Demons of Lower Sprinbank Rd.

The demons of Lower Springbank Rd. are the bain of the existence of those who reside and frequent the affluent quasi-suburban district in southwest Calgary. They wear armour on their heads, they float on steel steeds and they wield spinning weapons as they wreak havoc on all who are unfortunate enough to cross their path.

In case you haven't guessed, road cyclists are the "demons" of Lower Springbank Rd. Obviously, I don't think that cyclists are demons but, lately, I feel like one especially on Lower Springbank. It has always eluded me why perfectly normal people (outside of a scenario that involves a motor vehicle, a road and a cyclist) become irrationally motivated to yell some form of vulgarity and/or act in a way to endanger the life of a person riding a bicycle. This behaviour is not exclusive to Lower Springbank but I'm pretty sure that I have been harassed more on this stretch of road than any other road in the area.

This Wednesday I was doing hill repeats on "The Slopes", an estate community on a hill (thus the name) just off Lower Springbank. My recovery section of the interval occurs on Lower Springbank and on one of the intervals a young adult in a "sporty" Civic gives me the finger even though he's going the opposite way and I in no way impede him. Another recent example is when I happened to hook up with the Deadgoat Hammer ride on last Tuesday and on this ride someone thought that it would be a good idea to throw something (not sure what) out of the vehicle at 8 cyclist riding single-file inches from each other's wheel. What a moron! Fortunately, the person lacked the required skill to hit a human target from 4 ft away. Seriously, though, if that person would have caused a pile-up and there was traffic from behind someone could have been killed. God forbid that should ever happen but if it did I hope a manslaughter charge would ensue... Oh well, that motorist must have been late for home and we were holding him up. Wait, the vehicle didn't even slow down, we couldn't have slowed him then. Maybe the power steering gave out and it required a little bit of work to veer the car. I don't know. Maybe he would have been happier to see 8 other vehicles in front of him?!?

So, I'm not sure why Lower Springbank Rd. motorists are filled with this hatred for cyclists. The road has hardly any traffic by Calgary standards and it's not tight and twisty making it difficult to pass. What could the reason be? Maybe it is because half the people living there have no life outside of work because they have to work 13 hours a day to keep up the mortgage payment on a house that has already been leveraged to the max to pay for their Hummer, Porsche and there teenager's pimped Civic... I know, I know. I'm painting with a broad brush. I'm sure that there are a lot of wonderful people who live there but someone please tell me why every other time I'm there people curse me, throw things at me, or swerve at me?

apology

My deepest apologies to any eager blog-readers who existed out there that have endured the long drought of posts. I don't know if my mom ever read my blog but I'm quite certain that if she had even she would have stopped checking to see if Jonny has written a new blog post. No doubt my readership has dropped from a solid high single digit number to probably nil. This grieves me to no end but maybe, just maybe, there is one, perhaps two, people still out there that will click on their "favourites" and, in a moment of boredom, double click on "jon's blog". If that happens and they don't see "Ode to the Single-speed" they may think that they are experiencing a boredom induced hallucination but they will be mistaken because, in fact, I am back at the keyboard giving it a run again.

It is not as if I had nothing to write about. Actually, I had quite a few riding and other stories to recount. I've gone snow-shoeing in chest deep powder (only because I saw Andreas Hestler doing the cross-training thing on the cover of Impact magazine and I can't let him have an edge on me in the Transrockies this year). I've gone on several epic bike pathway single speed rides with Erik and others who have braved slush, salty roads and temperatures that cause you to have 3 inch icicles hanging from your goatee. I've rode to the top of Powderface Pass in February with Anthony Steamroller who had me at his mercy after 6 hours of pedalling even though he was riding a cross-bike and I was on a road bike... The point is that I have been experiencing all kinds of blog-worthy things but, whether the excuse be lethargy or sloth, they have not made it to cyberspace.

Hopefully I can regain some readership and we can start our relationship all over again... Hi my name is Jon...