On my most memorable ride this year, a 70 km highway ride up the highest paved mountain pass in Canada, I wore a helmet. On my recent mountain bike trip into the Rockies of southern B.C. , I wore a helmet. But in my last video, in which I rolled through the streets of Calgary’s …
Read more “Most of the time I ride a bike, I wear a helmet. But not always. Here’s why.”
Anyone who rides a bike on a regular basis knows that good storage is essential. From your keys and a pump to a puncture repair kit, there are numerous different bits and pieces you need out on the road. On top of that, there may be times when you have shopping to carry, need a …
For years, I’ve ridden the same winter commuting bike, which I affectionately, but sometimes derisively, refer to as my p.o.s.: a crappy 20-year-old mountain bike whose best days were in the last century. While I do have a soft spot in my heart for this bike, that spot often grows hard. The machine is an …
Read more “My perfect winter bike really exists, and I just bought it”
Why are two icons of the Canadian automobile industry pouring resources into the creation of a electric bicycle being sold around the world? For Frank Stronach and Fred Gingl, two Canadians who powered Magna into one of the world’s strongest auto-parts companies, the answer is simple: The future. In the late 2000s, the pair, through …
Read more “Will this high-tech machine be the e-bike that finally breaks through in North America?”
Examining all the proposed reasons for bike licencing one by one.
By pounding over the hills of San Francisco in a 1968 Ford Mustang GT, a scowling Steve McQueen, in the unfortunately spelled action movie Bullitt, managed to define coolness for a generation of baby boomers, in spite of the corduroy blazer. But those days are long gone. These days, driving a muscle car in that …
Read more “A Gen Xer’s guide to riding a fixed-gear bicycle”
Unlike, say, a hammer or a microwave oven, bicycles work themselves into our consciousness more than most of our tools. Perhaps it’s our reliance on them that builds that connection.
Several years ago, Zak Pashak was in the market for a new bike. Not an expensive carbon-fibre race machine, or a $10,000 status symbol. He just wanted a simple, practical bike that wouldn’t require a lot of maintenance, time or money. But he was quickly turned off by the athletic focus of the bike shops …
Read more “Are our irrational consumer tastes holding us back from more bike-friendly lives?”
Some things about driving a car are difficult. Doing a 180-degree e-brake slide into a parking space, for example. Or that famous kickflip in the James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun, which was so difficult nobody even attempted to replicate it for 40 years. Another thing that’s difficult, apparently, is passing a …
Read more “How to pass a bike in a car without killing anyone (or being a dick)”
The biggest argument in urban cycling of the last 20 years is pretty much settled. So why are we still arguing about it? After last week’s post about the ways Montreal managed to become one of the continent’s most bike-friendly cities, that old saw fired up again. Much of the commentary focused on the perceived shortfalls and benefits of vehicular …
Read more “Vehicular cycling is dead, just don’t bury the body yet”