vic.gedris.org Never mind the blogs, here's the website.

Everyone knows the Pacific Coast stereotype; its a cyclists dream-land where cities make decisions with cyclists in mind and it never snows. With this in mind, Giacomo of the Monday Morning Special Blend on CKCU FM talks with Jonathan Maus, editor of (roughly) our equivalent website in Portland Org. It is worth watching to see how a city similar to Ottawa in size deals with issues such as cycling.

Here the interview and watch the video here.

It is city budget time in Ottawa: an annual event where everything is seemingly threatened with cuts, fistfights erupt in coffee shops over whether individual taxpayers should pay 11 bucks a household to fund arts programs, and no one is entirely clear what will be offered next year until the damn thing is actually passed. It is pretty incovenient for residents, but I can only imagine how trying it must be for the city staff and individual groups who don’t know if they will be employed or exist next year.

This blog, ofcourse, is paying particular attention to the budgets cycling commitments. I’m still working through the budget, but Citizens for Safe Cycling has prepared a useful breakdown of the budgets cycling commitments (PDF). The focus is, ofcourse, the Ottawa Cycling Plan. To implement it in 5 years as the city has committed would mean a commitment of around $5 million from the city this year;there is actually about $700,000. As we said at the time, the real test of commitment will be how much funding they are willing to designate.

Ride along the Ottawa River

Check out Spacing Toronto’s time lapse video of the pedestrian scramble crossing at Yonge & Dundas (which I wrote about previously):

[Scramble from Sam Javanrouh on Vimeo.]

Elsewhere in Toronto, John Barber writes in the Globe about a bike lane battle where a city councillor says a lane would be bad for ward, but his constituents’ submissions say otherwise. Apparently Toronto “has declared ‘war on the car’.” We could only hope.

Streetsblog reports that New York City has seen an incredible 35% increase in cycling between 2007 and 2008. A response to rising gas prices? To increased commuting times in a congest city? Pure bike fever? I don’t know, but that is an impressive stat. Let’s hope Canadian cities are seeing similar surges in cycling popularity.

As a side note, this blog is now one year old. Thanks for reading, and keep the comments coming!

Citizens for Safe Cycling will be holding its Annual General Meeting this Thursday at the McNabb Community Centre. There’s a social event at 6PM; the meeting itself starts at 7PM, where they will elect a number of board positions. You have to be a CfSC member to vote or stand for election. Full details here (PDF).

CfSC does a tremendous amount of work, so if you are around you should check it out. I think that I’ll make an appearance, if only because McNabb is essentially next to my house.

I was catching up on some RSS feeds and discovered that MEC is apparently going to start selling bikes in the near future. This is good news, not so much that I am in need of a new bicycle, but because I think it is a natural fit for MEC, who usually do a really good job at balancing sustainability/ethical concerns with those of price. Decat, which is a french sports chain which seems roughly equivalent to MEC (but I presume is for profit), sells bicycles and you can see them pretty much everywhere.

But this paragraph really frustrated me:

MEC is launching bikes stores and a full bike line soon. This is controversial not because of the manner in which the bikes are made but rather in how MEC’s service and pricing model may potentially undercut local dealers.

This speaks to my usual frustration with the Ethical Sourcing blog, which too often seems too nice for its own good. MEC should not apologizing for offering a superior service at a better price, especially if all it proves is that you can do the right thing and still keep prices low.

Besides, while MEC will undoubtedly steal sales in midrange bikes from some smaller stores, I suspect that if people need to buy something more elaborate, they will still go to a traditional bikeshop. Where MEC has the real potential of stealing sales is from the Wal-Mart’s and Canadian Tire’s of the world: places which sell lots of bikes, usually of dismal quality, for not too much money. The challenge for the co-op will be to compete with them, overcoming their advertising and brand advantages, matching or  beating the chains on price and beating them in service and product.

Part two of this two-part post on why Belgium does it better has to do with bike paths.  Or, rather, what we in Canada call bike paths.  In Belgium it’s more like a expansive network of exclusive bike roads linking all of the Flemish-speaking region.

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I took off from Brussels for a two day bike trip through part of the Flemish region, taking the train back to Brussels on Sunday evening.  I had heard that bike touring was good in Belgium, but coming from some experience bike touring in Canada, I assumed that this meant that there were plenty of country roads and generally polite drivers.

But, no, that’s only the beginning.  In fact, in the Flemish region, there is a huge network of bike-exclusive roads, which you navigate by going from one numbered checkpoint to another.  Actually, to be clear, the routes alternate between bike-exclusive paths and shared use as a minor road, which hardly differed from the bike-exclusive paths.  The entire network is in a fantastic state of maintenance, and extremely well sign-posted.

I’ll give a brief photo journey of the trip.  Coming out of Brussels, we went through the Foret de la Soigne, just outside the Brussels city centre, which boasts great scenery and a comprehensive set of trails for walking, running and cycling.  It suffered a little bit on the sign-posting front, but made up for it in beauty.

From there, we connected onto the Flemish network, which largely passed through the country-side.  There, we probably saw more apple orchards in harvest than cars.

So, why is it possible for Belgium to maintain this system over Canada?  There’s no doubt that it benefits from the proximity of one town to another.  However, there are certainly areas of Canada that have the same layout, and we don’t see a similar system.

More importantly, it benefits from the culture in Belgium.  People bike here.  They bike to work (although that is somewhat less the case in Brussels itself given how crowded the city is with cars).  They bike for recreation.  They bike to get groceries.  They bike as families, as couples or alone.  On Sunday morning, we saw at least a dozen bike teams, in matching jerseys, biking around the Flemish region.  Some appeared to be quite competitive, others didn’t.

There simply isn’t the same barrier here to bicycling as a mode of transport.  It’s done recreationally on a much wider scale than in Canada, but bicycles are also used for practical purposes on a routine basis, which probably in turn fosters their recreational use.

It’s this culture of bicycling in Belgium that allows them to sustain such an impressive system of bike routes.  It’s this culture that explains why Belgium does it so much better.

This will be part one of my two-part post on why Belgium does it better.  As a quick backgrounder, I’m spending 5 months in Brussels on exchange from my studies at the University of Ottawa.  This post is about Car Free Day, and really it’s not just Belgium that does this better, it’s most of Europe.

While in Canada, Car Free Day amounts to little more than an appeal to voluntarily use another method of transportation or the closing of a few blocks for a form of street fair, in Brussels, they shut down the entire urban centre, amounting to 160 km2.  Granted, this was done on a Sunday, so they weren’t quite willing to impede regular commuting traffic.  However, in a city of over 1 million residents, with an ordinarily crowded, bustling centre (to a degree that isn’t even comparable to Ottawa), this was still a very big undertaking.

The effect was nothing short of dramatic.  Immediately below, I’ve got a split-screen photo of General Jacques, a major commuting road near my apartment.  On the left is a photo of General Jacques that I took yesterday afternoon at about 4pm, at the beginning of the commuter rush.  On the right is a photo of the street on Car Free Day.

Car Free Day in Brussels was incredible no because of what there was, but because of what there wasn’t: unpleasant smells, offensive noises and a general feeling of unease from the overwhelming domination of cars in our cities.  This last one I don’t even notice on a day to day basis, but it’s absence was palpable.  For that matter, I don’t notice many of the effects of cars on a given day of walking around the city, but when they were gone, there was an almost eerie calm, despite the fact that you were surrounded by dozens or hundreds of people.

Simply put, Brussels without cars was a much nicer, healthier and safer place to be.  Experiencing that was both inspiring and depressing, a sentiment which I’m sure I was sharing with thousands of other people in the city that day.

I’ll finish this post simply by showing a few more photos of the city.  All of the photos below were taken on major streets in Brussels, which are usually crowded with cars.

Wired, as part of its ongoing “how-to” wikis, looks at playing bike polo. We’ve previously talked about bike-polo in Ottawa.

I particularly enjoy the hipster/non-hipster gear requirements.

A teenage cyclist in Ottawa’s west end is seriously injured after being hit by a cab. There isn’t really much more to say other than hopefully the injuries aren’t permanent and that she recoveres quickly.

What I do find interesting is that the focus of the entire article is on the fact that she was’t wearing a helmet. Should she have been? Certainly however that doesn’t discount all other details in the story. The injuries to her leg and hip would have happened regardless. Also nothing about the accident is recorded, was the cab speeding, did (s)he run a red light and so on.

It seems to me to be a temptation to simply blame the cyclist for a lack of judgement and end the story at that.

I can’t find a source, but I recall reading predictions from early in the summer of an increase in bicycle accidents due to high oil prices increasing ridership. That seemed plausible enough, but a study from the University of New South Wales concludes that the opposite is true:

“It’s a virtuous cycle,” says Dr Julie Hatfield. “The likelihood that an individual cyclist will be struck by a motorist falls with increasing rate of bicycling in a community. And the safer cycling is perceived to be, the more people are prepared to cycle.”

The researchers say studies in several countries have shown the incidence of motorists colliding with cyclists or pedestrians actually declines as more people ride or walk. The reason, they say, is simple — the more cyclists motorists see, the more aware they are of cyclists in general and more safely they drive. Rising cycling rates mean motorists are more likely to be cyclists, and therefore be more conscious of, and sympathetic towards, cyclists.

The findings run counter to conventional thinking, which holds that more cyclists means more chances for collisions. While the numbers do increase in absolute terms, a city that doubles its cycling numbers can expect a one-third drop in the per-cyclist frequency of a crash.

Those original predictions still fit with these conclusions, of course, since they were referring to absolute accident numbers, but it’s very encouraging to know that any individual cyclist’s odds of collision go down as ridership goes up.

I’m sure that this will be the first in a series.

The Citizen has a story today highlighting the results of contract arbitration between the city and the firefighters union. I won’t comment on the merits of it because I don’t really have any point of comparison as to whether or not it is reasonable (nor do I think that is really an relevant issue within the contexts of this site), but do think that it is worth pointing out that the $5 million annual cost of the “recognition” awards roughly corresponds to the annual implementation cost of the first stage of the cycling plan.

Now, obviously the introduction of one does not mean the death of another, but this arbitration agreement does mean that the city will be facing an even deeper budget shortfall, and this is one that council is not able to move away from. Moreover, this isn’t likely to be the last unexpected expense as the budget process moves forward (even if it is, hopefully, going to be the largest.) What it reinforces is that the cycling community needs to continue to be on the ball to make sure that the cycling plan remains fully funded in the budget process - remember that it is only 1% of the city’s annual capital budget - and that the inevitable distractions don’t hold back its implementation any further.

(I’ve been travelling overseas for the past few weeks, by the way, and do have stories to tell. I’ll start a series of posts on this blog and at mikepowell.ca this weekend.)

I was coasting down the big hill on the north end of Blair Rd. in Ottawa and filming with my new Hero GoPro Helmet cam. I am trying very hard to keep my helmet still so the video isn’t too choppy. I made it up to 70 km/h without even pedaling. I uploaded the video to Youtube so you can have a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I949EOODwc

Lock up your bikes. While this may seem obvious, bike theft in Ottawa is up by 49% so its worth being a little extra vigilant.

Dear _________________,

I was shocked and disappointed to read the article in the Ottawa Citizen where the National Capital Commission (NCC) has arbitrarily banned the use of electric-assisted bicycles on our bike paths.

My wife has not been able to ride a regular bicycle due to a degenerative disk in her back, but I have been an avid cyclist for many years. There were three obstacles that we needed to overcome to get her riding comfortably and safely. The first problem, comfort, was solved by getting her onto a recumbent bike where she has full back support and a gentle reclining position that enables her to sit without too much pain. The second issue is stability, so she now has a recumbent trike that will not tip over easily. The last obstacle was her inability to pedal continuously, so we added an electric-assist hub to her front wheel to allow her to manoeuvre her bike safely and confidently. These three solutions have restored her freedom and independence. She can ride almost painlessly and effortlessly to places she could never see before she got the trike. We have enjoyed the Ottawa River Parkway and the bike paths, both paved and gravel, along the edge of the river. We have enjoyed the Rideau Canal pathways and we have visited the Bytown Museum while we were out riding. On a weekly basis, we attend the Farmer’s Market at Landsdowne and we visit the shops and restaurants in Chinatown, all by bicycle and all by using portions of the NCC bike paths. Clearly, her favourite ride is the gravel path along the river, but with the recent ban, these special moments in her life are now in jeopardy.

Other vehicles, that are much bigger and longer and faster than e-bikes, are still allowed on the NCC bike paths. I also ride a recumbent bicycle, but with no electric assist. My bike is 8 feet long and it is capable of speeds in excess of 60 km/h. Quite often I haul a bike trailer behind my bike to carry items home from our shopping trips. With the trailer, my bike is about 12 feet long, and since I am more of a Clydesdale than a race horse, I’m sure that my set up weighs more than an e-bike, especially when I am carting home a trailer full of groceries from the market. Even when my bike and trailer are fully loaded, I am capable of much more that 20 km/h. I have seen many other vehicles on the bike path like tandem bikes and trikes, and even tandem bikes and tandem trikes with trail-a-bikes in tow, and some even have a child carrying trailer behind that. All of these bikes are allowed on the NCC bike paths even though they outweigh and out-perform the e-bikes that you are banishing from this city’s bike paths.

My wife and I travel well below the recommended speed and we are always courteous to other users of the bike paths. We ring our bells when overtaking pedestrians or slower riders. Everywhere we go, people are always commenting positively on our bikes and some will even ask us to stop so they can check out the trike. Most of them don’t even recognize that the trike has an electric assist option installed. There has never been an unsafe moment for us or anyone else we’ve encountered on the bike path (unlike the roads).

Since October 2006, the Government of Ontario has been conducting a pilot program to evaluate the integration of e-bikes into regular bike traffic. For nearly two years, there was never an issue to tighten the restrictions on e-bikes as far as the bike paths were concerned. Under the pilot program e-bikes are allowed to go anywhere that bicycles can go, including bike paths. The wording on the Ministry of Transport (MTO) website indicates that municipalities can restrict e-bikes on certain roads and sidewalks while also saying that e-bikes are allowed on any trails and paths where bicycles are permitted. This unwarranted ban of e-bikes flies in the face of the MTO E-bike pilot program and hijacks the successful outcome of the pilot. I wish the NCC could revise their position on the e-bike issue until the pilot program has been given enough time to make recommendations according to an unbiased collection of data from all of the stakeholders.

Finally Ontarians have an achievable mode of individual transport that embraces zero-emission vehicles. The promotion of green, sustainable options will pave the way for development of the transportation for the future. This is a great opportunity for the NCC and the capital city of Canada to lead the country toward a new vehicle solution. Current e-bike technology will eventually evolve into e-cars and busses. Please reconsider your decision concerning the exclusion of e-bikes from the bike paths in our great city.

Thanks,
Blackburn Pete

A reply from the NCC on August 18th, 2008 claims the NCC will ‘tolerate’ e-bikes on the NCC bike paths. (more…)

I’m in Halifax for a wedding: look what I found outside of a (closed) bike shop. Why pay 25 cents at a gas station when people give it away for free?

I have been utilizing our cities great rack and roll system to get to and sometimes from work. I have found that it takes me the same time to ride home as it does to rack and roll with two commute bus trips. I am using my converted winter bicycle converted back to commuter with skinny high pressure tires. Well this AM being Canada Day thoughts about riding to work came to fullfillment. I work for a US company and get July 4th off with my Amurcin bros. :-). Any ways on the way to work (uphill all the way), both of my calves cramped on me. At work it was perfectly fine. On the way home about the same distance as the cramps starting in the AM I started cramping. Acutally I could see the calves jumping about. I pulled off the road and massaged the calves to make it the 4 miles home. Now at home legs/calves are good again. Does anyone have any ideas. I tend to drink over 10 glasses of water a day, not sure if I should use some eletrolyte for such a short distance. I also do not add salt to any foods, and have no intake of soft drinks. Anyone answers.

B


Best answer: Thanks SloJoeRecumbo

Your muscles frequently cramp during and after exertion or at rest.

* You have cramps that "lock" and don't release for minutes at a time.

* A cramp recurs several times in a single day.

What Your Symptom Is Telling You

Muscle cramps are an "equal opportunity" pain: They don't discriminate between the star athlete and someone who barely moves. You may be competing in a long-distance bike race, taking leisurely laps in the pool or sleeping soundly in bed. Suddenly, a muscle seizes up and grips you in pain.

A cramp is caused by anything that interferes with the muscle's natural ability to contract and relax. Take a foot spasm, for example. When feet are flexed for propulsion while swimming or when tight bedsheets force your toes downward, the muscle tendons become overstretched and the nerves extending through your foot and into your calf can become hyperexcitable. When this happens, the nerve signals become confused, according to Robert Nirschl, M.D., assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. The result: a painful cramp. "Your muscles may get the message to contract, but not to relax," he explains.

Profuse perspiration can also cause a muscle cramp. Heavy sweating drains your body of important minerals: potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. These minerals, called electrolytes, carry electrical charges to the nerves that control a muscle's impulse to contract and relax. Lack of fluids can upset the delicate balance of electrolytes, causing nerve signals to misfire.

If you've actually injured a muscle from overuse, a cramp may go into a continuous contraction, or spasm. While "cramp" and "spasm" are often used interchangeably, a spasm generally means the muscle fibers have "locked up" to protect the injured muscle.

People who have conditions that interfere with blood circulation or muscle metabolism can experience repeated cramps. These conditions include diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease.

Symptom Relief

Here's how to ease out of the grip of a muscle cramp, no matter what the cause.

Stretch and squeeze. Stretch a cramped leg muscle with one hand and alternately squeeze and release the muscle with the other hand. "This mechanical kneading restores blood flow and generally helps relax the spasm and tightness in seconds," says Dr. Nirschl.

Point your toes back toward your chin. This is a quick way to halt a leg cramp while swimming, according to Harry Daniell, M.D., clinical professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.

Cool it. If stretching doesn't release a cramp and the muscle's in painful spasm, an ice massage will numb the area, according to Irene von Estorff, M.D., assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine at the New York Hospital­Cornell Medical College in New York City. Rub the ice over the cramped muscle for three to five minutes. Make sure to keep the ice moving so you don't harm skin tissue.

Pinch your upper lip. Oddly enough, pinching the area above the upper lip with your finger and thumb can make a leg cramp vanish, according to Dr. Nirschl. He's not sure why this works, but there are two possible reasons: The upper lip may be a pressure point that helps relax the muscle. Or, he says, it simply may be that the pain of the pinch distracts you from the pain of the cramp until it releases on its own.

Quench your thirst pronto. "If you're exerting yourself, dripping with sweat and suddenly feel a cramp in your thigh, take a few swigs of water or whatever fluid is handy," says Robert Wortmann, M.D., chairman of the Department of Medicine at East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville, North Carolina. If you follow swigging with stretching, the cramp should vanish quickly.

Keep on sipping. "To prevent cramping during a sweaty workout, take three or four normal swallows of water every ten minutes," says Owen Anderson, Ph.D., editor of Running Research News.

Pass up the salt. Whatever you do, avoid taking salt tablets or very salty liquids such as soft drinks when you're perspiring. "Salt actually draws fluid out of muscles and into the stomach," says Dr. Nirschl.

Pack a sports drink on a hot day. If you're going to be sweating profusely during a long hike, you may need to replace potassium and other electrolytes that plain water can't provide. "Sipping electrolyte sports drinks such as Gatorade at regular intervals may be a good idea," says Dr. Nirschl. These replacement drinks also contain glucose, which helps electrolytes get absorbed quicker than plain water.

Do wall push-ups before bedtime. "In a study with 44 people, we found that calf-stretching exercises, performed three times per day for a week, helped cure nocturnal leg cramps," says Dr. Daniell. To perform the calf stretch, he says, stand facing a wall about two feet away. Place your hands on the wall and slowly lean forward, keeping your heels in contact with the floor. Hold the position for ten seconds and relax for five seconds. Do this two more times.

Serve yourself a quinine nightcap. "This age-old remedy seems to work for nocturnal leg cramps," says Dr. Daniell. Possibly, quinine make nerves less excitable. In any case, taking quinine and vitamin E tablets (like Q-vel) or 12 ounces of plain tonic water each night probably won't hurt, and it may help. But talk to your doctor first.

After a few close calls riding on the cycling lane side of the painted line I have come to a conclusion that cycling lanes are not the safe areas that folk tend to think that they are. When in the lane you are invisible to the people driving their vehicles and they tend to drift to the line or over it. When you ride a tick on the car lane side of the line most vehicles cross over the centre line. I have noticed that the large truck drivers do not get upset and actually respect my choice. I have no opinion on the segregated bicycle lanes except that in most cases they are actually "MURPS" (multi use RECREATIONAL paths). And as such have dogs chase you, kids running across path make them more dangerous than driving in traffic as traffic. As for the people who use Montreal as an example of safe bicycle lanes, well I was totally suprised that I found my self avoiding the streets that had the segregated cycling lanes. The segregated lanes mean that you have other cyclists/skaters coming at you in a 1.5m wide lane separated from motor vehicle traffic. Most times the separation is a cement curb or plastic poles in the pavement. BTW neither stop the effect of a smaller lane when the car driver opens his door without checking (as there is little chance his door will get hit by a motorized vehicle) and cuts small lane down even more. In conclusion to have a safe ride, BE VISIBLE, BE PREDICTABLE and BEHAVE LIKE TRAFFIC. For an extra measure of comfort add a mirror to the bicycle of choice and make eye contact before doing any manoeuvre.


Bikeboy999