Living For The City

Few things will help warm up a cold winter day like a steaming hot bowl of chili – how about 11 steaming hot bowls of chili?

This weekend marked with 1st Annual Vegan Chili Cook-Off presented by Left Feet and judging by the number of empty pots and empty bowls I’d say the event was a total success. All proceeds and any left-over food went to Out Of The Cold but I don’t think there was much in the ways of left-overs to go around – I made good and sure of that!

Thanks to Steve from Left Feet for putting together such a great little event – I think next year I’ll have to get in on the action and give some of these fools a run for their money!

On a totally unrelated note: As I was uploading these photos something occurred to me.
Many, many years ago now, probably when she was working with Wenches with Wrenches, Lisa McClean (pictured above) taught bike maintenance workshop as a part of a DIY Workshop weekend – I think she also taught a workshop about edible weeds, weird. The workshop covered a lot of really basic things; bike fit, parts of the bicycle, general maintenance, changing tires / fixing flats, etc. Nothing too in depth but the fact of the matter is, although I’d ridden for some years before that, until that weekend I don’t think that I even knew how to fix a flat on my own. Thanks Lisa – I’ve come a long way… I think.

Tonight brought with it the last show ever at Adrift Skate Shop/Skate Park with Rammer & Brutal Nights – thanks for all the good times, Lyndsey. The place was rammed (no pun intended) to capacity – after a certain point I didn’t even bother to venture back into the show area. I didn’t bother to grab any pictures at all, save for one, which was just too beautiful a moment to let pass without immortalizing it in film… er… pixels. Ladies & gentlemen, children of all ages, allow me to introduce Alex Snelgrove – keepin’ it classy.

This shit is becoming epidemic!

This evening I got home from work and went through my mail like I normally do – I was moderately pleased (strongly worded letter to follow, worry not friends) to see a letter of settlement from the insurance company of the woman that ran into me back into October – good, right? I’ll be able to pay for the bike I built as a replacement for the one she broke, right?

Wrong. The next piece of mail I got was from the tax man. Good news: my property value continues to rise. Bad news: my property taxes also continue to rise. The only two universal truths are death and taxes – so be it.

Recently I began work on a small bicycle information / maintenance booklet and one of the sections I’m working on focuses on bicycle security and things you can do to help “city proof” your bike. One of the suggestions that I give is to glue ball bearings into the hex heads of components that you rarely adjust such as your stem, seatpost, etc. to discourage theft.

Sometimes I wonder if a bearing in the stem topcap might be overkill but every now and then you ride by something that reminds you that nothing is overkill. I can imagine that this person once had a nice suspension fork, front wheel and stem.

Now they’ve got a bike that they can’t ride home and some junkie has $15 worth of crack that they got for $300 worth of bike components. Bike thieves, as you might expect, get The Gas Face.

Speaking of The Gas Face

I finally received my Bootleg Sessions package last night (Erin, Paul, Tony, Jason – holla at ya boy!) and I think Burd did a great job putting the whole package together, keeping true to the simple and gritty intent of the project. I haven’t made my way through all the additional sections yet but thus far I’m fairly impressed. I will say that the first three sections (Tom Lamarche, Keo & Burd) are easily the most impressive and in that sense most of what is seen from that point on may be a little bit redundant – it maybe would have been nice if their parts had been sprinkled in throughout the video to make the whole thing a little bit more engaging. But I digress… all in all it was well done and in claiming that those three are the best parts, I don’t mean to undermine the effort or skill of the other riders involved.

One of the greatest criticisms I hear of “Fixed Gear Freestylers” is that these bikes weren’t made to do what these guys are using them for. Ironically enough, this criticism is most often put forth by people riding track bikes on the street.* I’m not huge into trick riding and really have no desire to learn to do 80% of what is seen in this video but what I find that I do really enjoy about learning tricks is that they improve my bike handling skills and make me a much better cyclist on the whole.

I wonder how kids in the skateparks feel about all these dudes on big bikes rolling around their stomping grounds? I’m curious, are fixed riders the new rollerbladers?

Three “One Line” Reviews

The Ocean – Precambrian
Apparently this is what the formation of a planet sounds like.

Priestess – Hello Master
It’s funny how playing Guitar Hero III can make you appreciate bands in ways you’ve never bothered to before.

Black Mountain – In The Future
Apparently this is what the formation of mountains will sound like in the future.

*I’m aware that a fixed gear bike is a piece of 19th century technology that was not originally designed specifically for the track either. Regardless, my point stands; eat it.

I’m an immediate gratification kind of guy. When I want something badly enough to part with my hard earned cash for it, I want it on the asap. This is why I love mail day so much – when I know that something is coming for me I hurry home to check my mailbox every day until it comes with the anticipation of a schoolboy hoping and praying for a glimpse of brastrap or *gulp* an actual boob during a hair cut.

When my friend Andrew was in town from Vancouver last, he was nice enough to bring with him a lovely Super Champion shirt for yours truly. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it didn’t really fit all that well but I did really like the shirt and most definitely appreciated the gesture so I contacted Tyler @ SC and we arranged the old switcheroo!

Thanks Andrew & Tyler.

Oddly enough, Andrew is back in town for a couple of weeks so I managed to drag “Trouble” out of retirement tonight and did some wrenching / part swapping to get this bike back on the road for Andrew while he’s in Toronto.

All I need is a star nut and some straps and I’ll be able to put ‘er together enough to be ridden. It’ll be nice to see the old guy back on the road!

For most of my life I’ve been lucky enough to have most things just kind of work out for me, more or less. I’m not saying that I haven’t worked hard or that bad things have never happened to me – I’m just saying that for the most part, I’m a pretty lucky guy. I wish I could remember all the “Even Steven” stories from over the years (there are some good ones, I swear!) but for now:

I’ve needed new shoes for a while but the pair I really want are in short supply in the city and have been for the last year – any of the online distributors that I’ve found don’t ship to Canada so I’d pretty well given up. Last week I bought a pair of all black Chuck’s to wear for the time being.

They didn’t really fit perfectly and I don’t really like how skinny the toebox is so I’d decided today that I was going to take them back – the only problem is, even though I’d worn them for a grand total of 5 minutes and they were in perfect condition there was a note on the receipt that said “worn out of store– final sale” so I had to keep them. So be it, right?

After meeting up with the boys at Manic and going to look at a bike for Sparkles – we were walking along and what do I see just sitting there, as plain as day? $60!!! Enough to pay for the shoes and chip in on a gift for the brothers McCracken’s birthday. Happy birthday, fellas – Happy Birthday, me.

On a totally unrelated note: I realized today that this is the first pair of Chucks I’ve ever owned – this isn’t exactly normal for any self respecting punkster. As a youngin’ I had shoes like this but they were always of the BiWay / Bargain Harold’s variety. North Star… Champion’s Choice – you know the ones? Probably made by the same kids in the same factory but sell for about 1/10th the cost.

Last night I ventured into the unknown, a place that my tattoo snobbery has thus far prevented me from entering – the Tattoo Rock Parlour to see my friend Chris’s new band, Metz, play. I’ll save you the long winded rant about the commidification of culture and the ultimate in cheese (which I just wrote and deleted) and say that this place, although it looks nice in that sort of pseudo-gothic Osbourne Family kind of way, is every bit as douchey as I’d anticipated and I felt horribly out of place the whole time I was there.

The environment there was so uncomfortable that I felt that taking out my camera to snap a quick photo of the band may well bring down upon me the wrath of any number of the beefcakes in black circling the room searching for people with jackets on to escort over to the mandatory coat check.

Metz is rad – Tattoo gets The Gas Face!

Pick up this month’s issue of Gasoline Magazine for a little write-up on Doublenaut – although the magazine is a little on the corny side, it’s always nice to see my boys getting up.

I’d like to meet the guy with the Cervelo winter beater.

The fine lads at Breadwinner have been busy over at Manic over the holidays giving the shop what appears to be the beginning of a nice little makeover; freshly painted walls, a new standing bar, a handmade magazine rack stocked with late 90s skateboard magazines (I’m gonna dig up some of my late 80s rags for the shop), an awesome sign made from a vintage basketball backboard and a Niall McClelland / Jeremy Jansen photo installation… Lookin’ good, boys ‘n girls.

Sparkles: Professional Male Model approves.

Looks like it won’t be long before Dave & Laura’s little one decides to grace us with his presence. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it out to The Rock sometime in the near future to say hello in person.

I’d like to thank the city of Toronto for making sure that our bike lanes are nice and safe to ride in… and for the jarred wrist… and blown tire… and the embarrassing dismount…

I’m back at work after a nice little well deserved and much needed break for the holidays. It’s actually kind of nice to be back, made nicer only by the little delivery I got today from IRO.

Thanks a lot for the fork, Tony, now I can rebuild Trouble and have a nice spare to roll around on.