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[caption id="attachment_10054" align="alignnone" width="497"] Homeless binner's ransacked bike and trailer. Prior to being moved along in the alley.[/caption]

Chris Jensen's disappearance from the Fairview area on Wednesday evening was neither unusual nor necessarily unwelcome. What was unusual and what caused several of South Granville's homeless population to take notice was the fact that he went away without taking his bicycle, attached trailer and most of his worldly possessions.

Well I've just seen him -- darn the luck! Only one day missing; that wasn't much of a break, but by the looks of him he wasn't off having a picnic.

[caption id="attachment_9369" align="alignnone" width="497"] This hot new phone at that price? What a steal![/caption]

That question -- Know anyone who wants to buy a smartphone? -- was being repeated around the Fairview McDonald's I was in yesterday evening.

It was after 9:30 p.m. There weren't many customers, but someone was hitting on each one of them in turn.

When it came to me I turned to the fellow asking me the disingenuous question and answered "no." I didn't add -- not even it was the last phone for sale on Earth and he was only selling it for a dollar -- I didn't say that part out loud. No colour or heat in my voice; just "no," with minimal eye contact. I wasn't giving the fellow anything to hang a spiel on.

The next customer heard the clear question -- everyone could hear it -- he replied: "what?"

That's the question on the lips of the fish as it bites down on the hook.

What follows was predictable in how it went and how it went wrong.

[caption id="attachment_9229" align="alignnone" width="497"] This one was stopped dead in its tracks but who can tell sometimes?[/caption]

My bicycle security system consists principally of a heavy-weight six-foot chain and a mini U-lock; it's not a complex system but it does require some regular maintenance: oiling the lock and, when the time comes, replacing it.

Today I replaced my Master-brand mini U-lock. I went back to the same Locksmith where I bought it a little over a year ago and bought another Master mini U-lock -- off the same wall hook display -- it may have been one of the other ones hanging on that same hook when I bought the first one, like I said, a little over a year ago.

Anyway it's identical to the lock it replaces, except for the cost.

A year-and-some ago, the lock cost $24 plus tax. Today the lock cost $39.00 plus tax -- a $15 increase in the sticker price. With taxes, the new lock cost me $43.68. I don't know what else to say about it except to say it seems a steep increase.

But I have to be glad I could get one. I think it's a good-quality U-lock.

Unfortunately, in my experience, no matter how well locks are made, they wear out. The act of locking and unlocking gradually grinds away at a lock's internal components. Grit and or water in the mechanism increases wear.

You should oil locks regularly, and, ideally, keep them away from water (easier said than done). But all you can do is prolong their useful life. Basically, the more you use them, and the more they're exposed to the elements, the faster locks wear until they wear out.

When the key starts getting hard to turn, that's a sure sign to lubricate the lock, and not with WD-40, which can increase wear!

At the first sign that lubricating the lock doesn't stop the key from sticking, replace the lock.That's what I was doing today.

I had stopped using the old lock when it became unreliably sticky and switched to a spare U-lock some weeks ago. Click the image to enlarge it.

[caption id="attachment_8909" align="alignnone" width="497"] Close but no cigar. In fact I needed something the diameter of a cigar![/caption]

Christmas night at about 9 p.m. I was running my bike and trailer rig through the alleys of Fairview hunting returnable containers. I heard a loud, sharp sound, like a starter's pistol, and something between very fine rain and snow began to fall (Inuit mist?).

Coincidence right? I recognized the sound. I even knew which of three hose clamps on the hitch arm of my bicycle trailer had just snapped under pressure. It wasn't a life or death situation -- for me, but it was a suicide mission for the hose clamps -- that was the sixth clamp to break.

[caption id="attachment_8896" align="alignnone" width="497"] My "sleigh" on Christmas Day.[/caption]

Christmas Eve is a magical time -- it gets sooo quiet.

I imagine you could hear the beat of tiny hoofs and sleigh bells but there were none of those last night. More importantly there were no shopping carts clattering through the alleys -- not just the alley off my parkade -- any alley in the vicinity.

Usually one or two intrepid binners come through in the early morning hours between 2 and 4 a.m. They move rather slowly and haltingly but they still manage to generate their own kind of sonic boom.

This is partly the result of a known physical law: a shopping cart's audibility is inversely proportional to how full it is.

Three wine bottles bouncing around in an otherwise empty steel-wire shopping cart can make a helluva racket. And only some binners take the trouble to put a piece of cardboard in the bottom of their cart basket.

In the dead quiet of the night, with the sound bouncing back and forth off the buildings lining an alley... oh my!

Fully-loaded carts have much quieter, monolithic loads and the weight reduces wheel noise considerably, but they are never quiet.

I came out of McDonald's this morning to find that a another homeless binner had locked their bicycle to my bicycle.

Saw the fellow when he did it but figured he was just locking his bike to the same pole my bike was locked to  -- it's easy to lock two bikes to one pole; one on each side. Cyclists do it all the time with the pole by this McDonalds. This bike binner used to do the same -- months and months ago. But not today.

He had gotten a coffee in McDonalds but then wandered off. I checked in the alley and the immediate area; he was nowhere to be seen.

I could wait for him. I certainly couldn't break the U-lock. Anything else I might do to free my bike would irreparably damage his bike, and though he was an idiot, he was an idiot who needed a bike to collect bottles, and haul his trailer full of his earthly possessions -- I didn't want to damage the bike.

The police were never an option; they don't care about stuff like this, and they don't have the equipment for dealing with a bike lock.

Either the fellow with the key showed up or I found someone with a circular grinder; I didn't believe anything else would do.

I had no money for a locksmith so that left either someone from the City of Vancouver Engineering department, or the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service. Fortunately there was a Fire Hall just on the other side of the alley on 10th Avenue.

I explained my situation in detail to two of the firefighters on shift at Fire Hall No. 4. They agreed to come and have a look. They brought with them the longest, biggest pair of bolt cutters I had ever seen.

After I proved to their satisfaction that I was the owner of my bike they had a go with the cutters.

Bolt cutters use the leverage of the long arms together with special compound hinges to take the force you apply on the handles and multiply it many times at the point of cutting contact; the longer the arms the more force they can apply.

Big though they were, they could only cut the vinyl shrink-wrap; they couldn't so much as scratch the shackle of the U-lock. The firefighters tried twice and gave up. Bolt cutters can make short work of the most imposing-looking padlocks, but U-locks have much thicker shackles. U-locks can damage bolt cutters not the other way around.

[caption id="attachment_8852" align="alignnone" width="497"] Cars have tire pressure sensors. So do bicycles; they're called potholes[/caption]

The last two spells of cold weather weren't very demanding or difficult to cope with, but they did have their curious moments.

For instance, take the micro-leak I had in in one of my bicycle tires -- please (Ba-dum!).

At 9° C -- this morning's temperature -- I could expect the tire to leak out in about seven hours. But, at -6° C it didn't appreciably leak at all. Even at 0° C it only lost about 10 pounds of pressure in about three days.

I realize there is an interrelationship between air pressure, temperature and density; there's a higher density of air at the bottom of the gravity well, and higher temperatures mean more energetic molecular movement which means higher air pressure.

So I understand that as the temperature drops so does tire pressure. But what I clearly don't understand is the mechanics of the differential between the air temperature and pressure in a tire versus the ambient outside air.

If I have a slow-leaking tire -- fully inflated -- in sub-zero weather, I would think the pressure and temperature is higher inside the tire than outside. I would expect the tire to leak faster to equalize with the outside lower pressure until an equilibrium is achieved.

I must have everything backwards; if the ambient outside air pressure was higher than inside the tire then I would not expect the tire to leak, but I don't see how that could be in in minus degree weather.

Unless the point is that all air pressure is lower in sub-zero temperatures and less energy means less leaking, period.

Ah well, another thing I don't understand. So deflating, ego-wise.

[caption id="attachment_8347" align="alignnone" width="497"] City salt truck at 9 a.m. heading east on Broadway Avenue[/caption]

It's snowing. Finally. The little flakes began drifting down on the corner of Broadway and Granville a little after 9 a.m. this morning -- two hours later it hasn't amounted to much, at least not where I am. I know the snow will be heavier in both the east and the south as the city rises in elevation but that doesn't help me down here near sea level.

Today's front page story in The Vancouver Sun is on how bike theft is one of the few crimes on the rise in Vancouver. This suggests at least two things to me: Most bike locks are a joke to most bike thieves, and there's a big demand for bicycles somewhere. Maybe the thieves are selling the bikes they steal back to the people they're stealing them from. But that doesn't explain why bikes seem so easy to steal.

[caption id="attachment_7227" align="alignnone" width="497"] The black bike is unintentionally making my grey bike even safer. Thanks black bike![/caption]

The photo above really is worth a thousand words on the subject of bike security. After I locked my bike and trailer to this bus sign pole on West Broadway, another cyclist came along, and locked up their bike to the pole, using that cute, blue, twist-tie of a lock. I'm a big believer that you can't stop someone from being able to steal your bicycle, but you can make it harder to steal than some other bicycle. If you were a bike thief, which bike would you try to steal? Click the image to enlarge it.

This seems like useful information for a cyclist to keep in mind. It's taken from a trashed Specialized bike box -- made in Cambodia! I like the list of all the basic tools you need to assemble the bike, and thus also dis-assemble, and maintain it:

• Allen wrenches (aka hex keys)


• Adjustable wrench (or spanner, or crescent, take your pick)


• multi-head screwdriver


• Headset tools (removing handlebars and front forks)


• Crank tool (removing pedal crank arms and the bottom bracket)


• Cone wrenches (thin wrenches required to properly disassemble a wheel)


• Chain tool (break open, and close a drive train bike chain)

Information about frame sizing -- fitting the bike to your body -- can't be overstated, it makes such a big difference to the comfort of your ride, not to mention the amount of power you can optimally deliver to the drive train (vroom, vroom).

What I'd add, in addition to stand-over clearance, is that things should be adjusted (handlebar height, seat post height, and seat angle) so that your legs, at their farthest extension in the pedaling stroke, are not completely straight -- your knees should still be slightly bent. You really need a second person to help you do this properly. Click the image to enlarge it.

Another lacklustre, long-exposure, night photograph: We're looking at Oak Street, a block-or-so on the North side of Broadway Avenue. I think the grade is over 20° at this point. On our left, going North, Oak gets even steeper -- over 30°, as it drops down to sea level to meet False Creek.

Years ago, on an August afternoon, I had a heart-stopping bicycle "ride" exactly two streets West, down the slightly steeper Alder Street. A sudden light rain shower -- the first after literally weeks of hot sun -- brought out the oil in the asphalt, and I could not stop -- my front and back brakes were clamped. The wheels weren't turning, but I was picking up speed. Looking ahead of me (looking down really), I didn't see my life flashing in front of my eyes, just the cars speeding to and fro along West 5th Avenue. I was able to use my body to lean into a turn and managed to crash-land in some bushes at the intersection of an alley between 6th, and 7th Avenue. I didn't have a bike trailer, or the story would have a different ending.

During particularly heavy rain, the three North-South streets, Oak, Spruce, and Alder are blocked off on the North side of West Broadway Avenue, because they are so steeply graded they can literally become water slides. Some parts of the concrete sidewalks have raised strips to act more like steps. Click the image to enlarge it.

Last Wednesday, September 18, delegates to the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, held here in Vancouver, voted down a much talked-about resolution put forward by  Sidney, B.C. to regulate motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters, in the interests of public safety. This Times-Colonist post on the UBCM meeting, says the rejection came despite an impassioned speech in support of the resolution by by Sidney Mayor Larry Cross. Sidney's final resolution was, in fact, a major climb-down from their original call to license motorized wheelchairs, and electric mobility scooters across the province. Mayor Cross compared his community, with its high proportion of seniors, to a canary in a coal mine, signalling the kinds of problems other municipalities can expect.

“We’ve had a fatality in our community. We’ve had, in the last eight months, two serious rollovers — one of which resulted in a gentleman spending the summer in the hospital with a broken hip. Those accidents could have been avoided.”

The original proposal to license mobility scooters was met with charges of discrimination, and agism, but I think it was motivated by public safety concerns, and desire to get ahead of the curve,and begin laying the groundwork for regulating a future full of such mobility vehicles, exactly as happened with automobiles early in the 20th Century.

[caption id="attachment_4361" align="alignright" width="238"] Waiting for the garbage truck, which may run on natural gas![/caption]

Neat piece of environmentalist propaganda; eye-catching, kind of ironic, and humorous -- intentionally, and otherwise. It argues for a sustainable, green, lifestyle, and, against a plastic, petroleum-based, disposable culture, yet, it's printed on a hydro-carbon-derived slab of plastic, and whomever bought it, from here, got tired of it, and chucked it in the garbage. Click on the images to enlarge.

I was on my way Eastward along the alley on the South side of Broadway Avenue, travelling to the bottle depot this morning. I reached the intersection with Columbia Street just in time to watch a crew of the City of Vancouver's burly worker bees complete a bike crossing. All that was left was to spray-paint on the bicycle stencil.



I waited while they got up steam, or whatever, to power the spray gun. Just as the paint was about to fly, they paused to reconsider the positioning of the stencil.



I've never seen one of these street stencils being applied, and i was interested to see that the stencil pattern was thick plastic -- probably Mylar. The cuts looked a bit rough close up, but that may have been all the paint on the pattern.

Now the pattern was positioned just so, and the air compressor was chugging away at full blast -- time to put down some paint!



The painter had the look of someone who does this fifty times a day. The sand was interesting.



They didn't wait but a moment to lift off the pattern, and drop some orange cones around the freshly painted stencil, and they were done! Another feather in Vancouver, B.C.'s bicycle-friendly cap. Click the images to enlarge them, except for the animated GIF.

[caption id="attachment_2542" align="alignnone" width="497"] The bike racks outside MEC on West Broadway, today. Click the image to enlarge it.[/caption]

I earn money by binning. I use a bicycle, with a bike trailer, to collect beverage containers to recover the deposit -- keeping my ride is a matter of being able to support myself,  so naturally I take bike security seriously.

Some basic suggestions:

• Make your bike less attractive to steal than someone else’s.


• Choose a security routine you can follow like a second nature.


• Lock both wheels -- Use a long, 11-inch U-lock and a chain, or two short U-locks. Whatever.


• Ask at a decent bike store about locking bike skewers, which can make it that much harder for thieves to take your wheels.


• If you lock your bike up outside overnight, get six feet of transport chain and a mini U-lock, which always stays locked to the railing or pole where you lock the bike.


• Don't leave easily removable do-dads on your bike, like lights, unless you are in a gift-giving mood.

Everyone should have disk brakes, but I don't. My bike uses a rim brake system: Linear pull brakes, otherwise called V-brakes, which are easier to change than the older cantilever system, but still annoying. Switching to a cartridge brake system in December has made my V-brakes, more-or-less, hassle-free. Every bike store should sell cartridge brake shoes and pads; lots of different companies make them. I've read they are available for cantilever brakes also, though I've only seen them for V-brakes.

[caption id="attachment_1905" align="alignnone" width="497"] That's so sweet. Click the image to enlarge.[/caption]

Two days ago, I was hauling a load of returnable containers to a bottle depot. This was on a narrow, but not very busy, quiet, side street, coming up on the very busy West Broadway Avenue. I distinctly heard a small metallic "ting," or "ping." It brought to mind the sound of a small, but important, piece of my bike bouncing off the road surface. I was slowing down, when the bike courier blew by on my left -- that sound had been the courier alerting me to his presence by ringing his bicycle bell -- an Incredibell, just like I had.

Sounds like Tinkerbell farting

It's the law in these parts, that a bike must have a bell. Good idea. Sad, there doesn't seem to be any good ones to buy. The current fashion seems to be little brass bells, with pure little tones, that sound like the call to a church congregation of mice, or Tinkerbell farting. I chose an Incredibell as the best of a bad lot. It was simple and durable, The sound is strong, but too nice, with no attack. It will not make Pedestrians freeze with fear. The only thing that can do that, these days, is the squealing shriek of badly toed cantilever, or side-pull brakes. That sound just cuts through the background noise, and acts on a person's fear of being hit by a careening bicycle. Gotta love that.

I have the Incredibell literally to comply with the law; I rarely use it because no one has paid attention to it when I have. If I was in that courier's place, I would yell that I was "on the left." If I was going to use the bell also, I would thumb the ringer multiple times, rather than just once. Really though, If I was going to use the bell, I should first, get a better bell.

[caption id="attachment_1695" align="alignnone" width="497"] "Who's this goober taking my picture?" wonders a visibly sceptical Zoey.[/caption]



What are the chances? While I beavered away over a McCoffee, writing the post about Mad Dog's bicycle side-car trailer, I look up to see another bicycle side-car trailer. I've previously only ever seen Mad Dog's custom-built side-car trailer. The idea has fascinated me for years, but I've never seen, or heard, or Googled, of a commercial product -- until now.

Zoey's father -- whose name escapes me but I remember it ends with an "O" -- told me he's been fascinated by the idea also. The one he has is made by Chariot; he bought it online. He's had it for under a year, I think, and likes it a lot. Zoey indicated that she likes it fine also. The operative, engineering ingredient is the way it attaches to the bottom bracket of the bike. Dad says it's easy to connect and disconnect. I noted that Zoey is remarkably close to the road, and must have an interesting view. Click the images to enlarge them.

The trailer is branded on the tube closest to the viewer with a sticker saying "SC Sidecarrier." Chariot made it, but they do not appear to sell it any more. So, I guess "dad" bought it online from Amazon, or ebay.