back on the bike at last

things are improving though still cold.

when i'm in shape this is my easy ride - right now it's not. about 70k that takes in the Martin Goodman trail, up Bayview, across on York Mills, down Pharmacy and Vic Park to the Beach, then back on the trail. there are a couple of easy climbs, otherwise flat or rolling.



the start of the Pottery Road climb - a ramp around 12%


the start of the Bayview climb


the climb past Don Mills Rd on York Mills


on the Martin Goodman trail looking West at Ontario Place

The wonders of Toronto - part 1 - the Leslie St Spit

finally we have had some easing of the weather and i've been on the bike now four days in a row, which is probably the most since before christmas.


yesterday i took a ride around the Leslie street spit - a Toronto treasure that is open to cyclists & pedestrians on weekends.






this is the writeup from the friends of the spit website:
"The Leslie Street Spit is North America's most remarkable public urban wilderness. It is a 5-kilometre long peninsula, built by lakefilling, that juts into Lake Ontario close to downtown Toronto. Started 40 years ago, it was intended to be a breakwater for harbour expansion, which was not needed due to a decrease in lake shipping. Now, the Spit - as it is lovingly called by the people of Toronto - has been transformed by nature into an extraordinary wildlife reserve, where humans can find a car-free refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city and enjoy a quiet time amid unmanicured vegetation"

at last - back on the bike

I'm not one to venture out in a snowstorm, and although yesterday was clear after a succession of snowfalls, it was minus 18degC in the morning & I could not get motivated enough to get on the bike. today however was another story - up to a balmy minus 5 and sunny. so, for the first time a several days i was on the bike. the ones i use in winter are my old Miele with added fenders for when it's wet, and a Fuji for when it's dry. the Fuji frameset was a great deal on eBay about a year ago and it's been fitted out with open pro's i built myself and a campy group. in winter i use eggbeater pedals which are great for riding in the city.

Fuji in my hall covered in salty crud.

So i took some more photos on the way in of the trail which runs along the lakeshore. the lake is frozen near the shore, and quite pretty in the sunshine.

i need to learn much more about setting up a page. i'm totally new to this. i'll get better.

snow snow & more snow - i'm officially po'd

here's the Martin Goodman trail in good weather, now its a track between snowbanks.

the good news is that the city has been doing a good job of clearing the martin goodman trail which runs the full length of the old city from Etobicoke to the Beach, except they've only been clearing as far as Parliament street when i tried a ride on Sunday. was planning to ride in today but faced with a heavy snowstorm, decided against it. next time i'll take some pictures.

i've been riding year round since 2002 and this is far & away the worst for me in terms of days off the bike and we havn't even made it half way through yet.

things i did on my holiday (part 1)

so one thing i did was to decide to upgrade Mr Pink with a set of Campy's latest Centaur levers. had the 2007 QS rubbish on. Took the plunge & ordered from Total Cycling. Have seen mixed reviews of their service but the price couldn't be beat - $148 US for the alloys includes a set of 2009 cables. That's less than used centaur levers are going for on ebay without cables. Took 10 days from N Ireland over a period that included the new year break.

Going to put the levers on noticed the clamp nut size changed - tried 4mm hex too big, then 3mm too small, then realized that Campy have changed the nut to a TORX without any indication in the installation manual. And it is not obvious at first glance because one is looking at the nut at an angle. It's always something with Campy. So had to take a trip to my local tool store and had to settle on a straight T25 driver. A ball head would have been better - but not in stock. The rubber hood and the shape create much more of a problem in getting the driver in, and there is no way what is shown in the instructions would work - the hood needs to be pulled back much further.

Would have been nice if Campy had pointed out that a T25 TORX driver is needed for this install. Luckily I did no damage trying to use an allen key.
later found the need for a TORX t25 driver hidden at the last line of the manual in the section on how to remove a lever!

i'd still suggest a ball-end TORX would be better if you can find one.

the instructions say that the derrailleur cables comes with an end installed and to put that end in the lever. well the cables did not have an end installed (yes they are 2009 and say ultra low friction on them), and there is no way the supplied ferrules would fit into the hole in the lever body. so the cable housings have been put directly into the body which is a close fit for them. The drawing in the manual fig 12, does not show the body and cable housing situation correctly, it is the old drawing.

other than that, no installation issues.

the manual says the QS FD is not compatible. i've been using it with non-QS lever without problems, so i've left it on for now.

on appearance, although the levers look big and clunky next to the older 10 speed i took off, the alloy does go very well with the 2007 Centaur group on the bike, better than the original carbon levers in fact.

i'll have to post later on how well they work on the road - when the weather improves a bit.

my first post and i'm snowed in again. what would eddy do? what a great photo - it's fitting that i should start with the greatest cyclist who has ever lived - the one & only Mr Eddy Merckx.

Eddy Merckx is simply the greatest rider of all time. Nicknamed “The Cannibal” for his insatiable appetite for victories, he won virtually every important race, most multiple times.
Born on June 17, 1945, Merckx rode for thirteen seasons, but thoroughly dominated cycling for a full ten years like no one else has before or since. Merckx won the Amateur World Championship Road Race in 1964 then turned pro in 1965.
His first major victory came in the 1966 Milan-San Remo at age 20. His last major victory was in that same race, ten years later. In his peak years, 1969 through 1975, Merckx won an astounding 35% of races entered.
He won the Tour de France five times, the Giro d'Italia five times and the Vuelta a Espana once for a total of eleven Grand Tour victories.
He won each of cycling’s five monuments (Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Tour of Lombardy) more than twice, for a record of nineteen victories in these races.
Of those races, he won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege a record five times and the Milan-San Remo a record seven times. His record of 525 victories, including 445 as a professional, is untouchable.
Between 1968 and 1974, he won a record eleven Grand Tours. He is the only rider to win all of the classifications (overall, mountains and points jerseys) in a single year at the Tour de France (1969) and the Giro d’Italia (1968).
He won the Tour de France - Giro d'Italia double in 1970, 1972, and 1974. He won the Giro d'Italia - Vuelta a Espana double in 1973.
He has 34 Tour de France stage wins (the record) including six stages in 1969 and 1972, and eight stages in 1970 and 1974.
In 1974, he won the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the World Championship Road Race to achieve the “Triple Crown” in cycling. That feat has only been repeated one other time: by Stephen Roche in 1987.