Ding

  Part 3 of a 4 part series on commuting, recreational riding and the social interaction called "Traffic."

Why a bell?

  Sure you can shout “Hey!?!”, but the hearer would hesitate, turn around to see what all the “Hey”ing was about and by then it would be too late. 

  Or you could call-out the tedious, “on your left” but that must be said when you are in close proximity and can be startling and also comes with the stigma of sounding like, “Hey slowpoke your flab is oozing into my path get out of my way!” Or to those of us who are “right-Left” challenged it can just be confusing. 

  But a bell is straight-forward, impersonal, non judgmental, and not intimidating (at a safe distance). It’s a signal to warn that there’s a bike behind you, how far back you can perceive from the sound. It warns you to not be surprised if you should get passed and reminds you that the entire pathway is not for you to takeover so stay to the right. If cars had bells rather than aggressive sounding horns there’d be a lot less anger generated on the roadways. Horns sound angry, bells remind us of Santa.

  I rode for quite awhile before I remembered to use my bell. It was just one more thing to be aware of and do in an overwhelming situation. But as I became more practiced at commuting I was able to add the bell to the list of controls that were at my finger tips. 

  My advice is to not cheap-out, get a nice bell. The cheaper ones are harder to control volumetrically. The first time I tried using mine (I cheaped-out) I was not forceful enough and the sound was too wimpy, and the slow weaving rider in front of me continued to take up the entire lane of the bike path. By my second attempt I was far too close to him for as loud as it sounded. It could have… should have, startled him, but he must have been deaf (seriously). Finally after several attempts at getting his attention I swerved out into the grass to pass him.

  After that I decided I needed dinger practice, so on a part of a trail where I had not seen anyone for quite a while I pulled back and rang the bell. Just as it sounded, an oncoming rider coming around a sharp blind curve, with a startled expression on his face, fought to get his bike back into his side of the path. “Wow, not only did the bell save us both from impact, but he thought I actually did that because I was smart enough to realize it was a good idea when approaching a blind curve, not just because I was playing with my bell!”

  Now, more fully understanding the powerful tool at my fingertips, I tried to not be obnoxious with it’s over-use and tried to only use it when it seemed prudent. In one situation an obviously first time roller blader struggled to stay upright by holding onto a railing. She had her back to the edge of the trail and was facing inward. Surly if she has any peripheral vision at all she’d see me coming and as twitchy as she looked the bell might have startled her. As soon as I passed her she let out a gasp of surprise, and by the sound of desperate shuffling behind me, I’m pretty sure she fell down.

  The key seems to be “Go ahead and ring the thing”. If you wait too long as you assess the situation, you might get too close to ring without startling someone. 

Worst case you are at least putting folks into a Christmassy frame of mind.

“Come-on ring those bells…”

Toronto Commute Continued

  Part 2 of a 4 part series on commuting, recreational riding and the social interaction called "Traffic."

After some careful observation I decided to try a bit of cyclo-commuting Toronto style. But first I felt the need to get a bell for my bike, there are just too many people coming & going to & fro to be without one  AND there's a $90 fine for not having one, so my first stop was a bike shop just a few blocks away.

  I am not a helmet Nazi. There are times when a helmet may not be necessary, like when you are in your house or walking to the mailbox, or casually riding an upright bike in a sleepy neighborhood. But I WANTED to wear my helmet for my inaugural toe dip to test the waters of cycle commuting in Toronto. I wanted full body armor like a huge bomb casing with cut-outs for head arms and legs.

  The ride to the bike shop was short and strange, never before have I encountered so many practical (as opposed to recreational) cyclists on the road, in fact I was one of the few recreational riders out there at morning rush hour but I disguised myself as a commuter by wearing normal-people cloths and a backpack.

  Once properly “ding” equipped I followed some bike commuters around just to get the hang of commuting in a city with so much going on. It was pretty crazy, but everyone but me looked like they thought it was no big deal. Unlike any other urban area I've ridden in, here you don't want to go fast for the most part, again, there's just too much happening everywhere. Going fast just means less time to process what’s going on and how to deal with it. By following riders I was hoping to learn proper cyclo commuting etiquette but it was kind of a free-for-all... some riders stopped for lights, some didn't, some rode in marked bike lanes, some didn't, some rode through pedestrian crosswalks, others dismounted and walked, but amazingly the motorized commuters did not seem to get upset by the lack of consensus. It was a dance they had all done before but no one knew which steps were next, only once it was clear which step was needed at the given moment there was no hesitation, the dancers flowed smoothly. 

  At first I latched on to slower riders and followed them. Unfortunately, I found I was usually following women that were less aggressive, though to be sure, competent commuters, but after several blocks I felt that they might think I was stalking them, so when they turned abruptly I took that as a hint that they were getting suspicious and I continued traveling straight. Sometimes this got me into trouble as the bike lane, or road would end or the lane would get ugly with construction, tracks, or other obstacles.

  Sometimes the sidewalk was the only logical place to end up, but that is illegal, sidewalks are for pedestrians. Fortunately that law didn’t apply to me. In order to accommodate children being able to ride on sidewalks rather than in the street, the law in Toronto is written to allow bikes with tire diameters of less than 64cm to be ridden on sidewalks, as most adult sized bikes have wheels larger than this… but not my travel bike, it has kid sized wheels! I did not abuse my free pass, but at times I certainly took advantage of it!

  Following the paths of least resistance and avoiding turns and routes that I was not sure of the legality or prudence thereof, I ended-up pretty far from the hotel and I was not dressed properly for extended riding, in jeans, normal shoes, and a jacket that was getting to be too warm, so I latched onto a serious looking road rider wearing a bike racer costume (a fellow recreational commuter) that seemed to be heading in the right general direction. He made some odd turns but I stayed with him and the wisdom of his route became clear. He got me back to familiar territory and from there I managed my way back to the hotel. 

“What about the bell?” you ask? “Did it save your life?”

That story will be told in the next exciting installment…