Rainy-Day Urban Bike Adventure

With the combination of work in the morning, and bad weather forecast for the weekend, I thought sticking close to town would be a good way to spend the weekend. Over the past few weeks I have been messing around trying to fix a flat tire on my old road bike. Fixing a tire really shouldn't be that difficult, but for some reason (well really because the tire is so tight it is tricky to get on and off) it took me a several weeks, multiple attempts, 2 broken tire irons, 1 broken valve, and 2 tubes before I finally was able to fix and replace the tube. The next day the tire was flat again, and I was near giving up on the process. Well I guess I did give up. I found a great used Kona mountain bike with road slicks for sale at the consignment store across from my work for $50, and although it needed a bit of work, it looked like a great all-round bike, and a whole lot more functional than what I am riding,so I picked it up.

So armed with a new-to-me bike, an urban bike adventure seemed appropriate. The first stop was Recyclistas, a DIY bike repair place along the Galloping Goose where you can use their workshop and get bike maintainance advice from gurus. After some fooling around with a rusty spring on the front brake, I was able to get the front brakes functioning again (unfortunately I failed to tighten the nut on the back brakes enough when I adjusted them, so I gained front brakes, and lostmy back ones. A picture is starting to emerge here....I am not a very good bike mechanic!)

Recyclistas. Great place to fix a bike!
The new wheels

After the bike shop, I cruised over to the community garden to check on my plot. The raspberries are in full swing, and I managed to harvest a bunch of them, as well as some blueberries.

The community garden

Can you spot the corn in amongst the weeds?

The fruits of my labour

After the garden I headed down to Selkirk for "The Bike Ride"- a bike-accessed theatre performance festival which takes place along the Lochside Trail. I figured that this would be a fun event, and it lived up to expectations for me. The premise is that groups of about 10 or so cyclists tour around on their bikes to "venues" set up along the trail, and are then treated to short performances ranging from recitals, improv, poetry, and plays. Biking around was definitely a neat way to experience the performances. The shows were mixed. My personal favorites were the "Headless Cyclist of the Lochside Trail" rendition of Ichabod Crane and a dramatic performance of a poem about the fear of rope swings, complete with background accompanyment from a drum, ukulele, acordian, and haunting vocals. I was actually fearing for the actress as she perched in an arbutus tree and looked like she was going to jump onto this flimsy-looking rope-swing. Gripping.

Beat-box pop rendition on a cat-theme

"The Hub". Groups met here and then headed out for a 3-show "tour" of performances via bicycle. Once the tour was finished you could come back for another round. Overall there were 12 different performances over 4 tours.

Group cycling between shows

The Little Mermaid meets CSI. This was definitely an entertaining and amusing show.

Back to the Future-ish

I bumped into Dan and Laura on the last tour of the day. Dan was a favorite for the "let's pick someone out of the audience to participate". The first was for a slightly-awkward tailoring-erotic-fantasy, where unfortunately Dan was unable to satisfy. He made up for it with an arousing piggy-back ride in the next show.

Selkirk Trestle. Work is just on the other side, and this is my daily coffee break walk. Not bad or the city.

Swan Lake Christmas Lake from along the Lochside Trail. This is part of my morning bike commute. The trail is a great asset in the city.