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Showing posts from September, 2013

Stieda's Point: People Riding Bikes

The Tour of Alberta has almost toured through Alberta and soon the usual questions will come into view: was it worth the investment? should it be an annual event? are you really trying to tell me the peloton has a mind of its own? And, of course, what the hell is a peloton and is it native to Alberta? But there is another question that has been quietly dropped into the mix, or maybe it's a reminder, or a challenge or a nudge. And it came from Alex Stieda, the driving force behind the Tour of Alberta. It hasn't gotten much attention. What has gotten the attention are those usual questions. The economic development questions. They are legitimate questions. Here is where I am going: @jdkrabbe asks @ doniveson What can you do as Mayor to make the Tour of Alberta an even bigger success in 2014? 11:20 PM - 3 Sep 2013 @doniveson is a thoughtful city councillor running for Edmonton mayor. He rides a bike, his wife is a bicycle-riding blogger, he routinely leaves us wi

Bicycle Shorts

Cycling has for me long been connected to the movies. Or, closer to what I mean, the spinning wheels of the film projector. (Cycling, for me, is also about writing, especially on a blank-sheet-white road across which I leave a mark of my meanderings. But that's a winter thought. For now, it's movies.) Some times that sense of being at the movies while sitting on my saddle happens when the morning September sun projects my moving shadow, just slightly ahead, onto the McKenzie Ravine bridge fence. Last night, on my ride home from downtown, it was less that feeling of making movies as watching them unfold in short scenes as I pedal by. This sense is doubtless aided by the fact I typically have a GoPro rolling from my handlebars, but this, in eight short scenes with a director's commentary added in the frame's upper left corner, is what I mean: Being open to the time that cycling provides to see things, and see things not whiz by, is its only price of admissio