June 13th, 2015; A rememberance of Bikes Past in Grace's Toronto Adventures.

Pining for Pierre

Grace Writes:

When I was asked to do this blog post for operation transportation I thought I should give some back ground on how I became a bicycle commuter:
 I was never a bicycle commuter until I moved to Canada. Given the size of the city I thought it prudent to start commuting by bike and save the 100 dollars plus on a subway pass. When I met my bike it was love at first sight. I first spotted him on a Facebook site dedicated to the Irish in Toronto. I messaged the owner and told him I would come to pick up the bike that evening.

Pierre, as I christened him, was an old French racer, the kind you might expect Jean Paul Sarte would whizz around Paris on. Sartre put it succinctly himself in his book 'On Being and Nothingness' when he noted:


PIERRE

 "To possess a bicycle is to be able first to look at it, then to touch it. But touching is revealing as insufficient; what is necessary is to be able to get on the bicycle and take a ride. But this gratuitous ride is likewise insufficient; it would be necessary to use the bicycle to go on some errands. And this refers us to longer uses … But these trips themselves disintegrate into a thousand appropriative behavior patterns, each one of which refers to others. Finally, as one could foresee, handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession."

On the back of this sentiment, Pierre was not merely a monetary transaction between two people he was the start of my exploration between my body in movement and the spatial urban environment that I had chosen to live in.He was Yoshi to my Mario.

Mario and Yoshi from :
 http://geosworld.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mario_and_Yoshi_SMW.png

Toad from:
http://www.mariowiki.com/toad_(species)

So the next step was to buy a helmet. Toronto is the most dangerous Canadian city to ride a bike and in 2010 there were 1,145 accidents and incidences involving cyclists. I generally hate helmets because I feel I have a weird shaped head but I reasoned it was better to look like a dork than to have it redesigned by the road surface or a car. I found a small bike shop through yelp run by a Ecuadorian man near Kensington market. He was so helpful in servicing my bike and gave me a lot of extras for free I felt obliged to buy a helmet even though in a hipster capital such as Toronto I could have easily found a "cool helmet" elsewhere. Instead of looking like Mario or Yoshi, I now resembled Toad or for those who did not waste their childhood playing Gameboy, the guy who looks like a cross between Aladdin and a mushroom.

 It really amused my sister and her boyfriend to see me flying around Toronto with my big mushroom helmet. Pierre spent the winter living on my sisters balcony when the snow forced us to live underground for a couple of months. My winter commute consisted of a 5 min walk to street car stop, which then brought me to a subway station after I got on a bus and after one hour I arrived at work. I was relived when spring arrived and Pierre was awakened from his winter hibernation, I could feel the wind on my face again.




Pierre wintering
in Toronto

Spring presented its own challenges with spring rains that would give Ireland a run for its money. On one particular bad day, I carried Pierre down the steps into the subway station. It was too soft a day for even me to attempt to cycle home. The security guard turned us back at the barrier.

No bikes on the subway during rush hour! Like a mother with a buggy, I carried him back up the steps and to the nearest bus stop. They had room for Pierre with a specialised bike rack in the front.

Working in a yoga studio, I had the early morning shift so Pierre and I were usually quite alone on the city streets at 5.30 in the morning. There were few cars and the people we met were usually the street cleaners and garbage collectors. It was a wonderful way to see the city just before it was to awake.



Deserted Streets and Golden Skies:
The Toronto morning commute!

Things changed after the accident.

One early morning we were flying down Spadina to make our way on to the waterfront where the studio was located. Being overly cautious not to get doored and mindful of cars on the road, I had overlooked the silent enemy of cyclists...the streetcar track.

 A thick mountain bike wheel might be able to manage this but Pierre had super slim wheels and in a split second where time seemed to stand still, that wheel was wedged in that track and was not going to move and as physics would have it given the momentum, the only thing left to move was me. I knew the minute it happened I was in trouble but I was powerless to stop it. I sailed over the handlebars in a silent reverie, only to be broken by the sound of bone on concrete. I hit my head hard off the road surface and as I was wearing glasses, they got rammed into my face.



Post accident Helmet :(

Pierre landed on top of me, pinning my hand to the ground. I was dazed and sore but I could move and I knew I had to get off the road. I pulled Pierre with me.

 My now white helmet had blood all over it. I did an examination of my head and ran my hands through my hair to see where the blood was coming from but I could find nothing to signify that my helmet had failed. However, when Pierre had fallen on top of my hand he had split my baby finger and it gushed blood that had managed to make me look worse than what I actually was.

I managed to walk the rest of the way to work and was cleaned up by the first yoga teacher on the scene who got a fright upon seeing my blood-stained helmet. I was lucky, and my dorky helmet saved me. 

That was the start of the breakup between Pierre and I.

The accident had damaged him beyond what I could afford to pay for and I was too shook to get back on the bike for a while after that. I decided to move to Vancouver for the summer and I handed the keys to my sisters boyfriend. The last sight I had of Pierre was tied up outside an apartment block in High Park. His stylish exterior hiding the extent of the injuries sustained in the accident. I still feel bad for leaving him behind.

Bike art:
one way to commemorate a cycling affair..

 I bring up Pierre because I cycled my dads old battered black mountain bike to lunch in the Kingsley today. It was an uneventful journey and I found myself missing Pierre. This bike was black and clunky whereas Pierre cut through the space like a knife through butter and he looked good doing it.

I now have a fancy Giant avail racer but don't use it to commute or for running errands due to the fear of theft, which I will explain in another blog post. It is a great bike and we are getting to know each other, but there was something about Pierre. He was like a trusty steed by my side into what felt like a new life in the wild west; there will always be new steeds but you never forget your first one!


Toronto
- a home of high-speed highways
and Pierre:
ignitor of passions
for pedal-cycling commutes....