.
Rock and Roll!
Hey Brenton – I hear you, I’ve had three awesome visits and one terrible one. My first visit was the terrible one, and I think it’s because my knowledge of what I wanted to do was pretty low – like “I want my bike to be gooder” low, and it was a sunny saturday AM so everyone and their dog was there trying to fix their rides.
Since then I’ve been a lot more definite on exactly what I need help with and what I want to accomplish, and I’ve gone at less peak times- although now that I don’t get flex-days at work I might run into the same mad crush and harried staff as you did / do.
–Execution could definitely be improved, that’s as much because of facilities as anything else, but it’s still an awesome place as long as you have patients and aren’t bothered by having to be a little pushy.
Thanks, John. Your sincerity is so refreshing.
Since then I’ve been a lot more definite on exactly what I need help with and what I want to accomplish, and I’ve gone at less peak times
Yah, I imagine that’s the case with my complaint. I think I was there on weekends, and I didn’t really know what I needed because I’m not that bike savvy.
It’s also a matter of space, which is very limited. I wonder if they couldn’t move into a bigger space for similar rent, because it’s not exactly a browser/walk-in retail space that needs a prominent storefront.
I don’t have much to say about the bike fix-it folks. However, I do need to give some kudos to Gregor Robertson, Geoff Meggs, Andrea Reimer and the rest of the City Hall crew for getting Dunsmuir Bike-ified. I tested out part of the separated lane today (the part that isn’t under construction) and had a great time. The Europeans really are on to something when it comes to improving safety by separating bikes and traffic!
Good job City of Vancouver!
Kurt
You’ve got it Kurt! Separate lanes are totally the way to go. I’m really lucky in that the first half of my commute – about 10km – is off-street on the greenway. The rest is along 10th, which is wonderful as long as both the bikers and drivers respect the rules of the road – which is inconsistent on both sides.
I grew up riding with traffic, albeit farm traffic as much as anything else, so I’m cool with cars being around me, but I can certainly see why it freaks out new riders.
Oh, and watch out for Telus vans people, they’ve got that white all-over decal that I swear must obstruct their rear and side mirrors – and they seem to really REALLY enjoy turning without signaling, especially on 10th around Main.
Hope to see some of you all out there tomorrow, there are lots of sweet commuter stations for bike to work & school week, I’m giving myself a bunch of extra time to sample the treats and check out the services along my way to work. I’ll be the guy with the bike, wave and say hello!
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