Feed Fiddling

Heads up feed-based readers: I've tried turning on full feeds. This came as a request from a blackberry user whose antiquated mobile device struggled with advanced concepts such as "embedding", and "blogs" and "pixels".

The feed is available as before at http://waterloons.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default and also through feedburner (this drives the "subscribe by email" feature) at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Waterloons .

I confess I'm not a feed expert. All I hope is that I haven't slammed a few subscribers' inboxes with 70 or so republished articles. My apologies if this goes pear-shaped.

Oh, what the hell. If they were worth reading once, they're worth reading again. Right?

[LOABKW]: Getting from NE Waterloo to SW Kitchener by trail!

I work near Northfield and Bridge.

My dentist, for reasons best left unexplained, is at the Sunrise Centre at Ottawa and Fischer-Hallmann.

This is quite a trek: almost 16km! And today I did it by bike. The resulting ride shows off how well you can get around by trail, if you:

• Know where you're going
• Are willing to bridge the gaps in the cycling network.

Green, yellow and red dots highlight the good, meh, and bad parts of the ride. Blue dots are informational.

I hope this record helps you find better ways to get around on two wheels. And to learn how good our cycling network could be, with some key strategic improvements!

View the map.

Update: I had some good feedback on Facebook from a friend of mine, Chris D, who knows the southwest side of Kitchener better than I do. His advice is helpful:

"Some ideas in my neck of the woods (SW Kitchener):

During construction there is a bike/pedestrian crossing of the express way at Fisher-Hallman divided from normal traffic by a barrier. Of course, with the speed of traffic through the bottleneck there you probably could ride with traffic (as I have).

After you get across the expressway you immediately gain a bike lane that can be used to get to the trails that border the culvert all the way to Victoria Park. As an added advantage, you can follow the trails under Westmount so crossing there isn't too bad... and if you don't like the bike lane on Fisher-Hallman, you can turn at McGarry Drive and pick up a trail along the creek that takes you to the culvert trails.

Another interesting path is to follow the paths on the hydro corridor, which will take you from Kingswood (a block from Homer-Watson) to Fisher-Hallman at Activa. Based on your path I'd cross Ottawa at Westmount and you'll find access to this trail on Westmount 50m past the intersection. It can be a challenge to follow between Westmount and Fisher-Hallman because it splits a few times, but if you end up on Dinison St it's easy enough to pick up the small trail to the lights at Fisher-Hallman and Activa further down anyway.

Once you're on Activa, take Grey Fox to Orchard Cresent and you can pick up a trail that drops you across Ottawa from the Home Depot at the Sunrise Centre.

The advantage here is that despite needing to cross Ottawa twice you don't need to travel along it at all..."

My notes on this: Fischer-Hallmann (I believe) will have bike lanes across the expressway-- and a removal of a dangerous basket weave-- when construction is complete. But FH is (to me) a route of necessity only, not a preferred choice. Much better for roads of this size and speed to have a separated trail or cyclepath, as parts of FH already does and will soon.

He also provided an alternative route segment. But it involves an un-improved section of Westmount, which doesn't seem better to me than a bike-laned section of Ottawa.

I see this as a key area for strategic infill. A little work along Westmount could greatly improve connectivity for the whole area!

Routes and Secrets of east Waterloo

Fall looms

It's that part of September that is still officially summer, but is fall in spirit. It's positively autumnal these last few days. And it feels good! Even if it's a tad wet. I admit that I wussed out of cycling through Tuesday morning's deluge and took transit instead.

I've not blogged much about #loabKW lately, because there hasn't really been anything very interesting to say. I bike during the week. It's normal. The Lexington expressway crossing still sucks, but that's normal too. Groceries get bought, places get visited, life is surprisingly unremarkable.

But I do like the ducks. And the bunnies. I see a lot of each on my rides. Flickers, too, for some reason-- you can recognize them by their white butts as they fly away.

That's one thing I haven't really talked about: the rides, and the routes that I'm on every day. I do try and explore as much of KW as I can on bike, but most of the time I'm going to and from work. Much of these rides are on quiet streets or trails (though some trails have only recently been reopened) and when you're on two wheels, you can take in the scenery a lot more.

Route secrets

If you need to move to and from north-east Waterloo, you move from embarrassment of cycling riches to awful choke points and back again. There is great cycling in the neighbourhoods around Bridge Street, north of University:

<<<< sorry guys, Google doesn't embed maps with the cycling layer turned on, because Bob returned late from lunch last Friday and didn't spend 5 minutes implementing that feature... please click the links to follow along. As for Google, they and I need to have a few words. >>>>

Snippets of trail, lots of cut-through paths (although not on Allenby Court), and cycling lanes on roads like Bridge and Davenport. Even the ward councilor, Diane Freeman, is an avid cyclist.
 
Unfortunately, you can't get there from here. Literally: if you don't have the intestinal fortitude to mix with speeding traffic-- or are willing to flaunt the rules and sensibility by biking a sidewalk perilously close to a low guardrail and a 30 foot drop to the expressway below-- this neighbourhood is entirely cut off from the rest of Waterloo. But we've been here before and we know the solution is: road-diet Lexington. Just waiting on staff and council to see the light.

Still: if you can stomach Lexington, the city is your oyster. Well, maybe not quite-- UW is a major high-traffic gap away (the Columbia/King mess), but you can get to Uptown and to Kitchener if you know where you're going. Dearborn Boulevard is your gateway off Lexington and away from the 80km/h traffic, and connects with the great trail system that is the Forwell Creek and Hillside Park. From here you can ride trails up to Manulife headquarters, over to Canadian Tire, or all the way down to University Avenue near a small street called Carter Avenue.

It's hard to get across University right now, but that will change in a year or two: reconstruction will add a refuge island here. And Carter leads you to Moses Springer Park and into the heart of the bike-navigable Lincoln neighbourhood.

Infill! Infill!

Last night I saw something that piqued my interest: a City of Waterloo planning map that shows a proposed trail extension from Lincoln Park across Weber to connect with a trail leading to Uptown, here at Mackay Crescent. Getting across Weber here is key. I hope discussions between city and region bear fruit.

If you can get across Weber right here (here's a hint: you can't. It's stupid.) then you have almost clear sailing all the way to Uptown Waterloo, the Laurel Trail, the Iron Horse, you name it. Otherwise, there are some options if you filter along Lincoln Ave and through the Sobeys plaza (pick up your groceries while you're there!) and then on down Devitt or Moore. Moore provides access to Duke, which is the best way to downtown Kitchener on a bike if you can't get to the Iron Horse... or it will be, until the Spur Trail is constructed.

(Do you sense a theme? A theme of being close to a great cycling network but for a few critical gaps? Talk to your councilors. Explain to them the wonder of infill. Tell them you're not willing to wait until the gaps get reconstructed.)

Of course, this also passes the Mount Hope cemetery, which is my stomping grounds (or... maybe a little less in the cemetery as near it.) From here you're on your own.

Alternatives

But if you want to make the same trip in a different way, you could try riding past the Canadian Tire, braving a short stretch of Weber and Columbia, and head down Regina. Not too bad, especially if you work the lights right. You still have to cross at Lexington though.

Or you could take a different plot and head down Bridge to Lancaster (possibly avoiding the roundabout by taking this dogleg). This is not pleasant cycling, as it's decades-old infrastructure with no cycling accommodation-- but the widths are generally good, and if you don't mind a brutal hill or two, you could do okay. Lancaster happens to lead right to Queen, which is a great gateway to Kitchener too. But it's a traffic lunatic asylum, so be warned.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that there's some great cycling in the City of Waterloo, especially on the east end. But to enjoy it, you have to deal with the fact that the City of Waterloo is in fact two cycling networks, disconnected by an expressway. Maybe this will be fixed soon, but in the meantime you should ask yourself if you really need to wait for that.

I can't. I have to be out there.

There's ducks, after all. And bunnies. And flickers.

See you on the trails.

A by-election of significance

A brief commentary for today, by-election day in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Today's a big day in KW. Provincial by-election here and in one other riding, where voters have the ability to push the minority Liberals into de facto majority territory-- or deny them that majority. The result has been a huge amount of attention paid to our area, as this column indicates.







We're having a by-election just 11 months after the last general provincial election, because of the resignation of two MPPs: Elizabeth Witmer here in KW, and Greg Sorbara in Vaughan.

I see the results here as having a huge influence on the next election. If the Libs can keep Vaughan and secure the KW seat, it's all quiet on the election front for the next few years as they'll control the house. If the NDP or the PCPO prevail, it could point the way towards how the province will swing in an inevitable no-confidence election some time in the next year or two. And while nobody expects the Greens to win, it will be interesting to see what kind of support will they garner, and how will that affect party platforms next time around.

And to top it all off, the KW result is no foregone conclusion. Nobody is sure how any of the big three will place.

Exciting!

[LOABkw] The Carshare Factor

Life On A Bike in KW is a series of posts about Chris' attempt to get as much done as possible on two wheels, while Erin takes the car out of town to observe birds. How cycle-friendly is KW? 

So far I've seen that life on a bike isn't so difficult. Commuting, errands and groceries are all possible, large swathes of Kitchener and Waterloo have reasonable bicycle access, and I've seen the value of transit in support of cycling, especially as a backup plan. But sometimes, a motorized vehicle is called for.

Perhaps it is a trip out of town to a place not served by our (awful) intercity transit services. Car rentals are fairly cost effective for these needs, especially if it is on a weekend, when a fifty gets you a sedan for two days. (Just make sure you have insurance.)

But for trips around town to haul heavy items, there's no better an option than Carshare.

Grand River CarShare is a non-profit organization that has a fleet of about 20 cars, mostly distributed around the uptown, downtown and university areas. If you become a member, these cars are available to book and use for short trips or long.

I joined as a Simple Plan member (no, not that Simple Plan), which gives me access to Carshare vehicles for $10 an hour (plus HST), gas and insurance included. This definitely adds an overhead cost on trips that require a car, so I put a bit more effort into planning, to make as productive use of the time as possible:

4 five gallon water jugs...

...80kg of water softener salt, some homebrew supplies... and some brews.

Not even a long-tail is going to haul around a couple hundred kilograms of cargo, let's be honest. (Or, maybe it could! But it wouldn't be much fun.)

Like transit, carshare is most useful if it is nearby. Unlike transit, the destination can be anywhere. This key difference, along with the haulage, helps define the niche that carshare serves well. You may need to live in a central location to take advantage of it, but it helps to live in a central location to reduce your dependence on car ownership to begin with. And interestingly, Carshare is a service whose viability and stability and utility all improve as its fleet (and member base) grow.

From a cycling perspective, carshare fills in the gaps that bikes, transit or simple walking aren't suited for. Acting like a safety net in our as-yet car-dominant community, the service gives its members confidence that they won't be hamstrung by that one awkward trip that can't be made without a private vehicle. The Classic and Regular plans suit the car-free who still have a week-to-week need for a car, while the Simple is a great "insurance policy" for 1-car couples, or for the cycling-enthusiastic temporary ornithological bachelor.

Grand River CarShare strike me as a professionally run organization, keenly focused on their mission (and budget). The value they provide for the price is incredible (to the point that I've even asked them how they manage to stay viable.) Given the niche that they fill, they are a strategic asset to KW's transportation mix and we're lucky to have them.

For $40 a year, you could never book a car and still get your money's worth just from peace of mind.

Perhaps they will consider installing bike racks at their car stations, for people to bike to and from their vehicles. (I was disappointed to find that the new Matrix doesn't easily fit my bike and is missing some of the great cargo features that makes our older model Matrix so useful.)

The Park&Union 2012 Matrix. Nice car to drive, but just not as handy as its predecessor.

Word.

[LOABkw] An uneventful week

It's actually a relief that this week's getting around town without a car was uneventful. The two weeks prior provided lots of fodder for blog posts, but it wears down a fella, you know?

One big milestone this week though. I've now cycled 1100km for the year. That matches the high water mark I set in 2010: from now on, every ride is personal-record-setting. I'm confident that I can break 1500km, and considering setting my sights on the 2 megametre mark.

There was some minor, though not unpleasant shifts in the routine this week:

Monday: My company's Habitat for Humanity build day! I was presented with an opportunity to cycle commute somewhere completely different: Howe Drive, near Westmount and Highway 8. That was a pleasant ride, almost all trails and side road, though I did discover that Concordia Park has the same sewer affliction as Hillside Park: trail closure for construction forcing me to detour.

That's me, doing a Here's Johnny under the armpit of the top right orange guy

I'm impressed with trail connectivity on Kitchener's southwest side, though the expressway remains an obstacle. I was glad I didn't have to go any further south along Westmount than the 50m or so it took to get from trailhead to build site.

Also, no lost appendages or broken limbs. A total success!

Tuesday: TriTAG hat on for the afternoon, to have a meeting with Waterloo city government and a developer. Which meant dressing up beyond the usual standards for a software geek, and arriving Uptown without being dripping with sweat.

Which, sadly, meant leaving the bike at home. Fortunately, there's GRT: once again, going car-free means going multi-modal. As demonstrated with the flat tire incident last week, part of good cycling infrastructure is a good transit system.

The rest of the week: The aforementioned Hillside Park sewer construction work is progressing. Over the last couple of weeks, I saw some depressing signs of construction crews taking two steps forward, one step back:

A lovely concrete footing for the new bridge.

The same concrete footing, two days later.

Finally, on Thursday:

We have a bridge!

The Hillside Park work can't end soon enough for me. It's my preferred cycling route (and a great way to get from Lexington to the Lincoln neighbourhood), and it has been closed all year. Originally supposed to be done in Spring 2012, and then in mid-July, I admit I will be surprised if it reopens in August. But it's getting closer.

A few other route alterations from routine: a trip down the Iron Horse to pick up a piccolo from a prescribed piccolo drop-off point (don't ask), and a trip to the chiropractor this morning which meant tackling the Lancaster/Bridge roundabout, and Bridge St (a route that I have grown increasingly unhappy about). At least the construction signs are gone.

Erin returns this afternoon for a weekend off from birdnerding. Two whole days with her this time! Maybe I'll sneak the Matrix out to fill water jugs so I can brew on holiday Monday. That isn't cheating, is it?

[LOABkw] Feeling Flat

Life On A Bike in KW is a series of posts about Chris' attempt to get as much done as possible on two wheels, while Erin takes the car out of town to observe birds. How cycle-friendly is KW? 


Monday: disaster! About three blocks away from work on my way home, I notice that my bike seat feels... springier... than usual. I look down, and it's not the seat, it's the tire.

What a deflating feeling.

No slow leak here: within a minute or two, the tire is completely flat. And I am completely unprepared. A patch kit in my pannier, but no pump!

Getting home was not too bad. Despite having a good idea of the bus system around work, I missed the first attempt, but I caught one in the direction of Conestoga Mall. Thankfully, all GRT buses have bike racks. You've seen these, right?

Nice rack.

So getting home wasn't too bad, though I imagine some people were wondering why I was walking my bike up and down the same street.

I should have been able to repair the flat where I was, but it turns out I wasn't even able to repair it at home:

• I didn't have a working emergency pump.
• My patch kit was so old the rubber compound had fossilized!
• I didn't have a replacement tube.
• I had just loaned Erin my floor pump the day before because of her own flat tire woes.

This may seem unforgivable, but here's a secret: this is my first bike flat ever. You could excuse my complacency.

The next morning, I resolved to take the old Jamis to work via Canadian Tire, where I could correct all these things. It worked, but I discovered that in the two months since I had last rode the Jamis, it had gone from being my trusty steed for the last 12 years to an almost unrideable, painful, ill-fitting, dilapidated torture device.

Wow. I can't believe I rode that bike for over a decade.

None the less, I made it through the day (albeit with some of the neck and shoulder pain that characterized the last couple of years.) I brought home a new mini-pump, a tube, and a couple of new patch kits. And I hoped to hell the a patch would work because taking the wheel off would be a major chore...

Internal hub & brake: low maintenance != easy maintenance.

You see, the same piece of high tech on the Brodie that makes it low-maintenance and reliable also makes it much harder to get a wheel off. And the unforgiving topology of tori requires wheel removal. The Nexus hub pictured above requires both brake and gear cables to be detached and has an extra mount point to worry about too, along with alignment issues when you put it back together.

This guy didn't have to contend with a hub in his record-setting tube switch:

Fortunately, while you can't change a tube without completely removing the wheel, you can patch it in place. But you have to have a patch kit that hasn't expired, and you have to have a pump. Even if you can't patch it perfectly, it may be the difference between being stranded, and being able to nurse your way home or to a bike shop.

So, some lessons from this event:

• Have a pump and a patch kit. Preferably attached to your bike so they're always there. (My patch kit still has no home but the pannier.)
• Keep some bus tickets in your wallet. If you're in town and have a smart phone, Google Maps is invaluable for finding bus stops and will tell you when the next one is coming. It can also give you transit directions home.
• Also with the bus, if the racks are full but the bus is not, be prepared to remind the driver that GRT says you can bring the bike on board.
• If you're entirely carless, a spare beater bike is not a bad idea. After all, you may not even have a shop with bike repair equipment within walking distance.

Good news though: I've patched the tube and it seems to be holding. If this bike is susceptible to flats, I'll have to invest in some different tires that are puncture-resistant: Schwalbe makes a line of them that a friend recommended to me. I really don't want to have to take the back wheel off, ever.

And I don't want to be caught flat-footed.