Cure for the Cold

These pics are from Stranger Than Paradise, which is a great movie and reminds me of Canadian movies from the Seventies. But that's wat it looked like outside today.

But here is how you avoid feeling cold in the winter: Apparently sled dogs love it when it's cold because they can run harder. I learned this from Top Gear, while watching the Arctic special, and they show these dogs that sleep outside in the Arctic night and they're smiling and everything all the time.



I'd been going out almost every night to ride for an hour or so, usually pretty hard. So when we had a few days back in December which were getting pretty cold, like -5 and -10, I went out and rode hard. I left the house and went as hard as a could maintain for the hour or so, -5, -10 whatever, not stopping until I got home. As long as you're generating heat you're okay. If you stop too long, or worse become exhausted -- you're fucked, but an hour isn't a problem for me. Once you've had a couple of those, walking around in -6 is no thang.

Oh, and here's the song the Hungarian girl from "Stranger Than Paradise" kept playing - Screamin' Jay Hawkins. According to Wikipedia he has 55...or 75 children.

Google Calculator

I accidentaly discovered that google has a built in calculator



when searching for info on 2 and 28 mortgages.

Well google has a whole buncha built in features you might not know about :

Google Features

Assbike Tip: Never Ride into a Headwind !

On Sautrday I decided to do a solo ride and headed north on Keele Street to King city and then back. I decided to head north because there was a strong wind from the North, so it was tough going, but when I tured around I flew back into the city (this is better than fighting into the wind when you're tried and want to go home).

But, I realized if you ride a triangular circuit, you never have to head right into the wind.

With a triangular circuit you can ride it so that the wind is at your back on one of the legs. One the other legs you will have at least a partial crosswind.

For example in the pic below (where the wind is from the west) you could ride the circuit clockwise. This would also work if the wind was from the north or from southeast.



This is the same tactic that sailboats use - since a sailboat cannot go into the wind.


This can be kind of hard to do in practice though since most roads run parallel to each other, but one exception is Weston Rd./Albion Rd./Gore Rd. Which I tried out today.

Countdown Stoplights

These countdown stoplights are springing up everywhere in TO, but no one seems to have acknowledged it. I'm not sure how they help the urban assbiker, but it does give you a way to time the yellow.

If anything tho' I think these will fuck more people up, because they will think they can run further into the yelloo than they already do.

But as a bonus you can eyeball across to the countdown on the cross streets and use it to better run through intersections.

Oh here's some pictures from Parkdale, where I happend to be today :








Apparently something called Genghis Tron is playing at Sneaky Dee's on May 5th. It sounds like the name. I would go see them, but I visited the myspace page and it's a bit too juvenile/NIN/trenchcoat-mafia to float my boat. Cool name though.

Douche Chill (with Instructions)

This is "Douche Chill" (It's a 2 second mp3):

Douche Chill(25 kb)

This is how you use "Douche Chill":

You cue up your playlist, then you add "Douche Chill" to it like ten or twelve times and hit shuffle.

As you groove to your tunes, you will get a happy and unexpected douche chill at random intervals.

Party's Over and Assbike Tip #6

Looks like we be in for a shitstorm. (Ontario Radar). If we're lucky we won't be in for a direct hit.

But this be time for another Assbike Tip.

When the snow comes down Toronto salts the fuck out of the streets, with good reason, but this means if you assbike you will get a soaker and show up to wherever you're headed looking like a drowned rat.

The way around this is to notice that sidewalks and small streets as well as the many alleyways don't get salted.



So, it's better to roll over some soft packed snow and avoid the salty slush on the main streets. Watch out for buried ice though.

Assbike Tip #5

Use bridges to avoid hills.


The key to Assbiking is to not look like you just biked across town like a madman when you show up.

If you pick your route well you can avoid some hills and instead of huffing and puffing into your meeting you will stroll in all chill, like you were just next door having a coffee.

Here are two routes from near my place at Bathurst & Dupont to Don Mills & Eglinton.



Route I Details

Route II Details

Route 1 is the more "obvious" route: St. Clair to Mt. Pleasant and along Eglinton. 10.6 km but with a ton of hills along the way. Route 2 is longer at 11.6 km but despite what the elevation profiles from Bikely say the ride is almost dead flat.



Bloor Street, the Viaduct and the Leaside Bridge take you over the valleys, so you can cruise on uptown without breaking a sweat.

Assbike Tip #4

The key to efective assbiking is that you don't stop.

You may not go fast, but you are always, continously, inexorably, working towards your destination.

The messenger's hook keeps you rolling through intersections without putting a foot down.

Sadly (and inevitably) the hole in the Tequila Sunrise Marinoni did turn out to be a structual defect :



Cracks are radiating out from the original hole. I am loving this bike, so I will get it fixed. I'll ride it until the weekend, but I doubt I can keep putting it off any longer.

Reproducing the original colours probably won't be possible (ie. affordable by me), so it will probably end up with a monochrome paintjob.

Assbike Tip #3

It's hard to see your damn watch when it's under your coat and everything. Get a sweatband sportwatch, it goes right over your jacket mofo !

Assbike Tip #2

Combine Assbiking with Transit

I always try to have a TTC ticket in my wallet because you never know when your assbiking plans will be derailed by flat, or rain (if assbiking has one enemy it's rain). This way I can hop on the train when it's convenient, but still avoid waiting for a bus or streetcar if I can bike it.

The transit doesn't give a rats about assbikers, but it IS designed to be negotiable by mom's with strollers. Anywhere strollers can go, bikes can go.

Don't lift your bike over the turnstiles or lug it up the stairs like a douche. Every subway stop has a gate you can lift and walk through, and a lot have automatic gates for wheelchairs that you can use as well. Every stop also has an elevator to the platform.

Also some buses have bike racks on the front (like the Bathurst line) which can be handy.

Assbike Tip #1

This kicks off a series of assbikin' tips as I think of them.

Tip 1. Park Across the Street Sometimes when you're out at a bar or restaurant you figure if you park your assbike out front you can keep an eye on it.

Often it's easier to keep an eye on your bikeif you park it across the street, because from where you're might be sitting you usually have a wider view of the opposite side than you do of the side of the street you're actually on.

Especially, if the windows are a bit higher.