Archive for the 'adventures' category

What I Learned from Buying a Touring Bicycle

May 06 2012 Published by under adventures, author's notes

A few weeks ago, I bought a touring bike. This was not my first experience buying a bicycle, but it was the first time I was shopping for something with a small market (i.e., limited selection) and perceived as slightly atypical for women. I’m not going to lie: it was frustrating.

Here’s what I learned in this process.

The most important thing about buying a bike is being able to articulate what you want to do with it.

When I walked into a store and asked about touring bikes, the most common response was to direct me to a hybrid style bike that’s not quite for touring and not quite for road riding. This would get me a lighter, possibly faster bike more suitable for riding around town, but it might cost me on the durability/repairability side and it isn’t built for carrying several days worth of gear. I don’t blame the sales guys. I expect out here they get a lot of people who think they want to do serious bike tours and limit themselves to touring bikes only to be disappointed by the bulk and relative lack of responsiveness when used for daily riding. But I’d done my research and I knew what I wanted. That said, it took me a while to learn to say “No, thanks, just show me your touring bikes.”

If a bike feels like home, it is home, and you likely won’t gain anything by continuing to look.

I admit it: for part of my search, I got seduced by the prospect of a beautiful bike. I had seen the bike and spoken at length to a very pleasant sales guy about it, but they didn’t have a floor model ready to ride. So in the meantime, I went to another store and tried out their selection of touring bikes. One of them felt like I could ride all day – which should have ended my search. But Store A had the prettier bike and, for roughly the same price, would do a full bike fitting. It seemed like the much wiser route. Only it turned out not to be.

No matter how experienced/knowledgeable the salesperson is, you are the only one who knows how your body feels and you are the only one who can say if a bike fits.

Rivendell Bicycle Works has some amazing articles on buying a touring bike. The best advice I got from the site was to ignore anyone who said that I would need to get used to a bike that felt wrong. If a bike fits, you will know fairly quickly, even if you can feel a few minor adjustments. It is very important to pay attention to this instinct.

I probably knew within about 5 minutes that the geometry of the pretty bike from Store A just didn’t work for my body. In fact, despite numerous adjustments over the course of an hour, I still felt cramped in the saddle, off balance, and generally unhappy. This is the opposite of what you need in a bike you intend (potentially, eventually) to ride for up to 100 km a day for multiple days.

The more disappointing aspect of this experience was the sales guy’s repeated failure to listen to what I cared about in a bike. There was no question that he knows far more about bicycles than I do, but he didn’t know me or the way I like to ride and he took no trouble to find out. In fact, he repeatedly tried to tell me that I did not actually want what I thought I wanted. I can’t say this made me inclined to trust him. Through a whole series of other incidents which take more words to describe than their pettiness warrants, I abandoned Store A with some resentment.

Every frustration is worth it when you know you have purchased the right bike.

After many months of research and several weeks of active searching, I bought the bicycle that felt like home. I know this is the right bike because I can ride for hours on one day – uphill, downhill, rough road, smooth road – and I still want to get on it the next day. It is my partner in pushing my limits. I’ll learn how to maintain it and repair it with my own hands as much as possible. I know that I couldn’t have come to this point by any other route.

But I hope I won’t have to buy another bike for many, many years.

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Sinking in

Jun 12 2011 Published by under adventures, explanations and things left unsaid

What a long week it has been. I relax in my own comfy chair next to an open window in the corner of my living room. I watch the tiny movements of the maple leaves and listen to the traffic on Granville and beyond. The chirp that accompanies pedestrian crossings on either end of my block. This feels like the first moment of stillness in months, but we only arrived on Tuesday.

I’m surrounded by boxes after four days of a near empty apartment. We had a miscommunication with the moving company; our stuff was not delivered when we had expected, so we had to make do with what we had crammed in the car and what our new building manager was kind enough to lend us. Sleeping on an air mattress notwithstanding, it was nice to get to know our new living space without our possessions.

The building is old. A little run down, but comfortable. Charming and colourful and compact without feeling cramped. A nice change after the soulless townhouse in Edmonton. Oh, it was a decent place to live for the time we were there, but it had no mystery. This place already feels like it wants to be home.

It has been a week of motion. By car, by bike, on foot. I’ve walked kilometres this week. In sun and shade and cloud. Walked down to surprise tall ships off Kitsilano Beach. To an excellent sushi place. To Granville Island. Up and down the shops near our place. Re-learning my feet.

Tomorrow, I start work. I don’t know if the ordinary style of permanence that a job gives life will tip me into the reality of my situation. Because it still feels like I’m just visiting. Even though everything I own in the world is here. I’m not really here yet. Because if I’m really here, almost everyone I want to share this adventure with is too far away. And I’m not ready for that.

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Without names

Dec 06 2010 Published by under adventures

I sit in a hotel. In Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. A frontier of sorts. An edge to something, though I haven’t discovered what yet. A hub, perhaps. I arrived in darkness. December, north of 60, couldn’t be elsewise. But something about this darkness is thrilling. I am in the centre, and this city is so quiet. The hush and hug of these particular mountains squeeze me into less silent shapes. So now I want to talk. I want to tell you everything. Who I am, why I’m here (even though you will always look confused when I try to explain), why the intangible pieces of me are fluttering through my skin.

I think it started with the unlikely chickadee that perched on the suspended TV screen at Gate 18 and warbled and chirped to itself. I watched it, wondering where it came in, where it would go, whether it felt lost and alone or just alone. I don’t know what chickadees do when they’re alone.

From then, I wanted to be open in some way. To connect excitement with words in intricate patterns across two minds. And so, I declined the solitary cab and hopped on a hotel shuttle. Rewarded with a woman from Argentina, in Canada on a post-secondary student exchange, and determined to see as much of Canada as budget would allow before going home. She has never seen the northern lights, and so the clouds will clear one night for her. She said. And I hope. When we reached my hotel, we were the only two passengers left. She sent me air kisses, and we wished each other northern adventure.

I’m unafraid of this town. Though clearly, I’m not from around these parts. They can tell. I am quiet and I read The English Patient over my hotel bar & grill supper. I order lemon tea, and I am far away from whatever I didn’t want to talk about. I contemplate conversations with strangers, but rarely lift my eyes from the page.

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Play

Dec 05 2009 Published by under adventures, author's notes, these small moments

Winter arrived all in one shot yesterday. A load of snow and plunging temperatures. Out come the goose-down parka and the serious winter boots — the ones that tromp through snow drifts while you laugh at fools with just ankle boots.

I am delighted.

Delighted doesn’t quite capture it.

I am gleeful. Elated. Kid-on-Christmas-morning out of my mind.

I’ve driven on the roads that have yet to be cleared. I’ve had to be pushed onto the road by a stranger. I’ve had to forward-reverse-forward-upshift-reverse-forward on several occasions times. Getting anywhere takes that tiny bit longer that seems to make other people cranky. None of that touches this vibration of excitement. This is how all Decembers should be.

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