A few weekends ago I was in Toronto for a family visit, and to help crazybikerchick complete her homebuilt trailer (based on the design details at my website). I'll get to the bike photos in a moment, but first...

I had heard of the new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, but had not yet seen it. It's interesting, at the very least:



Walking down Yonge St., and a larger-than-life Freddie Mercury at the Canon Theatre (formerly Pantages, where Phantom of the Opera reigned for many years after the theatre's renovation):


Walking along Queen St. East on the bridge over the Don Valley River and Parkway. The sign says "weaving traffic be aware of cyclists". What? Cyclists are not allowed on either the DVP or the connecting Gardiner Expressway. Does it mean motorcyclists?


Saturday afternoon cycling around, and came upon a neighbourhood bike store. Here's the sidewalk sign:

With a cool CCM tandem in the window:
On to Urbane Cycles to help the bikerchick look at folding bikes and bents. The Bacchetta Giro was very nice:

But this was my fave, the Bacchetta LWB:
I really liked how this bike felt. If I wanted to buy a new bent I think this would be the one. We also tried the RANS V2 Formula 26 (not pictured), and that was also a nice ride. I think it would be great for long tours, but perhaps not so nimble in urban traffic (where I spend the vast majority of my time) compared to the Bacchetta.

Finally got to see a Bakfiets cargo bike in real life:


And lastly, Carey Chen, one of the owners / mechanics of this co-operatively run store. Some of Carey's hot rod Raleigh Twentys are featured on my folding bike webpage.

Oh, and after mentioning the trailer, I should mention that I've sent Tanya my photos and she should be blogging its build soon.

UPDATE: I've been reminded that I did not mention my transportation while in T.O. I used both of Tanya's old folding bikes, one being an Auto-Mini and the other a Raleigh Twenty. The Twenty is better built, but is heavier and has some drivetrain friction. The 'Mini seems a bit quicker, and is also geared lower. I used it on Friday to visit people downtown, then got a lift to my older brother's place for dinner, then rode it back to Tanya's. And yes (as T. mentioned in the comments) flying down the Bayview extension hill along the way. Well, perhaps not flying, but going as fast as I dared on an elderly folding bike that is too small for me, and whose mechanicals were a tad suspect. Funny how I've done up to 80 kph downhill on my recumbent, but 30 kph on the old folder had me putting the brakes on...

Fall ride

My friend Andrea and I have been lucky to be able to do so many rides together this year. We meet every Friday if we can, and find somewhere to go (or just meet and chat if it's raining). In early October we did a loop from her place near the Champlain Bridge, up into Gatineau Park to see the changing colours, then across and along the path beside the Gatineau River.

Close to Lac Leamy we found that the path had crumbled or washed out, and a temporary bridge was in place. It was quite interesting, because it exposed a large culvert through which a small stream passed. This stream did not run outside of the culvert, so I'm not sure what caused the earth to collapse.









We them made our way to Lac Leamy, and since it was such a beautiful day (27C on Oct. 5th!) we did our usual beach stop. A. decided that the water was OK, and after taking photos I too went in, though it was cool enough to keep us to below the knee...

Squirrels

It's the time of the year when these furry rats / cute little suckers run around collecting food, so why not two silly photos? Good thing the second one isn't real... :P

Blogger is being dopey

Blogger's photo uploading feature has been buggy for the past few weeks, and they keep saying it's fixed then it breaks again (this is rather amazing for a billion dollar company). So until they resolve the issue the current workaround is to upload photos to Picasa, and then manually put the HTML links in the posting. This is more time consuming, so it'll take me a bit to get caught up...

The Cost of the Iraq War

Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" (on which the movie is based) and others, sums it all up quite succinctly at the Huffington Post.

Follow-up to Bikes to Africa

I've put up a small photo essay at the re-Cycles site, and Bicycles for Humanity also have photos of the collection day fun at their website.

Fun with the IJO

First up, some photos from the Impressions in Jazz Orchestra's Big Band gig in September with the Swing Dynamite gang. Everyone had a great time, and the dancers got pretty crazy with the power of a live Big Band booting them along!




Next up, the October 2nd gig featuring the music of Gil Evans. There was a lot of music to read! Some of my charts were five pages long for one tune, which made for some interesting logistics, especially as many of the tunes segued from one to another. I had to use two music stands (photos taken during afternoon dress rehearsal):

Bassist Gert had the same problem, and the same solution:

I had to move my left-side cymbal over to make room:

Last, IJO photographer Brett Delmage sent me this interesting shot he took of me:

Update to the battery pack upgrade

Back in May I upgraded the trike's electric assist battery pack to 48 volts from 36V.
This has made a nice difference in the effectiveness of the assist motor, but the one drawback has been how the pack sits in the trike. Juergen and I had quickly installed the pack in the nearest handy container, an old metal toolbox. This meant that the box had to be put in the cargo box of the trike, opened up, and the cable plugged in. It also meant that the pack had to come with me whenever I left the trike unattended for any length of time, since a loose toolbox just kind of says "steal me".

Here's the bare pack:

So I needed a better arrangement, and that was for a sealed box that could stay with the trike. The easiest and most out of the way place to put it would have been along the front end of the cargo box, but since the pack is kind of heavy I wanted it by the right rear wheel, to balance out the weight of the assist motor built into the left rear wheel (the trike when empty can lift a rear wheel on sharp turns, so now both rear wheels have some weight and this no longer happens). So while aesthetically this isn't the best spot it certainly works from a practical point.

My choice of material for the box was corrugated plastic, aka coroplast. If one has to use petroleum for anything then coroplast and duct tape gets my vote! ;) And both worked well for this application:

After cutting and assembling two holes were drilled through the bottom of the box as well as the cargo box floor and bolted in place:

Then, after the pack was fitted inside, I drilled two more holes, one for the power cable, and one for the recharge cable. They came out underneath like this (the small black box is the controller):

Juergen gave me a handy key-operated on/off switch that I wired into the end of the box. This disconnects the pack from the controller while in recharge mode, and to also prevent any minor power drain while parked:

Now that I was no longer taking the battery pack inside to charge it, I had to add an extension to the charger's cable out to the trikeport (the charger can still be removed from where it sits and brought with me if I'm on a longer trip and have to recharge before coming home). So one length of cable comes out into the trikeport and ends in a plug, and that gets plugged into the jack of another cable that I clamped under the seat and ran back under the cargo box to connect with the pack:

Note in the bottom of the photo the bottle for the recently installed Air Zound horn. It's a nice loud beastie that rattles me a bit any time I use it, but it's far more useful in traffic than the squeeze horn it replaced. Here's its business end:

And as is often the case with my projects, Jett supervises:He also thinks the empty trikeport is a good spot to hang out.

another trailer!

Yet more mail on a trailer built using my website info. And this one made it to Burning Man!

Mark-

Here is a shot of the completed cart on the playa at Burning Man this year. The sculpture behind me was called "Crude Awakening" and the figures all worshipped a 90' tall oil derrick that went up in flames on Saturday night. We gave away a lot of noodles this year here at Crude Awakening and at the temple, both just after sunrise, to a lot of hungry folks. My girlfriend made the stock for the soup and I did most of the hardware. We had a propane tank in the cart along with our cooler and dishes and the 2-burner stove sat on top of the cart. We detached the bike during serving and blocked the corners of the cart for a stable serving/cooking platform. It all went really well and we'll probably do it again next year! Thanks again for the blueprints- they worked out great!
-Jon

Folding bike page update

I received another email from someone with an Auto-Mini folding bike, and he has done some nice work on it. My webpage on folders was for a long time the only page that had any info on the 'Mini, and I keep adding to it as photos come in. Check out this newest addition here.

Bikes to Africa

The re-Cycles Co-op is donating bikes and parts to an initiative called Bicycles For Humanity. We have about 40 or so bikes ready for them, and boxes of parts and a 6 foot stack of knobby mountain bike tires (which are kind of useless on our paved roads, but perfect for African rural areas). The big pick-up day is tomorrow, Saturday the 29th. Check the specific BfH page for details.

CBC TV interviewed me at the shop yesterday, and it should air this evening. They also have an article on their website.

Gig alert

Next Tuesday the IJO takes on its biggest challenge to date.

We will be playing the music of Gil Evans, the famous Canadian composer who created some classic albums with Miles Davis (among others). We will be recreating both "Sketches of Spain" and "Miles Ahead", both of which have never been performed in Canada (and rarely elsewhere), mainly due to the complexity of the music, plus the cost of the large group needed! The regular IJO big band orchestra will be enhanced by two French horns and one tuba from the NAC Orchestra, plus bassoon and oboe from the Ottawa Symphony (I think a harp might even show up).

This is a huge challenge for us, because the music was never meant to be played live. The classic recordings were done in multiple takes, with the best ones stitched together in the studio (there were even some splices mid-take). We have to do it all in one pass!

If you like this music this may be your only chance to ever hear it played live. Trumpeter Lina Allemano from Toronto will be our guest for this show.

Details at: http://www.impressionsinjazz.ca/CP-021007.html

More trailers! (aka fan mail)

I've received another email from someone that built a trailer based on mine. Here's his email:

"hi there,

I came across your website when I was looking for trailer plans, and I found your instructions helpful for creating the trailer i just completed. I wanted to email you a picture of my trailer (it is made specifically to carry a small boat that I just built.)

also, someone gave me a burley trailer hitch, but it seems ridiculously easy to rip off the design (just a piece of 1 inch angle iron and 1 1/2 inch angle iron welded together). I am going to try using this setup with the rubber hose as the flexible member, but if that doesn't work, burley sells a replacement rigid rubber piece that fits perfectly (for $5).

thanks again for the plans,

v"

He also included a link to his boat page, and photos were attached:

Out and about

I like exploring my environs, and the bicycle is the perfect machine for that. I'll try and post about some of my fave places as I go along...

My friend Andrea and I have been going on bike rides together for many years (I'm lucky that her partner doesn't cycle, so his loss is my gain. hehe). It's a time for us to chat and get caught up, so we are never in a hurry and just sort of tootle along. One route that we like to take is the bike path along the Ottawa River on the Quebec side. This path starts at the end of the Booth St. (Chaudiere) Bridge and ends some where past the Alymer Marina. It's a nice route that is mainly covered by trees and so quite nice on a hot day, and it never seems too busy, though we do avoid going on a weekend (since we are both self-employed we can usually find a weekday afternoon for these jaunts).

Our usual destination is the beach at Parc Des Cedres near the marina, but halfway there is another fave spot. There's a bend in the river here where it widens to become Lac Deschenes (directly across from Brittania on the Ottawa side). And the river makes a bit of a drop, and there's also a small island that creates a channel and the water really rushes through between there and the mainland. And at the end of this channel are the ruins of an old hydro generating station. The interpretive plaque says something about it being built around 1900 and dismantled only 50 years later. Someone mentioned to me that this may have been after a large control dam was built upriver, which thus lowered the water level here a bit too much.

All that remains are some concrete walls that are gradually being worn down by the wave action. It's still rather impressive, if only due to the amount of turbulence in the water. The photos below were taken from a smaller island that creates yet another channel that we were able to cross due to low water levels at this time of year. And while it was early Sept. it was 31C that day, so perfect for playing in the water. And with the low water in that second narrow channel a small pool is created that one can soak in quite nicely.

(Check out this blog page for photos of what the place looks like during high water.)

Here's a Google satellite shot (obviously taken in the Fall due to lack of greenery):

Gig alert - "Swing Explosion Gala"

This coming Saturday (Sept. 15) the Impressions in Jazz Orchestra and Swing Dynamite will be teaming up for a fun evening of music and dancing with "The Biggest Swing Dance Party of the Year". You get dance lessons, music and live band, and also a jitterbug contest. Details at both the IJO and Swing Explosion sites.

bike co-op break-in

Well, it took 8 years, but we finally had a break-in at the re-Cycles Bicycle Co-op. Some time last week between the Wednesday and Thursday shift someone got into our shop. They did not pick the lock or kick the door in, but simply punched their way through the drywall right beside the door, and reached around and undid the latch. They then found our cashbox and made off with it. The bikes and tools were left alone, since I guess none of that stuff would fetch very much money, and cash is, well, cash! To add a weird twist, when the volunteer mechanic showed up and discovered the break-in he noticed that the thief had taken our plastic sign off the door and used it to cover the hole! The Police were called, and the sign was taken for fingerprinting, and the officer said they would be investigating.

Fortunately we only lost around $150, so not a huge loss. But still, to think that someone would rob a community non-profit operation is appalling, and we're certainly hoping it wasn't someone who had been in our shop before. Yes, I know that even churches get ripped off, but I still think it takes a low form of life to steal from those that have given a lot to their community (remember that re-Cycles has been run for all these years by volunteers).

But we will not let ourselves get paranoid. The punched-out wall is being reinforced so that method of entry will no longer work, and we will now be emptying our cashbox after each shift. An alarm system and security camera are being considered as well.

Protest

I've taken part in quite a few protests in my time. And for these events I usually bring a drum along, and with other musicians get a beat going so people can dance and move and blow off some of the anxiety and stress that can be associated with public demonstrations. If there is a police barricade being approached I've never condoned the provocative or confrontational methods used by some like the Black Bloc, as I feel non-violent action is the only sane solution.

But one can get a bit frustrated when one watches what the police can get up to. Over the years I'd heard reports of them using "agent provocateur" tactics, and at the recent SPP protests in Montebello it looks like they did just that. Watch this video, and see a union president call them out on it. Brilliant stuff... (and thanks to HPVOoOer jlam for the link.)

UPDATE: And not too long after I posted this the CBC reported it on their Ottawa webpage.

UPDATE #2: As of midnight the updated CBC story shows a photo where one can see that the footwear of these bogus protesters matches those of the cops dealing with them.

UPDATE to the updated update! The CBC now reports that "Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest". And my, but what an absolutely bullsh*t spin the police put on it...

Fire

My previous neighourhood here in Ottawa was Chinatown, which is on the west side of Bronson Ave. (I'm now a few blocks east of there). That area unfortunately has seen more than its fair share of fires over the years, and this past week saw three of them. Fortunately, no loss of human life reported in any of these, though I don't know the status of any pets.

The first one was last Sunday. As the weekly HPVOoO dinner was ending and we were all coming out onto the street we noticed fire coming from a dumpster behind the pizza shop at Somerset and Bronson. Fire trucks were already on their way, and things were quickly dealt with.

Then on Monday night, a derelict house caught fire a block from there. From the Ottawa Citizen: "A fire that tore through a two story duplex at 164 Cambridge at 9 p.m. Monday night is still under investigation. The fire started in an abandoned structure that was home to vagrants, said district chief Monty Malloy. The fire was under control just before 10 p.m. No one was hurt during the blaze, but the structure was totally destroyed, with damage estimated at $100,000.".

And then in the wee hours of Thursday morning the buildings at the NW corner of Somerset and Booth were ablaze in what seems to so far be the worst fire of the year, and arson is suspected. "A total of 30 apartments in the century-old buildings and five street-level businesses, including a pizzeria, pool hall and Asian and Caribbean grocery stores, were destroyed."

You can read CBC articles on this fire here and here.

I went and had a look yesterday afternoon and took some photos, as demolition was taking place and firefighters continued to hose down the remains. It was a sad sight...

From the southeast corner of Somerset and Booth.

On Somerset looking northeast, halfway between Booth and Rochester.

Booth St. just north of Somerset looking west.

Booth St. just north of Somerset, looking west behind the row of buildings

UPDATE: Lots more photos at the Ottawa Firefighters website.