5.23.2025 - Weekly Digest
Hellloooooo All.
I have some announcements to make, but I'll hold onto those until next week. I know many in the States are in the early stages of planned oblivion what with the holiday weekend starting and such.
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy these tales of haplessness.
Cheers
-JA
5.20.2025
Rain upon my person all weekend. Did not mind. Was not tragic. The office I use is empty on account it’s Victoria Day in all the provinces but this one. When Quebec celebrates they celebrate not celebrating dead monarchs. Here it’s French Nationalist Patriot’s Day or something around there. Explains the festivities I encountered on my walk through Parc La Fontaine. Drawn like an insect to the soft pulse of an EDM beat near a public restroom. Middle aged men engaged in hackysack, badminton sans net, one guy just generally spinning a long baton which on closer inspection is a stick. Vive le proles. Seriously this all makes me happy and proud for them and tres jaloux. The parks are full here and alive. Communal merriment. The benches are well worn but you can usually find one to sit on. Children and dogs intermingle with everyone else and I rarely see conflict. A concrete expanse behind the school in the middle of the park is always active with bocce players. Bocce is big. Bocce is like the pickleball of Montreal I guess. Teams lined up in formation, disciplined, gamblers poised around the picnic tables placing odds. Only a clown bets against the lady in the high waisted jeans. Only there are plenty of clowns, some of them professionals. Nevertheless I see no threat or germs of violence. Being somewhere peaceful makes me feel guilty. Or outraged. How can everyone be so calm? Or this is what's actually normal and what we should all aspire to make our worlds like. The more time I spend away from the kaiju across the border the less it has a hold on me. Like I don't come from there, or was never meant to, or none of us were. I don't know I'm working something out so thanks for being around for it.
5.21.2025
Riding a bicycle is one of the only means of exercise I truly enjoy. I commuted and zipped around Chicago for over a decade in various states of sobriety and only ever wiped out once that I remember, if you don't count getting nicked by taxis (everyone gets nicked by taxis, sometimes worse).
They have this bike share program here. I've always been skeptical of these. The bikes are heavy and clunky. But mainly because it takes some discipline and awareness to ride responsibly in a place simmering with traffic and pedestrians. When they rolled out the Divvy program in Chicago in 2013 the lakefront exploded with idiots riding into traffic, wobbling through groups of people on the sidewalks along Michigan Avenue, smacking into trees. On at least three occasions riders made their own paths into the water.
I didn't feel bad for any of them and I'll take responsibility for that. There was a crash or two on Lake Shore Drive (was always going to happen) but my favorite, and you can find a video of this online, is the lady who got on a Divvy and after a series of impossible to comprehend events and wildly poor decisions ended up riding on the shoulder of the Eisenhower Expressway, like she was planning to commute home to Naperville or something. I believe she survived.
Anyway as it's gotten warmer here I've started noticing how many people ride bicycles and that many of the locals rely on this system. The docks are everywhere and there are protected lanes with curbed medians between them and the traffic. I do my research. Pick up a helmet, get the membership. I stand for a long time staring at the rows of bikes trying to figure out how to unlock one with my phone.
5.22.2025
The first Bixi bike I rode was an e-bike. I've never ridden an e-bike before. I balk at the concept. In Traverse City on the regional trail system I felt attacked when I saw them. Abominations. They don't belong. If you're going to ride a bike, ride a bike. If you're going to ride a motorcycle or a moped or an ATV or a scooter or anything that tops 30 mph keep it on the road. I have opinions about this, see.
I didn't realize it at first. I was confused, thought maybe I was going downhill without realizing it. The lack of effort it took to accelerate took me by surprise. When I realized what was happening I felt guilty of some sort of betrayal. Then I fully enjoyed myself, gliding down side streets and passing cars backed up at lights.
The problem is these bikes aren't maneuverable enough to justify this kind of power in a crowded area. Just the fact that they're dangerous makes me surprised Americans haven't fully embraced them yet.
I know now that the e-bikes have lightning bolts above the QC code you use to unlock them and I promise to myself that I will avoid them from now on. Then I walk back up the hill from downtown and consider what that's like on a regular bicycle, and I've seen the commuters puffing up Parc by the mountain and how they're peddling so hard but it looks like they're standing still and this guy's face looks like it's going to pop off and I can admit that having an assist in these situations might be of some value.
5.23.2025
Once I got used to it it became a little addictive, and now my map of the city has adjusted to the reality that I can usually find a bike within a few blocks and ride the clunky bastard wherever I need to go, drop it off, and explore a new neighborhood. It's helpful, too, being on an island. Geographical and hydrological barriers to ending up on the Queen's Highway.
Bixi bikes are different sizes, I discovered. Why wouldn't they be? Human beings are different sizes, and this is a communal ride-sharing system in a highly democratic city. Yet this did not occur to me when I picked out a bike for a ride to Mount Royal.
I pulled the thing off the rack and took my seat, adjusted the gear, and realized right away I was sitting much lower than expected. Like knees level with my elbows low. Not wanting to deal with putting the bike back and having to re-unlock another one, confusing the app and causing a breakdown in some system somewhere, I pushed on despite my discomfort.
So I'm on this low-rider bike, arms stretched out above my head, emulating a motorcyclist with ape hanger handlebars. My stride is much longer and I'm working much harder than I'm used to. Plus I'm going uphill, ascending the Plateau, to go for a hike up a mountain. It starts to burn and my lungs struggle and my only recourse is to curse the bike itself. Topography is also to blame.
I'm doing this high-step aerobics exercise on a small but incongruously heavy bicycle, convinced I'm justified in the workout but also frightened that I might be over my limit, not having engaged in as much aerobic exercise as usual these last few months, and when I finally reach the sidewalk across the street from the mountain, I get off and walk the beast the rest of the way to the docking station.
Admissions: I rode regularly, almost daily when the weather allowed, in Michigan and Chicago, for many years. Neither place has hills. That's on me for discounting the challenge presented. Also, I only ever use single-speed bikes because I'm not interested in having to worry about or clean gears or deal with complicated messy chains. I never even considered adjusting the gear on my murderbike until I'd already walked off the pain and cleared my head.
In my defense, I did not ride into the river.