Living For The City

I just received this email from a dear friend of my boss’ who is currently living in NYC.

“My dad pretty much JUST fixed up his beautiful old bike and it got stolen in downtown toronto. He’s the cutest 65 year-old ever and he’s pretty much devastated. I’ve attached pictures here and his description:

This is what i created. A nice criterion frame, brakes, headset, crank and bottom bracket campy nuovo record, seat post, as I just found, is now a real desirable item, nice wheels with track high hubs.”

If you see this bike anywhere let me know ASAP – please and thank you.

Two weeks in a row bad weather has plagued The Missfits (didn’t stop them from spanking both teams!) but tonight (Wed) is supposed to be nice, sunny and relatively warm so if you’re in the area please feel free to swing by Trinity Bellwoods (North Diamond) at 8:15 8:30 and support our gals.

Word up.

Last night, shortly after making fun of someone else for not being able to install their own chainring bolts, I had a dose of karma slapped back in my face as the new bolts I installed on the weekend (too short) made their way loose. I tightened a few times on the way home from dodgeball and even still was missing one (and close to missing a few others) by the time I got home. Yikes!

Tonight I made my way out to meet up with the Bike Polo T.O. crew and spent a few hours on the court – first at Trinity Bellwoods and then over to Alexandra Park as they have the lights on until 11. For anyone interested in playing, the group meets Tuesdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 4:00. It’s a hell of a lot of fun but don’t forget that you can get hurt so make sure to bring a helmet if you’ve got one and be ready to take a spill or two. I only went down hard once and I think I’m going to be nursing some serious bumps and bruises come morning – I hope I heal in time for the ride this Sunday!

It was a beautiful weekend here in Toronto and I finally had a chance to get out for a decent little ride with Aner to Tommy Thomson Park out on the Leslie Spit.

We regulate any stealing of his property
And we damn good too
But you cant be any geek off the street,
Gotta be handy with the steel if you know what I mean, earn your keep!
Regulators!!! mount up!

My girlfriend is a genius. Now, I’d like to consider myself fairly handy but I definitely rely on having the right tools and the right set of circumstances to be able to pull things off. When I went to install a new chandelier (sweet garage sale score!) at my lady’s place I found that a) there was old wiring and no junction box and b) the threaded rod that the chandelier wiring runs through was too long so when you threaded on the fixture itself it pressed the wiring into the ceiling; cutting the wire, shorting out the circuit and making me look even more inept than usual.

A little back story here; I was helping my good friend Sparkles: Professional Male Model with a little home restoration and when we took the ceiling down we found some 1966 porno, some old cigarette packs and a book entitled “A Boy For Hire” – yeah, it’s exactly what you think. So sexy!

Anyway, we were free to take a few of things from the house and one of the things that I left with was an old style bread knife for single slicing. When my lady realized that she didn’t have a hacksaw (she had the blade but no saw) a huge lightbulb went off in her head and she suggested that we convert the bread slicer into a hacksaw to cut that rod! At first I bocked at the idea a little but I’ll be damned if it didn’t work like a charm!

That’s some serious MacGuyver shit right there!

The light was installed and my manly usefulness was restored! Hopefully she’ll keep me around a little longer.

It’s only a week away and I have been incredibly, incredibly lazy on the fund raising front but again this year myself and the Freedom Haters Bicycle Club are going to be doing the 50k Ride For Heart and could use your help in our fund raising efforts! Every dollar counts so if you’ve got one (or ten) to spare please Sponsor Me.

Last year’s ride was a total blast so if you’re interested in joining up and doing the ride with us, just go to http://www.rideforheart.ca and during the registration process you’ll be asked if you’d like to “Join a Group or Corporate Team” – select that option and then select Freedom Haters Bicycle Club from the drop down menu – hopefully we’ll see you there!

BBQ @ my crib after the ride!!!

When I got into work this morning one of my coworkers let me know about a 57 year old cyclist that was killed yesterday (RIP) after receiving the door prize and being knocked into traffic. It’s an extremely sad story that is all too familiar to anyone who regularly rides in the city, although it actually being lethal isn’t necessarily quite as common – thankfully.

What is truly upsetting is the way major news outlets often report these types of stories; with implied blame that leads people to believe that accidents like this are somehow the fault of the cyclist who lost their lives and not those who carelessly, albeit not often maliciously, cause them.

Cyclist dies after hitting opening car door

What the paper said is indeed true; the cyclist hit the door, was flung into traffic and was hit by a cube van. However, they way in which they phrased the piece tells a different story altogether.

How differently do these two headlines read?
1) Cyclist dies after hitting opening car door
2) Cyclist dies after being hit by opening car door

See what I mean? It’s like saying that when I was in highschool I sustained a black eye when my face collided with another young man’s fist. It’s technically true but the fact of the matter is that I got punched out by an insecure, jacked midget who just needed something to hit as a means of asserting his manhood in ways his tiny penis never could.

Poor reporting, as you might expect, gets The Gas Face!

I was pretty bummed a couple of days ago to hear that my old friends in Cursed were robbed while on the tail end of their European tour and have lost basically everything as a result – including their will to continue as a band.

Sad news, indeed, but at this point the only concern should really be helping the boys get home and get back on their feet so for those interested in helping out; Dave, who plays in one of Chris’ other bands (Burning Lovers) has set up a Paypal account to help out the band – click the link below, even a couple of bucks will help.

Cursed Benefit Fund

I popped by Curbside before heading off to meet up with the boys for the DSR Group Ride (raindate, again!) and was pleasantly surprised to see my boy Dexter Chad and his incredible old Merckx road bike. This brother must have horseshoes hidden somewhere because he seems to end up with the sweetest rides for very little scrilla – I can’t wait to see the Curt Harnett hour record track bike that he might as well have been paid to take!

“Seriously, this guy rode the Paris-Roubaix with his own face on the bike! Ha!”

The ride itself was nice – pretty small (far preferable for me) and pretty short (could have dealt with a little longer) but a great time none the less. If anyone in the city can think of a pretty central location for Sprints (think 300m or so of straight, smooth asphalt) please let me know because we lost our spot last week after a small altercation with the Ontario Place security guards – hopefully there will be something lined up for next week so that we can, once again, go straight… fast.

A little under a year ago I saw the first screen capture from the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are which looked amazing, which isn’t at all surprising given that it was being directed by Spike Jonze. It was slated for a May 2008 release which would mean that right now I could be watching one of my favorite stories on the big screen but apparently the kindergarten babies at Warner Brothers think that it’s “too scary” and “too dark” for kids so they’ve held it off until sometime next year pending re-shoots – amidst rumors of Jonze being pulled out of the director’s chair entirely.

Apparently these dickheads have never seen The Dark Crystal or Labrynth – terrifying for the kids it was intended for yet some of the most beloved films of our generation. We grew up on that stuff and just look how we turned out!

On second thought…

Tonight on the way home from poker night Aner BSOD #1 saw some sketchy trying to sell an obviously stolen, fairly high end black track bike for $30 on the street.
Being a man of the people, Aner liberated the bike from it’s captor (didn’t pay the scumbag, either) and currently has it in his possession.

If you recently had one stolen get in touch with Andrew or I and give a detailed description – if the bike is yours, it’ll be returned to you.

Edit: In case you hadn’t been reading the comments – the bike’s owner (Matt) was found the same night and had his black beauty returned to his stable.

I think anyone who was there last night will attest to the fact that I am pretty well unbeatable at the game of poker. Well, that’s pretty much true for anything in life but it’s especially true when it comes to poker – Daniel Negreanu and the likes better duck down! BLAOW!

Thanks to Jordan for hosting.

On an unrelated note: Notice anything different about the convenience stores this week?

Yesterday I made my way out to the island with the CWMC crew to run the final test race before the world’s hit Toronto in June. I felt like a huge idiot because it had to be explained to me a few times before I really understood how the manifest / pickup / dropoff system works I think it’ll be straight forward for the folks that this race has been designed for and the feedback from the folks that ran the course has been overwhelmingly positive. I think the couple thousand messengers that will converge on Toronto later this summer are going to be in for a real treat.

One of the nicest surprises of the day was getting to hang out with my new bud Trout!

Potholes have tried and failed. Streetcar tracks have tried and failed but together they teamed up and nearly brought me down! Fortunately my catlike reflexes kept me from hitting the concrete but even them couldn’t spare me from some little bumps, bruises and scrapes – nor could they spare me the embarrassment of crab walking my bike at the front of a 10 car line-up. What are ya gonna do? Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

I managed to go through 2 weeks in Europe without a single flat; given all the cobblestone and sketchy road conditions we encountered I consider myself to have been pretty damn lucky. Last night while changing my tires over to my usual wheels I realized just how lucky I was; I found a 5mm finishing nail (or perhaps a piece of a staple?) stuck in my tire – identical to the one that deflated Robbie’s tire in Florence. I’ve always sworn by Tuffys and supported their use but this one is pretty surprising. Cop dem Tuffys, kids!

I guess it is possible to snap a seatpost collar by over tightening – what’s surprising is that it did no damage to the frame or the seat post but the collar completely exploded. I’ve broken bolts before but never the collar itself. I managed to get one of the spares I had to fit (2 of 3 had a 1mm variance that held the post vertically but I found myself sitting on a spinning saddle) but found that the sidewalls are stressed in the exact same spot as the one that broke so I’m not giving it much time before it finally goes on me – any suggestions for a good 27.2 seatpost collar?

After being rained out 2 weeks in a row the first in the Devil Strip Rollers’ “Go Straight Fast” series of the season went off last night without a hitch!

It’ll be back next week on its regular night, Wednesday, so if you’ve got the need for speed and / or have beef come on out – call someone out and tear it up!

Despite the sucky weather; last night marked the first game, and subsequently the first win, for the Missfits Women’s Softball team at Trinity Bellwoods park. They crushed a team of Gina’s who were too busy whining on the bench to pull out the W over our gals. There are stands at the field so if you’re in the area on Wednesday nights feel free to come by and show some support. 3 up, 3 down! Use those peepers, Missfits!