Travelling in Style: A Matter of Life & Death

While my betters attempt to imitate their betters by attending things like the Toronto International Film Festival and making the correct sniffing noises at the correct moments of great poignancy, I spent the entire day stuck in a streetcar crawling along The Gardiner Expressway.  Thankfully, as an experienced Toronto commuter, I had packed supplies and a spare Crayon set, and hired a Sherpa from Parkdale to assist my epic voyage to Etobicoke and back.

We foraged for food on the streetcar's floor, kept warm by burning refuse and Metro newspapers, and when the light failed we drew pictures on the walls by firelight detailing our skirmishes deep into the rear of the streetcar, where an urchin kept a jealous vigil over an orange that had rolled into his territory during the steep assent over the Humber River.  Thankfully, I am pleased to announce that I eventually returned safely to Toronto, paid my Sherpa a fair wage (against Rob Ford's advice), and hiked the Pathway to Enlightenment back to my home.

I initially spent time scrutinizing the mass of faces hoping to glimpse some celebrity of note attending the TIFF, but since facial reconstruction has erased any vestige of familiarity in the celebrities that were popular back when I used to pay attention, I took to studying the rich mosaic of chewing gum on the sidewalk instead, until this caught my attention:

I understand suffering for money, but suffering for fashion confuses me utterly.  The impulse to adorn one's bicycle with detachable front basket stems from an urge to telegraph to beholders that "I am a European type of person who goes to market and buys fresh legumes with a reusable an therefore sustainable wicker basket."  However, orienting your brake levers into a drag-inducing, carpal-straining position to accommodate the aforementioned basket just telegraphs to the world that you're an idiot.

Speaking of idiocy and fashionable bicycles, I am concerned to announce that the good dilettantes of Curbside Cycle appear to be short on fatuously fashionable Toronto cyclists to photograph for their blog and, in the tradition of all Toronto cyclists suffering moments of self-doubt and anxiety, have looked to Europe for consolation and reminder, as seen here in this photograph of Christopher (because 'Chris' is insufficiently European):

I am pleased to note that there's very little wrong with Chris' bike, except the inadequately closed quick-release skewer on the front wheel, but since Curbside Cycle eschews modern componentry like the derailleur, the alloy rim, and the battery powered light, I'll give them some slack on the grounds of inexperience.

I will not however cut them some slack for missing gross stylistic errors, such as Christopher's misaligned buttons/belt/zipper, the black laptop bag that screams corporate IT nerd, and the whole lack of colour co-ordination.  That sort of inattention is inexcusable, especially when name dropping Alexander Mcqueen.

Before long, the Common Elite blog will be filled with fashion fox-paws like this foppish art student bobbing furiously along the Pathway to Enlightenment on a crappy mountain bike, every action being equalized by an opposite reaction from his dopey front suspension system:

Yet it is the tendency of all fashions to cycle every 20 years or so, and having counted the rings on Gary Fisher's jowels and carbon dated strands of his facial hair, I fear that a grand cycling of cycling fashion may yet make this sordid combination fashionable.  I fear we may eventually move from the Continental Period of Cycling Affectation to the Colonization Period of Cycling Affectation, when we will be suddenly beset by Eric Kamphoff hawking stump-jumpers designed by 'indigenous' Afrikaners for the rugged gated communities of Johannesburg to Toronto urbanites looking to 'slay' some epic sidewalk in style.

Fortunately fashion in Toronto is, at the moment, turning towards the cooler weather and therefore to warmer clothing, except this Queen St W store:

Looks more like 100% off to me...

Stupid Bikes: Mechanical Graffiti or Hermenutical Key?

In my quest to understand Toronto's cycling ethos, I study the bicycles I see shackled about the core.  The variety initially seems endless, but the human tendency to conformity eventually prevails and trends become apparent.  As cycling becomes increasingly popular one's modal choice of transportation fails to differentiate oneself from the herd, necessitating the aesthetic mitosis of bicycle design to various alt.cultures.

While some find solace by huddling together with like-minded and like-aesthetic-ed individuals [*insert predictable hipsters on fixies jab here*], others, having failed to distinguish themselves intellectually, financially, or socially, attempt to distinguish themselves visually by distorting their bicycle to absurdist heights as seen in this epic comfort bike on Spadina Ave:

Having your front V-Brake undone is the bicycle equivalent to having your fly open.

 And (unfortunately) yet again on Adelaide St:

The above owner even eschews basic social standards like using the correct quill stem clamp diameter or fastener type:

The owner proudly pointed out the weight savings achieved by drilling it out.

Reared on Martha Stewart and various other sundry kraftwerks, some attempt to differentiate themselves through conspicuous appliqués of DIYism.  Labouring under the strictures of penury, some DIYers attempt to convert their vintage department store cruisers into the luscious Batavus they covet through the method of found-object curation, as is seen on the colour co-ordinated oven rack skirt-guard seen here on Spadina Ave:

Still others attempt to recreate the suppleness and comfort of the Brooks saddle through the careful appliqué of vintage fabrics, as seen on this abomination on Queen St W:

The Cotton Ass Hammock's advanced textiles wick ass moisture.

While some may label these aberrations of good taste and good design as further aberrations from cycling culture in Toronto, I would disagree.  These bikes are normal.  Aesthetics aside, these bicycles are fundamentally akin to almost every other bike in Toronto: disposable, poorly maintained, rarely used, and likely ridden with the same asshat carelessness that characterizes most cyclists in Toronto.  Carelessness is the grand unifying theme, and it's rooted ultimately in Toronto's perception of cycling as a trivial and insignificant pursuit.

Torontonians, having being suckled on department store boneshakers that were to be ridden on sidewalks, understand bicycles according to two sacred truths:

Bicycles should be cheap.  Anyone who has worked in a bicycle shop knows that, dandies and the delusional aside, most customers are vice-fisted racoons who "don't want to spend too much" to fix the bike that happened to (wonder of wonders!) spontaneously combust while they were "just riding along."  They don't want to spend too much because their bicycles are just inexpensive trifles and, as such, should not to be taken too seriously (read 'maintained').

Biking is like walking ...but different.  The bothersome inconveniences of social consideration, traffic planning, and self-preservation compel otherwise sensible individuals to take the path of most resistance  ...mainly because it appears shorter.  For many Torontonians, riding a bicycle is only a subtle variation of walking and the straightest line is the ideal trajectory; hence the rich similarities in strategy between the average Toronto pedestrian (read 'self-absorbed jaywalking imbecile')  and average Toronto cyclist.  Unfortunately, the tendency of the average Toronto cyclist to not die during their hastening from A to B only reinforces the behaviour.

In Toronto, taking cycling seriously is abnormal behaviour.  Pundits routinely divide Toronto cyclists into (a) serious/avid/compulsive-obsessive cyclists and (b) people who ride a bike.  The former are a minority.  The latter represent the dominant attitude in Toronto.  Here, driving a car is normal.  Backing over your CCM Medalist with your car and then walking it into a bike shop and telling the bike mechanic with a straight face that "It doesn't shift right" is normal.  Riding a crappy off-road bike with full-spring suspension along the sidewalk in an urban setting and failing to realize how retarded the whole picture is ...is normal.

In Toronto spending money on your bike and actually riding it, on the road, to a  destination more than five kilometres a way is strange.  Don't believe me?  Try it sometime and then mention your behaviour to some fellow and watch their reaction.

We're the weird ones.