Road to Nowhere

"We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride"
                               Road to Nowhere-Talking Heads, Little Creatures 1985

Appropriate that I think of this Talking Heads song when pondering why the section of St. Laurent Boulevard between Bernard and Bellechase is one of the most frustrating places where cyclists and pedestrians interact in Montreal since David Byrne is a celebrity cyclist with his published 'Bicycle Diaries'.

This section from the Montreal Cycling Map available on the city's website shows the origin of the problem. Someone decided to designate a bike lane on Bellechase that just ends at Saint-Dominque. Since the closest way to get south past the railway is to take St. Laurent, most cyclists choose to slip onto the sidewalk until they get down to Bernard and can pick up the bike path on Clark.

Cyclists heading north on St. Laurent are fairly evenly divided between those who take the road and those who poach onto the sidewalk. In a certain respect, it is understandable that a cyclist will avoid the road even when travelling north since vehicles tend to traverse this section at excessive speed due to a combination of the dip in the road to pass under the rail line and because there is no traffic light after Bernard until Beaubien.

Apparently, the city has some plans to improve cycling infrastructure in the area in line with an overall vision for the area (http://www.montreal2025.com/projet.php?id=65&lang=en). However, there is an alternate choice. Rather than dealing with traffic and pedestrians on St. Laurent, cyclists can use the rail line that can be accessed by following the Clark bike path around Parc Clark from the south or by cutting through the gravel area just east of the Villeneuve Woodlot at Bellechasse and Saint-Dominique from the north.

I had to cut the video in a few spots to get it to upload, but the whole trip took about five minutes at a leisurely pace. Compared to the more direct route along the sidewalk on St. Laurent it might be a couple of minutes longer assuming you don't have to stop and argue with irate pedestrians along the way or get held up at the traffic light at Bernard in which case it probably takes no longer to take the safer, scenic route.

No guarantees, though, that the bongo players will be there everytime.

Sunday Evening on Avenue Laurier or the Pedestrian's Revenge

When the pot bangers are out, it's time to get off the bike and enjoy an ice cream.

Speak softly and pedal a big gear

No real words to describe Ryder Hesjedal's historic win at the Giro d'Italia.

First goal achieved. Tour de France next.

Can't wait for September
http://cyclinginthecity-sailingtheinlandsea.blogspot.ca/2012/04/cant-wait-for-september.html

Light Show

A Friday evening near the Avenue des Pins/Avenue du Parc interchange, which was reconfigured a few years ago to make it less of a concrete monstrosity.

However, it calls for an intricate system of traffic lights including the bike path that connects up to the Rachel path. This little video shows some bike traffic going through the intersection. Due to the alternating lights to allow traffic to go north/south on Avenue du Parc or east/west on Avenue des Pins, it makes for a long wait to get a green light, which always tempts cyclists to cheat across when traffic clears. Perhaps the city should consider reprogramming the lights to add a bicycle/pedestrian crossing after each vehicle pass?

Nice to see a cyclist get off the path to answer her cell phone rather than stand in the middle of the path. Notice, sadly, the lack of lights on most bicycles. There was the odd flash of lightning in the background as a thunderstorm cell approaches. Made it home minutes before the torrential rain dropped out of the sky!

Avenue Laurier Bike Lane Westbound

The noise was not limited to the environs of Parc Laurier. Bangers of all ages can be heard along Avenue Laurier. Fortuitously, holding the camera had me riding at a speed that allowed me to catch every green along the way...sweet.

Thursday evening in the Parcs

Beautiful weather in Montreal for a late afternoon ride. I like to head over to Parc Maisonneuve where there is a nice bike path that measures a little over two kilometers. Interestingly, this image came from a running club's website so the idea of this being a bike path is more an ideal than a reality.

During the week, you will find many cyclists doing some serious training, but on weekends it is better to avoid it if you get easily frustrated because the path could be justifiably named "The Pedestrian's Revenge".

I would say most people ride the circuit in a counter-clockwise direction because there is a bit of a dip on the east leg that is easier to ride is this direction. I tend to go clock-wise because there are fewer people going this way.

On the way home, I stop at Parc Laurier, which has a much more active vibe in the heart of the Plateau. In the background, you can hear the latest tactic of the student protesters to replace marching with noise-making. It certainly fits in with the warmer weather and the coming festival season in Montreal.

Take Five

Since I don't work in the city, I do not have much call to ride into downtown during the morning rush hour. However, I did need to go over to Place Alexi-Nihon last week and, since biking is the most efficient way to get around this town, I headed down St. Urbain towards the Maisonneuve bike path.

It gave me a good opportunity to experience what it is like to commute with a lot of other cyclists as well as all the pedestrians and motorists. Only a few minutes are required to comprehend, though cyclists love to bitch about motorists, that there are as many bad cyclists on the road as motorists.

There is some kind of madness that grips people, no matter how they are travelling, so they manifest in their actions the 'Rush' hour. Is it because work or school is so fulfilling they must hurry to arrive asap?

I think, perhaps, people budget a certain amount of time to the commute and invariably underestimate the time involved. So, they become stressed and feel the need to rush.

My suggestion, a la Dave Brubeck, is to 'Take Five'. Give yourself five extra minutes, get out the door a little earlier and maybe you'll enjoy the voyage rather than suffer through it.

Monday afternoon in the Parc

I decided to put an end to my Bixi experiment and take out old faithful now that my ankle is strong enough to handle the stops and starts of riding in Montreal. I must say the advantage of ones own bike rates far higher on the convenience scale compared to the Bixi as long as you can avoid the bicycle thieves.

The north/south bike path running through Parc Lafontaine is probably one of the busiest in the city. Ten minutes saw many cyclists pass by, and it wasn't even rush hour yet.

Listening to the video afterwards, I was struck by the amount of noise caused by the cars and trucks in the background compared to the delicate sounds coming from the passing bicycles. Too bad you can't turn down the volume on the obtrusive traffic sounds that constantly assault the ears as easily as turning down the volume on the video.

La Vie en Rose

It has been a long, dry spell for Canada on the international cycling scene since the 1980's when Steve Bauer wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France for several days, but now Ryder Hesjedal has made history by being the first Canadian to wear the pink jersey in the Giro d'Italia.

As of today, he has defended the jersey to be the race leader for three days running. Bravo!

Who knows, maybe the Canadian media might even take some notice.

Sunday Afternoon in the Park

For me, the big disadvantage of the Bixi rental is the limit of the free first thirty minutes, which means I am forever concerned about the time passing and factoring when I need to find a station to avoid extra charges. However, the opposite view of this is that it forces me to stop and relax for a few minutes in places I would normally keep riding past. Maybe this makes a Bixi a Zen vehicle?

You never know what you will find when you stop at Parc Lafontaine; even an impromptu concert.

Poetic Licence

Kudos to the perpetrators of the subtle and elegant bixipoesie.ca tags that showed up recently on Bixi bikes all over Montreal.

My first Bixi (Ride)

With my ankle on the mend it was time to try out some biking, but rather than haul my bike off the trainer and down two flights of stairs to the street I thought this might be an ideal time to try out a Bixi since there is a station a minute away. This would allow me to keep my bike on its trainer ready for some self-administered physio over the next month.

For my first outing, I had a number of errands planned around my neighbourhood. I wanted to see if I could complete them all using the closest station to each point on my itinerary because my main goal was to reduce the amount of walking involved. 

I went on the Bixi Montreal website (https://montreal.bixi.com/) to familiarize myself with the features of the system as I had read some comments on forums over the last two years documenting various complaints. I definitely did not want to get any surprises on my credit card through improper docking of a bike so that the clock keeps ticking.

Looking at the screen at the station, it is obvious that Bixi is doing its best to inform users about the possible charges because you have to go through alot of screens before you can actually get a code to take a bike away. In fact, you can even toggle through 60 pages of Terms and Conditions on the tiny screen if you really want to.

With my code in hand (the system allows you to just display the code on the screen, but I wonder how many people have tried that and then forgot the code by the time they walked over to the bike), I picked out a bike and slowly punched in the numbered sequence. Voila, the green light came on and I pulled the bike out of the holder.

The bike itself is pretty familiar since there are so many thousands of them around Montreal as well as Toronto, Ottawa, various US cities and London, England. It took a couple of seconds to adjust the seat and make sure the quick release was tight enough to keep it in place. Over the course of the day, I found most bikes I used had the quick release set too loose and required at least a half to full turn to snug it up.

The Bixi geometry, weight and wide tires makes for a very stable ride. The three speed gear shift is easy to use though it took me awhile to get use to turning the shifter towards me to go into a higher gear as it is the opposite movement on my own bike. The braking is smooth, but not very responsive due to the weight of the bike though this was not a problem since the gearing meant you were never going very fast.

After a five minute ride, I got to the location of the nearest station to my first errand and encountered my first obstacle. A truck was in the process of removing the station and installing a new one so I couldn't even check to see where another station is in the area. I decide to alter my itinerary, carry on to my next errand, and then return.

There is a station right beside my bank and I parked the bike in a dock with no trouble; getting the promised green light to show it was securely locked. I gave the bike a pull just to make sure it was fixed in place to satisfy myself. I completed my errand and came back to the station where my original Bixi was still docked. A thirty second process at the station to get a new code (although it is with some trepidation that you put your credit card into the slot again worrying that they will charge another $7 to the card) and I am pulling out the same bike, which has the advantage of having the seat already adjusted to my height.

I decided to go back to my original first errand spot, however, the truck was still working away. I rode around a bit and within a couple of minutes I came to another Bixi station with open docks to park the bike. Although it is a couple of blocks farther away from my destination, I am still closer than if I had walked from my home. Plus, I came across a lovely bit of graffitti on Laurier Avenue just east of Parc.

Following this errand, I decided to walk up to my local grocery store to pick up a few things. There is a station within half a block of the store and I have a backpack and cloth bag, which will allow me to see how the Bixi handles while carrying extra weight as well as try out the carrier on the handlebar.

Coming back from the grocery store, I was fortunate as there was one Bixi left at the station (there were two when I passed it on the way to the store). I got another code. Since you only have five minutes to undock a bike, I decided to take it out of the dock before securing my bag of groceries. This made the whole process a bit more difficult as the bag was fairly large and the bungee they provide is so stiff that it could not go around the bag. In the end, I just pushed the bag down into the carrier and tied the straps of the bag, hoping it would stay in place for the short ride home.

Because of the weight of the Bixi bike, I found the ride to be just as stable with the extra weight of my backpack and the other bag as compared to just myself on the bike. I don't, however, think I would have been comfortable riding along biking one handed and carrying a bag in the other hand, which I can do without too much trouble with my own bike.

One thing I would suggest to people using the Bixi is to turn the bike parallel to the street as soon as you remove it from the dock in order to keep the rear wheel from sticking out into the street especially if you are fiddling with trying to secure a bag into the carrier.

I returned with the Bixi and my groceries to the station closest to my apartment. I suppose I could have stopped in front of the apartment to drop off the groceries, but I did not want to leave the bike unattended.

So far, my first Bixi experience had been very positive. I was able to find a bike at each station I came to, the bike I picked was in fine condition and I was able to dock the bike at the station closest to my destination except in one case, which meant I walked three blocks more than originally planned. However, I saved my ankle from many blocks of walking when compared with doing the same journey by foot.

The next sortie brought up a point regarding renting Bixis for one or three days. You have the option of renting up to two bikes on a single credit card. However, when I first rented the Bixi I had selected rental for a single bike. On this trip, I invited my son for lunch and we planned to both use a Bixi. However, once you have selected a one bike rental for the day, the system does not allow you to rent another bike with the same credit card later on during that period.

The following morning I had a few hours left on the rental so I decided to make full use of my allotted time. It had rained during the night and the roads were wet. The bikes are fitted with fenders and I found the ride to be reasonably dry though at the end I did find that my coat was spotted on the back with some dirt so the rear fender is not completely efficient.

For my last trip, I decided to try a trip to downtown Montreal to see if I could make it from Mile End to downtown within the free 30 minute time frame while respecting the traffic signals. I managed to get from the corner of Clark/St. Viateur to the corner of Stanley/de Maisonneuve in 18 minutes without too much effort. It would certainly take a good deal longer to go back the other way and I'm not sure I would be able to make it within 30 minutes.

Overall, my day spent pedaling around a Bixi was a positive experience. Still, I could foresee instances of frustration, with regular use, where you would arrive at a station and there would be no bikes or trying to dock a bike at a station, which is full. In the end, the freedom of being able to ride your own bike to exactly where you want to go without the worry of trying to find a Bixi station to dock it once you get there, means I will be sticking with my trusty Ecovelo for now.

Bad Bixis Squared

Ah, the joys of life in the Mile End where people can saunter along the trendy streets and window shop. Or, because no one else uses sidewalks, you can hop on a Bixi bike with your partner and roll along side by side to effectively block the entire sidewalk.

I can, perhaps, console myself by saying that Bixi riders are not real cyclists but there are just too many cyclists who brazenly ride down Montreal's sidewalks, no matter the concentration of pedestrians, that I have to blush with shame for all cyclists who get tagged as inconsiderate by the actions of the few.