my new relationship...

…with my bike, Windy!
A while ago I wrote about how buying a bike reminded me of falling in love. I’ve spent some quality time with Windy now, and she’s not perfect, but she’s been a good pal.
I had a little trouble with some of the Simcoe‘s features. For a very scary month it even seemed there could be  intermittent problems with clicking and skipping in the Shimano Nexus gear hub. Intermittent problems are the worst kind of problems because they never occur when at the mechanic’s. But since the first of two free tune-ups, included in the purchase, recommended a month into ownership and again after the first year, the trouble seems to have cleared.

So, let’s get all the unpleasantness out of the way first. The paint “powder-coated for extra rust resistance”gets a lot of mention in curbside ‘s write ups about this brand, but mine hasn’t fared too well at all. My almond milk coloured paint job has a lot of little nicks and chips around the body from where the u-bar lands  every time I park, even though it was designed to be “locked up next to metal poles all day”. For some reason these marks don’t bother me at all. They don’t threaten the bike’s structural safety. They give it that well-used, well-loved, hard-knock life feel I can identify with. And the rust matches the colour of the decals and script on the body exactly!
The kickstand is thin and wobbly, and after a bit of wiggling and twisting, it still doesn’t get into a position where it’s of any actual use without careful balancing, at least not with a basket on the front, because it doesn’t keep the bike upright enough. And it seems to be connected to the fender in a way that makes it difficult to replace with a different kind of kickstand.
This 3-speed doesn’t come with a luggage rack, and the seat is too hard and pretty cheap;  you can see the staples from underneath.

I’ve made a few adjustments to make Windy more comfortable and practical. I changed out to a wider handle bar with a better angle for the wrists, raised it a bit and brought it closer by changing the stem. The cockpit was probably a bit too big for me, even though I’m tall, but it is a really huge bike, which it had to be, if the seat was going to come up high enough.
I would say altogether I’ve spent about 200 dollars on top of the price of the bike, not including the accessories I transferred from my previous bike.
You’re probably wondering why I chose a Simcoe, if it falls so short of filling my needs.
I test-rode a lot of bikes, and most didn’t come close to what Windy offers in the way of ergonomics, durability, quality where it counts, winter-heft, and yes …elegance. I would have had to make expensive adjustments on any bike.
I think the Simcoe ends up being a really amazing vehicle.
I love what we can do together – the way she responds to me now that she fits, the way I can move around and balance on top of her and be prepared for anything,  the way we wiggle around through the snow together.
But she’s a hard ride! Its “lightweight cromoly [sic] tubes” are very unforgiving.
What’s chromoly anyways!  Apparently, it’s a type of steel, but stronger, so less material is needed, hence a chromoly bike weighs less. I guess the strength makes it more rigid. I shudder to think what riding an aluminum bike would feel like.
A little bit now about the  55 dollar seat I bought: Elastomers, are not springs! And Royalgel’s “unique tridimensional gel structure”… “guarantees  the highest level of comfort” for my tender sit bones, but maybe it works better in its native Italy where the temperature rarely drops below 10°C. It does have a useful quick dry surface that’s non slip as well. The slightly sticky top coat can be good and bad, bad when you’re fidgety and you need to adjust your position with a skirt on. I also have to add, that snow and ice get stuck in its little “ass” crack and is very hard to remove from the weird rubbery coating, so I have it wear a shower cap when it’s sleeping. The cap is black and white leopard print. I bought it at Dollarama for a buck 50 and can’t believe no one has appropriated it yet.
I spend a lot of time bouncing around the pre-PanAm construction ridden patchy pavement, hovering just above my seat so my boobs don’t fall off from the relentless impact. I have very strong thighs now.
But the new luggage rack is a beauty! Solid! Came with a reflector attached. I forget the brand. I also love the chain guard. It means I don’t have to tie up my pant leg.
And my favourite part: Those gorgeous grippy hybrid slickers/winter treads. Winter’s almost over now, and there’s not much we can’t do.

after

three speed

My last bike, a ca. 1973 Raleigh Cruiser had three speeds, but only the second gear worked after I owned it about a month. I just stayed in second gear. I did that for almost a year, summer, winter. I stopped missing the other gears. I forgot all about them.
My previous bike had seven. Seven was perfect! The old Miele got me up hills whistling effortlessly, where before I was gasping for air and finally getting off and pushing. Broadview, you know that first hill right before the view of the valley and the city scape on the left, and then that second even steeper hill, no view, and even if there was, you couldn’t enjoy it, you’d be busy pedalling, balancing, and breathing so hard.
I also think the Miele had a broader range than my previous bike – meaning lowest gear was probably a little bit easier than lowest gear on my 5 speed, my previous previous bike. But I found myself changing gears all the time on the Miele. It became a habit, not a necessity. I’d had it fitted with one of those beautiful ergonomic Shamano thumb shifters.
That was seven speeds. It was a luxury. It meant never having to pedal too hard, or too fast.
So then, what’s the deal with 12 speeds? 18, 24, 27 speeds? Do you even need twenty-seven speeds?  Tell me what’s really the difference between 18th and 19th gear? I wanna know!
The real question is, does first gear on a 12 speed get you up a hill easier than on a 7 speed? What city even has a hill steep enough to need what first gear on a 27-speed bike theoretically promises you can easily climb?
So I did a little research. The range between lowest and highest gear can differ from bike to bike no matter how many speeds it has. But what I also learned from reading this article is that with all these speeds you can’t, or shouldn’t even use them all. The cogs can stack up quite wide. If your chain is on the largest sprocket in the back and on the smallest at the crank, it runs diagonally and covers more length from rear wheel to chain wheel. That way you stretch the chain, and wear it out too fast.
The main advantage to having that many speeds, or as many speeds that requires two sets of cogs is that you can choose which side to shift depending on whether you need to skip a few speeds.
Still not sure, how many speeds you actually end up using.

So for a year I made do with only second gear. Now I ride a three speed, a brand new bone coloured Simcoe, named Windy, built for Toronto Winters, with internal gears, nice treads, customized handle bar and stem for the perfect angle, and a new Selle Royal seat, that took me two weeks to get comfortable on. I rarely change gears now, just stay in second most of the time. But every now and then I wish I had something between second and third gear. One speed is fine. Three is somehow not enough.

the killer hole

A tree died on the promenade by the water’s edge. There’s a long row of them about 10 feet apart. They’re each planted in a round hole in the concrete about 4 feet in diametre with a raised concrete lip about 2 inches high. The tree on the end died. It was always in the way, because the path gets narrower there.  The next path is angled in a way that makes it hard to get around the massive bed.
Actually, I don’t remember the tree, but I remember the stump. For months I looked at and navigated around it.
They finally came and took it out, the tree stump, at which point someone probably said, What are we gonna do with this big hole? And someone else probably said, I know! Let’s fill it up with the same colour gravel. It’ll be almost like it’s not really there!
Almost.
At dusk a street lamp casts a shadow of another tree on that exact spot. It really does look like it’s not there. But it’s there.
The way the connecting path is situated it leads exactly through the centre of the invisible hole. The day after they took the stump out of the hole and filled it up with gravel I rode through it. It was also the day after I got my new bike. I felt myself go over the edge, sink down into the gravel like sand, panic, and come out the other side with a big lurch that threw me up off my seat. my feet off my pedals. When I landed back on my seat. My shin hit the pedal, and made a big bruise.
The next day I called 311. What’s the address, the bored woman on the phone said.  We had to determine if the area was city property. I don’t know the address. It’s a park, I said. It’s behind 55 Harbour Square.
We agreed I would navigate her there from the nearest intersection on a map she was looking at. That took at least 10 minutes. From there you go towards the lake, then you turn left, I said. That’s east? Yes, you can’t go west, cause that’s the quay.
I really don’t think she figured out exactly where it is.  And I also really don’t think she understood what the big deal was. I explained it to her a couple of times. Someone is going to get hurt. That took at least 10 more.
She took my name and phone number and email address. I’ll pass it on to my supervisor, and we might get back to you in case we have questions, she said.
That night I saw a fresh tire track trough the gravel pit. The following night I watched a man ride through it, lurch, look back to see WTF. I was going to roll a garbage can into the centre, but they’re all chained down.
It’s been over a week. No one has bothered to mark off the area, paint the edge, stick an orange cone in. There is now more gravel around the pit than in it, There’s a new tire rut in it every time I pass it. It’s still invisible in the dark.
I have some pink spray paint! Maybe I should take care of it myself, but I don’t want to get caught vandalizing city property.
Well, at least I know where that hole is.
After two more weeks of no action and more fresh tracks through the gravel pit almost daily, they finally came and planted a skinny new oak tree.

by the way, windy's not white

Bone, officially, so says the manufacturer, Simcoe. But really that slightly greyish warmish off-white of almond milk.
Or Nougat! Actually.
38 lbs of metal, plastic, leatherette, and disintegrating 40 yr-old padding is my brand new Simcoe. And a red silk rose in her hair.  A red, black and Nougat-coloured Tango queen. Windy.

perspective

The other day I had the joy of placing an ad on Craigslist:
Lost Sun Hat: Last Sunday I went through a pothole on Sherbourne going north towards The Esplanade on my bike, and didn’t notice my hat fall out of my rear basket. You were driving behind me and you honked at me. I get honked at all the time in construction zones, because I often take up the whole lane. I turned around to communicate patience please.

When I got home I realized my mistake. I went back to see if my hat was around. It wasn’t. Did you pick it up?
Good hats are hard to find. And I feel like an asshole. Thank you for honking! Ugh.
(the hat looks almost exactly like this one I found on the internet)

Here is its fictional counterpart. I seriously looked for it the first couple of days:
Sun Hat Found: Dear cyclist. You dropped your hat off the back of your bike. I was driving behind you. You were taking up the whole lane. When you hit that pothole your hat flew out. I tried to tell you and I honked, but you turned around and waved your arm as if to say, cool your car-centric jets!
Now I have your hat!  It’s a nice one.

buying a bike is like falling in love

Really! It’s super emotional. And you kind of take a chance, too.
Riding around the store and around the block is like a first date. Some dating folks don’t call the first date a date. They call it “the obligatory introductory drink”, or “date zero”, and all sorts of other un-date-like things. But I digress!
So, you take some bikes out for a test drive, and you probably know that none of them is likely to be perfect. But you need a bike, just one bike, cause your last one tried to kill you, and you’re going to find one that’s pretty close, and gives you what you need.
Then you try one that’s really beautiful and comfortable, and it’s the right size, and colour and you can afford it. And you buy it, but there’s so much still to find out about it. Stuff you’ll only notice as you spend a little time with it, er, on it.
T​he only difference is, with a bike, if it’s not quite right, you can make it over and it doesn’t take offence. ​And it doesn’t break up with you. In fact you have to count on customizing your bike a little bit.  Even then you can’t have everything.
Especially if you’ve ever had your bike stolen. It’s a bit like being widowed, because what bike will ever measure up to the one that got away!
For example, I was looking for something very much like my old Miele, my beautiful lovely 40’s style two-tone white-walled Miele, that made old ladies and children smile! Upright, so my hands don’t hurt from leaning over, but not all the way upright, which makes it harder to maneuver. Something with winter tires, something low maintenance, with elegant lines, wide handlebars. Then I also wanted internal gears, … And as time passes, how long till I get used to the different shape? Does everything really work right? Is the bike going to live up to its name, to its promise of durability?
OK, never mind. Buying a bike is nothing like falling in love, …except now that I’ve fixed it all up, and it’s standing in my living room, I just can’t stop looking at it.

free bike

Got waved over by a police officer the other day. He was kind of friendly looking, and I reluctantly and dutifully stopped and he said, hi there, would you like to register your bike with the Toronto police? Behind him I saw some people milling about at a table near the entrance of the station on this beautiful late summer day. Makes it easier to keep track of it in case it gets stolen, he said, just takes 5 minutes. We’ll take your name and your serial number….
I don’t have a serial number, I thought.
Last year I bought an old bike. A banged up cornflower blue 1973 Raleigh cruiser. A pretty thing, especially with the purple bell, and the yellow and violet flowers on the baskets. I tried to register it back then, because my previous bike had been stolen, but when I finally found the place where the serial number should be I noticed it had been ground off. There’s probably only one reason someone would grind off a serial number. So my little Dusty has history, I thought. Good for her. In more recent  history, since I’ve owned her, she also lost the use of one of her three gears, and one of her brakes.
But she runs. I should say she ran. That changed later that day. Well, wait, she still runs! It’s the stopping that’s the problem! Or the lack of stopping. And it’s a fluke I didn’t get seriously mangled.
Old rusty Dusty tried to kill me, you see, but timing is everything, and hasty Dusty jumped the gun and missed.
I’ve been looking at new bikes. Dusty wasn’t supposed to be a permanent solution, but what I want is very expensive. I was still contemplating putting some money into Dusty instead, but she would never be what I wanted her to be, so to be honest, I just put off the decision, frankly at the cost of my safety, and I’m a bit embarrassed about it.

I said to the officer, that was a great idea, but that I couldn’t do it right now, and he said I could also do it online, and I said, I’ll definitely do that!
Then I went to visit a friend.
On my way home I was slowing down at the end of my friend’s side street about to turn left, and down a very steep hill, but Dusty’s only working brake snapped inside the handle, and I was entirely brakeless, but coasting to a halt towards the edge of the main road.
I took a moment to consider the fate I’d just escaped. Then I made a decision that today was the first and last time Dusty and I would take the bus, and that tomorrow would be bike shopping day.

Taking the bus was fun. A couple of guys showed up at the bus stop, too. Really interesting characters carrying clear garbage bags full of old stuffed animals. One of them knew how to work the rack on the front of the bus and racked my bike for me. I knew in theory, had watched a video on YouTube, but had never done it. Getting the bike off was easy, but I forgot to flip the rack back up, and the bus driver had to come out, and reprimand me.
The next day I got a ride from a friend to the bike shop, tried out 3 bikes, and fell in love with the most expensive one. The mechanic gave it a little tune up, made sure everything was symmetrical, and tight, and buffed up the warm matte white body with a soft cloth. I said don’t make it too shiny or someone will steal it right from under me – just push me off: I want that! and ride away on my new bike.
At the cash register, the sales guy asked me if I had a good lock, then he told me my receipt had my serial number on it, and the website where I should register my bike with the Toronto police.
I hugged my “driver”, sent him home, and my new friend and I took our first, somewhat shaky, trip together. Everything works! What a treat.
I spent a lot of money, and I’m not quite done spending, but when I think about the money I’ve saved on bus fare in the last 5 years, it’s sort of like I’ve got a free bike!