Tag: cycling

What you might bring and wear if you’re new to a group sport
advice · cycling · fitness · planning

What you might bring and wear if you’re new to a group sport

elan.paulson2 Comments

When you are starting a new sport, you don’t know what you don’t know. New activities can be intimidating when you are not sure what to expect.

This year I am new to group cycling as a first-year member of the London Cycling Club. Before my first ride, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Fortunately, at the club’s kick-off meeting, leaders gave many great tips for those just getting started. The focus of the tips were on comfort and safety.

I’m going to share how I prepared for my first rider development ride, which was about 25km at a pace of about 15-20km/hr. This preparation eased my nervousness and helped me feel more ready to explore something new. If you are just joining another new group activity, hopefully some of these ideas might be applicable as well!

Gear preparedness

I got a bike tune up at the start of the season. But even without one, it’s a good idea to check for a clean frame, an oiled chain, sufficient tire air pressure, a comfortable seat height, working brakes, and a bell.

I tried on my helmet for fit, and ensured my front and rear lights were working. I brought my repair kit with a spare bike tube in case of a flat. At the pet store, while buying cat food, I made myself my own “dog tag”: road ID with an emergency contact.

Clothing preparedness

I checked the weather and wore well-fitting clothes and shoes that wouldn’t catch. High visibility/reflective clothing is good for evening rides, so I broke out my bright colours!

I learned that cycling clothes are called a “kit.” Many wear their full cycling kit, so gear up if you want to! Developmental rides don’t seem long enough to me to wear padded shorts/pants, so I didn’t. Most important is to wear what‘s comfortable and safe for you.

Route preparedness

I checked out the route in advance. Because I was a bit nervous, I cycled the route on my own beforehand (and I heard some people drive routes that are new to them).

As well, I checked the driving route TO the start point to give myself at least 15 minutes before the ride starts. An early arrival meant I was ready to hear any important information, and if I had to make a last-minute adjustment other riders won’t be waiting for me to leave.

Other stuff to bring (or not bring)

I brought a full water bottle that fit in the bottle cage. (In hot weather, some ppl freeze half the water first, then fill up the rest just before they go!) Sunglasses or tinted visor. I brought a granola bar and a small stuff bag to stash or add a layer. Many people ride light and don’t bring any gear bags at all.

Some people have odometers or phone holders for the route (as I do), but others just follow along. I brought my bike lock but didn’t need it. I brought $5 for a mid-way stop, but I just drank the water and ate the granola bar I brought. I brought earphones, but I found they impeded my practice with verbal and non-verbal communication on the ride.

Social preparedness

Turns out rides include small talk to get to know others. I brought a friendly attitude and questions with me to learn from others. The chat is not only social: it helps to build rapport and trust you need to ride well as a group.

I was also ready to keep my eyes and ears open, to listen to the ride leaders, then watch and follow what they do. After learning the hand signals, I practiced them. I did my best to communicate and stay with the group. All of this is done not just to have fun but to be safe and keep others safe.

What else would you suggest to prep for your first time out, more seasoned cyclers than me? Please share your must-brings or must-wears to this starter list!

cycling · feminism · fitness

The End of the Fancy Women’s Bike Ride

Diane Harper

I was late to the concept of the Fancy Women’s Bike Ride, which I joined for the first time last year. And now it’s ending, and I have very mixed feelings.

As Momentummag notes, “more than just a cycling event, FWBR symbolizes a celebration of women’s strength, unity, and resilience. It serves as a platform for reclaiming public spaces, promoting sustainable transportation, and challenging societal norms.” The ride has gone from a single event in Izmir Turkey to 200 cities in 30 countries.

That leaves out a lot of countries. The ability of women and girls to cycle varies widely around the world. I empathize with the desire of the founders to step away, but I would have loved to see their work continue. After all, “one of its most profound impacts, perhaps its most important, lies in its contribution to empowering women through cycling. By offering free cycling courses and promoting the simple act of riding a bike, FWBR has enabled countless women to challenge stereotypes, embrace their strength, and assert their independence. The movement’s slogan, “Be Women Be Visible,” encapsulates its mission to elevate the visibility of women in public spaces and advocate for inclusive urban planning and traffic management.” (Momentummag)

I am reading several books about city planning from a feminist perspective, and I help out with various women-led rides that focus on making streets safe for all ages. Those efforts to include and center women in alternative transportation and public spaces won’t end, but maybe they won’t continue to spread as quickly or as widely to places where they are desperately needed, without the joyful push of the Fancy Women Bike Ride.

Three women defying the patriarchy through cycling near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2020. Photo: Zabihulla Habibi in Bicycling.com
accessibility · cycling · feminism · fitness · inclusiveness

Motherload

Diane Harper

Motherload is a movie about cargo bikes and the people who use them. It’s going to be shown as part of June Bike Month in Ottawa. I won’t be able to attend, so I watched it on-line. Here’s my review:

Given that it is a self-funded documentary about an arguably niche topic, I was not prepared for a joyful, feminist movie.

There is quite a bit about the development of cargo bikes in the USA, with acknowledgement of the huge role cargo bikes play in everyday life in much of the developing world.

There is also plenty about the links between cycling, suffragettes and feminism going back more than a century. There is recognition of the inequitable access to transportation in the USA, and how cargo bikes could make a difference for poor and racialized communities, if cycling safely was possible.

But it was also a film with joyful scenes of kids having fun riding in, on or beside cargo bikes. My friend Cassie said her family had ordered their cargo bike before seeing the movie back in 2020, but it reaffirmed that decision! For her, being able to bike as a parent means freedom, reliability, physical and mental wellness, fun, and allows her to feel like she’s doing something to address the climate crisis. She just wishes more people had access to safe routes and could see cargo bikes as a possibility in their lives.

Though most of the cargo bike users in the movie live in places where there’s no snow, lots of people use them year-round in all weather, in Canada.

People with their cargo bikes at a recent event in Ottawa. Cassie is riding her cargo bike in the bottom right photo.

If you can’t get to a showing of Motherload, you can watch it here (free, with commercials).

accessibility · cycling · feminism · fitness · inclusiveness · kids and exercise

Safe Streets are a Feminist Issue

Diane Harper

Last weekend, I participated in the first Kidical Mass Ride of the season in Ottawa. What is Kidical Mass? From their website, it’s an alliance of hundreds of organizations from Canada to Australia united by the vision that children and young people should be able to move around safely and independently on foot and by bike. Children who are active by bike and on foot from an early age remain so as adults.

So where does the feminism come it? @envirojen.bluesky.social, a safe cycling advocate in Halifax says: “If you’ve attended one of our (Kidical Mass) rides, then you’ll know that many of us were radicalized by pushing a stroller, or cycling with kids. Motherhood has certainly helped me flex my movement building muscles.”

This photo is actually from an anti-pipeline protest in 2016, but I have seen the same sign at many protests around women’s rights, and this one has a bicycle. The older woman in the picture has a sign attached to her mobility device that says “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit”.

Change requires a mass movement. ‘Stop De Kindermoord’ in the Netherlands (1970s) and the ‘Baby Carriage Blockades’ in the USA (1950 & 60s) are historical examples of safe streets movements organized by parents, and in particular, mothers.

Historian Peter Norton, a professor at the University of Virginia, has been documenting how the movement for safe streets has largely been the work of mothers. He recently wrote about a protest in Montreal in April 1974, when about 70 parents, wearing black arm bands, marched to the office of Montreal’s traffic director, bearing funeral wreaths to present to him. They were calling attention to the deadly peril children faced on their walks to school.   On paper, speed limits in school zones were 20 mph. In the absence of any signs near most school zones, however, motorists drove much faster. The parents demanded signs.   The marchers were led by three mothers whose children had been injured by drivers. When the three arrived at the traffic director’s office he refused to see them, and had police escort them out. Before leaving, the women left their funeral wreaths for him at his office door.

Black and white image from the Montreal Star newspaper showing women carrying funeral wreaths, protest signs, and their children as they march in pairs.

Fifty years later the fight continues. As Cassie Smith, one of the Kidical Mass organizers in Ottawa says: Even now women have less access to cars and more caregiving responsibility giving us particular insight into the injustice of space.

This week, an eleven year-old child died while riding his bike in a supposedly safe area near his school. He was the friend of the son of one of my colleagues.

I got into cycling advocacy because of climate change and to have more safe access to the public space, especially for people on bikes, and because cycling is fun and practical. I was aware of some of the equity issues around cycling and active transit more generally, but I have learned a lot since, and now I’m angry. I hope I won’t still have to be protesting this shit for years to come, but I’m fully prepared to do so if necessary.

From group to team in no drop riding
cycling · fitness · team sports

From group to team in no drop riding

elan.paulson8 Comments

When I started with the London Cycling Club this year, I noticed that the app info about the rider development group rides said “No dropping allowed!” Not knowing a lot of cycle-speak yet, it sounded like a warning that I wasn’t allowed to drop out of the group ride. I had to finish with the group, even if I was slow or dead tired.

No dropping allowed!

But it turns out that “no drop” is not about the responsibility of the rider to keep up: it’s about the responsibility of the riders in the group to support each other.

No-drop ride: This means the group stops for mechanical problems, flats, nature breaks, accidents and emergencies. Members of the group will drop back to ride with slower riders.

Cycling terminology: A guide to the group ride

When a ride is described as “no drop,” the expectations are clear: riders will not be left alone if they are slow or have a problem, and everyone takes some responsibility to support other riders. It promotes inclusion for different levels and abilities. One could even see no drop riding as a sort of team sport, in which riders share a goal to finish together through group effort.

Do the no drop riders get bored or annoyed when they can only going as fast as the slowest rider? I’ve tried to manage this negative self-talk by assuming that some riders, like Sam, see the fun of riding at all different speeds.

I am grateful for a cycling club that has patient volunteers committed to providing no drop, mixed gender development group rides. This year I am slow, and I do not have a road bike, so it feels incredibly supportive to have people willing to ride with me: at a sometimes uneven pace and at a distance I can manage in my first year of the sport.

I have not yet experienced a “drop” ride, but I wonder what it’s like and how I will feel in the group as I ride.

What is your experience with the different types of rides, FIFI community? When does the group make you feel like a team?

cycling

Rethinking My Cycling Goal For 2024

Diane Harper1 Comment

This year I wanted to hit 3,000 km. That may not be much to some people, but it’s a fair bit for someone who mostly commutes to work, the grocery store and the occasional hockey game or social ride.

I just did the math for the first four months of the year and I wonder whether I have it right.

  • January 105
  • February 155
  • March 138
  • April 242.

That’s 640 km and we haven’t even hit consistently warm weather so I can do longer rides for fun or to visit friends/family.

The folding e-bike is a joy and it’s so nice to be able to take inside with me so I don’t have to worry about theft. I invested in a folding trailer so I can pop both it and the bike in a shopping cart for larger grocery runs.

Blue Brompton bike is folded and sitting a tiled swimming pool deck. The wall has decorative swim-themed tiles. Behind the bike, you can see the wheels of the folding trailer.

My trusty cheapo hybrid still gets used any time I go someplace where the e-bike isn’t an option. On Friday I’ll collect my lovely Dutch bike from the shop. She’s a heavy beast but so comfortable! Now that’s she has been tuned up, I’ll ride her in the CHEO fundraiser this weekend. If you feel inclined, you can support me here: https://cheofoundation.donordrive.com/participant/Diane-Harper

In the big scheme of things it’s not much (not even 2 tanks of gas for my little car), but it’s something.

Do you have any riding goals for the year? What helps you feel comfortable when riding where you live? What would make it better? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Lessons from the first time out
cycling · fitness · planning

Lessons from the first time out

elan.paulson5 Comments

In my previous post I described that I’ve Joined a rec cycling club for the first time. At the kick-off welcome meeting, club leaders gave us helpful tips and explained that the annual membership gives riders access to club routes in the app Ride with GPS.

I dutifully followed advice to get my bike tuned up early in the season at a friendly bike place. Then I bought cycling gear. So, at the first sunny day I had no excuse but to try it all out.

From the app I chose the shortest all- pavement route: 26.5 km and a mere 95 m of elevation. It seemed like a manageable trip for me as a novice cycler before my first club ride.

What I Did Not Do Right

  • Ignoring the repeated reminders from the club leader during the kick off meeting, I failed to bring energy snacks. (I imagined the trip would be so short I would be fine without.)
  • Thinking it would be too chilly, I did not wear my padded bike shorts (or consider the even smarter option of wearing bike shorts under pants).
  • Because I bought a repair kit, I removed loose Allen keys from my handle bar bag. Then I inexplicably left the bike repair kit at home, so I had no way to adjust my seat height.
  • I did not think to review the route to note where there may be road closures (so of course I encountered was one that totally blocked the planned route).
  • Not anticipating how quickly the GPS app would deplete my phone battery, I didn’t bother to charge my phone (so ran out of power before the ride end).
Road closure almost exactly halfway through the planned 26.5 km route.

What worked out okay

Thanks to the tune up, the bike was in great shape to ride. I had gear: a new phone holder for navigation, a water bottle for hydration, and a streamed audio book to keep me from grumping about how darn windy it was (until the lphone died, of course). Also, I was nervous about road cycling, but there wasn’t much traffic and the route had a shoulder for much of the way.

When I got back to my start point I noticed a chip wagon had opened, so I hungrily ate delicious chips and vinegar while I recharged my phone in the car. (No picture available: chips devoured too quickly).

Lessons for next time

While I am sure that many of these things can happen to seasoned riders, my rookie mistakes made the trip feel longer than it was. My first lesson from this first time out is to prepare for every cycling ride like it will be a long one, even when it might not appear to be. Next time I will more carefully mind my supplies, especially when I go out on my own: it’s better to carry what I didn’t need than to need what I didn’t carry.

My second lesson is that I need snack suggestions from the FIFI community. What snacks do you prefer to take with you when you are out exercising?

A cycling route app screenshot with distance, speed, duration, and time. The phone battery power (at 1%) is circled.
fitness

There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Ride

Diane Harper

There’s an adage among commuter cyclists that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong gear. I love that, and for me it has proven to be true. With my studded tires and rain cape, I’m well equipped for riding in all seasons.

But what about the days when the bad weather is in my head? Last weekend I had a day when I just felt exhausted. I hadn’t even put on pants by 4 pm.

It was sunny and I needed something from the hardware store, so I pushed myself to go for a little ride. The e-bike was a perfect choice for a day when I felt too drained to go anywhere.

I started out in the middle option of e-assist, but on the way home I felt energetic enough to drop it to the lowest level. By the end, the weather in my head had cleared up and I was able to enjoy the glorious day around me.

A multi-use pathway along a river, with trees on both sides. The sky is bright blue.
You wanted gravel….we’re doing gravel. Powerpoint slides shown at LCC kick off meeting. Joining the club
fitness

Joining the club

elan.paulson2 Comments

In my geographic area, spring and warm weather have come quickly. It makes me excited but also a bit nervous. For the past few months, it has been easier and warmer to just stay inside, so as the weather changes I find it a bit hard to get back outside into old activity habits, or to start new ones.

In mid-life, thoughts of safety (or, more specifically, avoiding injury) now enter my brain much more than they used to. As I watch soccer players in my rec league get whacked in the face with a ball, or see on social media friends wearing hand braces after a night of adult dodgeball, I am more encouraged to find fitness activities I can do with people instead of against them to minimize the likelihood of getting hurt.

So this year I joined a rec cycling club in my area, the London Cycling Club. With over 100 members last year, it claims community and fun while riding. I have blogged about joining a curling club in the last few years, which helped me with my Self-Confidence, Effort, and Improvement. This year, I am hoping only for motivation to get outside more on my bike.

The LCC started their season with a 2.5-hour in-person welcome meeting that had coffee, snacks, a PPT, and even demonstrations (which was great because it turns out I didn’t know what a “peloton” was). Leadership who presented emphasized things like getting a toolkit, road ID, and high viz clothing for safety. They described how they were responding to membership feedback by offering more variety in the ride calendar. The President spent 10 minutes talking about eating plenty of snacks to avoid this thing they call “The Bonk.”

The LCC has volunteers organize rides, some for beginners and others just for women. It provides access to phone apps with marked trails, ride sign-up, and the ability to meet up with others. It also plans events with other clubs, while maintaining insurance for all of its active members. At this kick-off meeting, long time members said they have found community and friendship in this group.

This is all much more than I had expected from signing up with this group, but I welcome it. I have spent most of my adult life avoiding team sports and fearing athletic enthusiast groups, not knowing how they could help me understand and enjoy the fitness activity more. Now, happily, I have finally joined the club.

Best Bang For Your Buck: A slide presented at the LCC kickoff meeting about ways to use time and money to a safe riding experience during the season. Love me a great PPT slide presentation! 💜
fitness

Testing My E-Bike: Whee!

Diane Harper1 Comment

I have dreamt of owning a Brompton since Sam bought hers. It turns out Catherine has owned one even longer. I have also wanted an e-bike for a year or so. My plan (eventually) is to replace my car with an e-cargo bike.

So last December when someone in my circle of cycling acquaintances posted about a Brompton e-bike for sale I jumped on the opportunity. It’s not a cargo bike, but I plan to buy a trailer that will make it very handy for shopping.

I made the purchase during the first big storm of the winter, so my first chance to play with it came during false spring in early March. My friend Florence invited me to join her for dinner at a restaurant about 6 km away. I was tired after a busy week so decided to test the Brompton. Did I mention whee?

I was easily able to keep up with Florence, my knees didn’t hurt, I could tuck it under the table so no worry about theft, and it was a fun conversation starter with others waiting for a seat.

People sometimes try to claim that riding an e-bike is “cheating”. Alisa Joy wrote about some great reasons to use an e-bike back in 2018. All those reasons are still valid. Plus it’s fair to ask the question”cheating compared to what? Driving a car?”.

Diane wearing a beige coat and head scarf. She is carrying her folded up Brompton in one hand and her battery and helmet in the other. She is standing in front of a restaurant where two cute dogs are sitting on a bench. Inset, the Brompton folded out and propped up against a brick wall.