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For over thirty years now, I have had two bicycles, one for getting around town, and another for getting out of it. Early on I outfitted myself with the appropriate tools and learned how to fix my machines. As various bits broke or wore out, they got replaced, sometimes with new parts, sometimes with used parts. Just the same, over the years I have bought a total of five bicycles brand new, so my bicycles have not not always been old beaters. But the two I have now certainly are, with nary a single original part left on either. Nevertheless, one has ten speeds, with a frame and front forks configured in the manner of a racing bike. The other has fifteen speeds, with frame and front forks configured in the manner of a touring bike. When they are in operation, they both roll well. I use the former for daily transportation around Vancouver, and the latter for longer trips beyond the city limits. At least, that is the Master Plan.

In fact, I have not taken a bicycle trip out of town for ages. It has been too attractive to simply cycle to the tennis courts to get recreation and exercise. A further discouragement to long trip cycling has been the fact that my touring bike was taken out of commission a couple of years ago after hitting a huge pothole in Strathcona. The impact bent the frame beyond usability. 

Still having the ten speed to ride, I did not rush to fix or replace the touring bike. Maybe a year and a half ago I found a good used frame in Cheapskates, on Dunbar.  But I was lazy in remounting parts and pieces to the replacement frame, and soon the weather turned too cool to continue the work, out on my balcony. The bike remained a partially assembled hulk until we got our current late summer stretch of good weather. I finally got it reassembled in mid August. 

Having now resuscitated my touring bike, it occurred to me that giving it a good test ride would be in order. Camping was not in the cards….did not want to lug a lot of gear. But I have a pal who divides his time between a home in Kitsilano, and a family home in Metchosin, on Vancouver Island. I had never been to Metchosin. I knew my friend had two acres there, and a small “hobby” sawmill. I was curious to see it. Knowing he was over there last week, I gave him a call to see if I could stay over one night. He said, “Sure, you can have the spare bedroom. Come on over”. The dye was cast. (Click on images below to enlarge) 

Passed by a well lit and reflected cyclist on Heather, in the wee hours.

I had been warned by an acquaintance that there were few daily crossings of the Dease tunnel bicycle shuttle. That was misinformation, which I reinforced by misreading the official web posting of schedule. I thought I had only three chances to catch the shuttle in the morning, the last being at 8 am. In fact I had read a schedule for the winter off season (after October 10).  Not realising my mistake, I was terrified of possibly missing a morning ride through the Dease tunnel.

So, aiming for Metchosin, and fretting needlessly about the tunnel ride,  I pedaled out from home in the dark, on the morning of Tuesday, August 23, around 5:15 am.  Good Grief!!!! From my place I followed my usual route to the QE tennis courts, which took me up Heather Street to the top of the ridge. From there: Cambie, the skytrain bridge across the Fraser, Shell Road to the Steveston Highway and on to the bike shuttle pick-up. I did not make great time, stopping several times along the way – adjustments to my bike and gear, find a bathroom, have a milkshake as sole early customer in the Burger King in the mall at Steveston Highway and No. 5 Road (my first choice had been coffee and a pastry in Tim Horton’s, but there was a big line-up). After my milkshake it took just a few minutes to get to the bike shuttle loading spot, around 7:30.  As I arrived, the driver was leaving. He hollered “Eight o’clock!” at me, and pedaled away towards the shopping centre from whence I had come.

QEhardrock bicycle patiently awaits driver's return.

Driver locks up his own bike, before loading for the 8 am crossing.

The driver returned at eight, and actually pedaled past the shuttle, to the end of the side road and back, presumably to get the most exercise possible out of his break. Like all the tunnel shuttle drivers I have ever seen, he was an East Indian, though not a bearded, turbaned Sikh, as I had been used to in earlier decades. He seemed a pleasant fellow. But his English was minimal enough not to invite much conversation.

There was only one other customer for our journey through the tunnel: a very pretty, twenty something blonde, who, I must say, looked absolutely smashing in her skin-tight cycle shorts and tunic. “Going to the ferry?”, I asked hopefully. She replied that no, she was going to her job, near Ladner. She had her work clothes in her small backpack. When we unloaded near the Delta Town and Country, she pedaled off as I was securing my bags to my bike, and I did not see her again….sigh.

The ride along highway 17 to the Tsawassen ferry terminal has become a cyclist’s ride through hell.* I say that largely because of the relatively recent addition of semi-trailer traffic to and from the Roberts Bank Superport. It is not simply a coal port any more. Container ships dock there, and you would not believe that there was anything like an economic slowdown to judge by the traffic to Roberts Bank that Tuesday morning. The noise, the diesel fumes, the backwash from speeding tractor trailers that threatened on several occasions to drag me off the bike, had me in terror for most of the ride. The Roberts Bank traffic turns off highway 17, about half way to the ferry dock, so the last mile or two are less ferocious, as far as traffic goes. One only has the sadly neglected paved shoulder, where cyclists must travel if they value their lives, to deal with. There are piles of sand, the occasional dead gull, shards of glass, and mysterious metal parts fallen from who knows what sort of vehicle or machinery, littering the way. Not an inviting ride for cyclists. Not at all.

Had to wait for a ferry. Saw other older cyclists waiting, with really nifty bicycles, and the best gear and panniers. One guy had a Marinoni. That is a bicycle made by an Italian maker who imigrated to Quebec years ago. They are very good machines, and costly. When I lived in Montreal (1980s), Marinoni’s were slavered over by cyclists who wanted THE best. One fellow I knew had a second hand one….he worshipped it. Another acquaintance of mine stenciled the word , “Macaroni”, onto the frame of his own old beater ten speed as a satire on the Marinoni cachet. The style of font used on Marinoni frames is easy to copy, and my friend’s bike looked like the real thing, at first glance. The joke was subtle. Some of us thought it the soul of wit. When I saw the guy at the ferry had a Marinoni leaning on his hip, I blurted out, “Oh wow, a Macaroni! Haven’t seen one of those in years.” The owner seemed to take it in good humour. 

Between the early morning start, and the adrenalin rush of the final half hour race through cyclist hell to the ferry, I had arrived at the terminal as one tuckered out QEhardrock. Our boat had seats with moulded headrests at the top of the back, at a height good for children and tiny adults. Nevertheless, I managed to slouch down, hang the edge of my bum off the seat, and lay my head against the headrest. Our passage through the glorious marine scenery of Georgia Strait and the Gulf Islands was spent trying to snooze, slumped thus, in the quietest corner I could find.

Coming in to the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay.

From Swartz Bay onward, there was no need for me to stray off bicycle paths until I was two blocks from my friend’s house in Metchosin. The Lochside Regional Trail begins at the southwest edge of the ferry terminal. There are some hilly bits near the terminal, but very soon the trail follows an old railway right of way to very near Victoria, where there is a turn onto the Galloping Goose Trail, which follows another old railway bed all the way to Sooke. The charm of old railway beds is that they do not rise or fall at a grade larger than three degrees. They make truly cycle friendly roadways.

Catching up to my German couple, Lochside Regional Trail.

Leaving the ferry terminal, I spoke with a German-speaking couple who were pedalling just ahead of me. The lady told me they were from Tsawassen, and heading for Victoria, to spend the night, then return. She said they knew the Lochside Trail well. I followed them. When one reassembles a bicycle at home, as I had done in the weeks before, the first long ride usually brings to light adjustments that should be made to brakes, and the bits that change gears. I made a couple of stops on that account, as I was following my German pair. But I kept catching up to them, and having to slow down considerably to match their pace. “Your bike is much faster than our bikes” the lady remarked. My bike has thinner tires, larger wheels, and was rolling very well after having recently had all bearings and cones greased and finely adjusted for tension. She was right. Then she told me that the trail was very well marked all the way, that she and her husband had been able to follow it the first time they took it. I thanked her for their guidance, and pedaled ahead.

Blenkinsop Lake, from the trestle, Lochside Trail.

As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit tired by the time I made Tsawassen, and I am certainly not in good cycling shape. While the ride along the Lochside and Galloping Goose trails is not demanding, an hour or so after leaving Swartz Bay, I needed to find some energy to carry on. I recalled the advice of a touring cyclist I spoke with briefly south of Richmond many years ago. He said he found that fruit was the best stuff to eat for distance cycling. I have cycled many longish trips since then, largely ignoring that advice. But I was younger and fitter then. On this occasion, I gorged myself on blackberries, found trailside, and blueberries and bananas purchased from a farmer’s produce store along the route. It worked. My metabolism responded with the energy to pedal on. Fruit….highly recommended for the peripatetic cyclist, folks. I made my friend’s house just in time for supper.

A view from Galloping Goose Regional Trail.

For those who may not have visited the District of Metchosin, I can say that it is a rural municipality, situated a little bit south and west of Victoria. As the Galloping Goose Trail approaches the district and moves into it,  one cycles through mostly forest. On the bike path I saw a couple of rabbits, a deer, few people. My friend informs me that there is a bylaw in place that restricts residential lot sizes to no less than two acres. The terrain is mostly wooded, so those who live there have lots of trees, birds, deer, and smaller critters living with them, and can pee wherever they damn please, on their property. Rustic.

Cyclist amuses host with expert right camera hand.

It was interesting to see my friend’s family two acres in Metchosin, and his home-made sawmill and associated equipment. The big wind that blew down the trees in Stanley Park a few years ago also brought down many trees on my friend’s property. He has cut many good timbers from it, as well as a lot of firewood. He gave me a nice tour of the local area, and the beaches where he often gets logs. 

The following day my host offered to drive me to Swartz Bay. I gratefully accepted a ride into Saanich. I would have had to start very early had he not given me that lift. But I was not stiff, as I thought I would be, so was happy to cycle the Lochside trail from there. The ride home was uneventful, except for a flat tire along the cacophonous ride through hell, between the Tsawassen terminal, and the tunnel shuttle pick-up spot, at the Shell station beside highway 17 at highway 99.* What a terrible stretch along which to fix a flat – one finds leaks in inner tubes by listening for the escaping air! The tire took maybe half an hour. Once through the Dease tunnel, I did not rush. After having a  coffee and doughnuts at Tim Horton’s in the mall at Steveston and No. 5 Rd, I took Shell Road through Richmond and cut over to the Oak Street Bridge to get to Marpole, where I stopped to buy a few vegetables. Arrived home around seven in the evening. So ended QEhardrock’s Big Cycle Adventure. 

I had a whole pile of photos I had intended to insert into this post, as thumbnails readers could click on, if they were  interested. Unfortunately, this blog software makes a complete hash of layout for multiple photos. I have no answer for it. If I find one, I will add more images….not that they provide earth shaking insights….but it galls me that I cannot insert them!

* Note: Since taking this trip, and writing this post, I have discovered that one can actually avoid most of highway 17. From the tunnel shuttle drop-off, at the Shell station by the Town and Country, take Vasey Rd back toward the Fraser, cross highway 99 via an underpass and travel through Ladner. The route takes one to 52 St which intersects highway 17 not far from the ferry causeway. Its a little longer than the ride straight through hell, but much less intimidating.

Maps & shuttle schedule (click on them to enlarge):

We have had good weather since the end of July, and there has been no need of the court draggers that were cobbled together by QEhardrock DH and myself last fall. Nevertheless, while not that long ago carrying one, from where it had been left lying on the ground, to the fence to hang it up, a young man asked me what the rug was supposed to be used for. Since I see rain in the forecast again, it is probably not a bad idea to devote the rest of this post to an exposition on the use and care of the court draggers.

There are three of these rugs, folded over a centre piece with pull cords attached, so they can be dragged on two sides. The idea is that they be towed across pools of water after a rain, thereby soaking up the water, and helping to get the court dry. Even when wet themselves, the draggers spread water thinly across the surface of the court, allowing for quicker evaporation. But they do their best work by actually soaking the water up. If left to sit on a pool of water for a few moments, a dragger that is itself not yet water-logged, will absorb quite a large pool. 

 After use, the rugs have to drain, so they will absorb again. It is necessary that they be hung on the fence, so water will run out of them. If left lying on the ground, they do not drain, but simply remain soaked, no longer effective as court water removers. I have provided moveable hangers, made out of twisted old coat hangers, to be used for hanging the court draggers on a fence. The hangers are marked with orange flagging, just so they can be seen easily.

 When the wet rugs are hung, water pours down. Care must be taken to hang wet draggers where they will not drain back onto court. The location that is best is anywhere on the west fence between the tennis courts and the hockey rinks.

 Aside from the three rug draggers, there is one old sofa cushion also outfitted with a cord for pulling. It is used the same way as the rug draggers.

There’s been a crew at Queen E Park this week, working on the sides of the reservoir to fill cracks in the concrete that have been allowing worms and insects to wriggle or crawl into the water. EEEUUuuughhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(lip-curling disgust).

For those who may not know, there are two reservoirs on Little Mountain. One is at the top, near the Conservatory, first built in 1911, called the Little Mountain Reservoir. The other, above which sit the tennis courts, basketball and hockey areas, was built in 1955 and is named Kersland Reservoir. Water is piped to these storage containers from the Capilano and Seymour Reservoirs in North Van, and possibly from time to time, from the Coquitlam Reservoir.

Hhhmmmn, looks yummy, right from source yah? That’s what goes in to our reservoirs on Little Mountain. From the Kersland Reservoir, beneath our tennis courts, the water is piped to Richmond. So, dear reader, we who live in Vancouver may have been spared the creepy-crawly additions to the water, that the repairs shown above have hopefully stemmed. But don’t worry, Richmond dwellers, you can relax knowing that the worms and insects have been disinfected, before being sluiced off to you! Really. Click on image to enlarge.
Late breaking news: Panic buying of bottled water in Richmond!!!!!!!!
Relax Richmond folk, you may not be the ONLY ones to be getting water from Kersland Reservoir. After all, the upper Little Mountain Reservoir actually disappeared to be reconstructed, back in 2003 and 2004, so Kersland must have served a lot of us in Vancouver then, and perhaps still does. I’m sure they screen the output from the reservoir, as well as disinfect it. Of course, the odd shred of worm poo, or a tiny millipedal leg, may have got passed through, before those cracks in the reservoir shell were repaired. But no one has fallen ill, Vancouver or Richmond drinker, because of the water from Kersland….that this QEhardrock knows of……..At the moment, there is a new main being laid in under that road construction at the north end of the park. It will feed into the watermain along 25th Avenue, and presumably get water from both reservoirs, as required.

photo taken April 8, 2010.

I recently posed this puzzler to Park Board’s Sam Bachra. The answer would have been obvious, had not that lake been a feature of winter life on Little Mountain for so long. Sam informed me that the drain had been flushed out in November. Drain???????!!!!!!! Who could have imagined, after the past few years, that there WAS such a thing?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But yes, dear reader, there is a drain, for that north side of the reservoir. When it is running free, water does not collect in the depression just outside the north side fence.

Were I to guess, I would say the drainage problem only recently came to Park Board’s attention because of the photo above, taken in April of 2010, which I sent to Sam Bachra early last fall. It was my intent to warn against attempting to plant bicycle racks in the winter muskeg area near that gate. But what do I know? Perhaps there is some other reason that the water was allowed to collect in that hollow for many winters, then suddenly the drain was flushed. No matter, the water is not collecting now. Good. And now that we know what working drainage will do for that little bit of acreage, we must not forget.

There are probably a few lessons to be learned here:
1) Never assume that anyone at Park Board is aware of anything that is happening on, or around, the Queen E Park tennis courts. How otherwise would that lake have been allowed to form every year for so long? At the very least, one might have thought that the garbage pick-up crew may have suggested that something be done about it. They, or some other Park Board work crew, must have put down the pile of gravel atop which sits the garbage can, to keep it out of the water.
2) For the same reason, do not assume that the custodian who lives in that bungalow beside the Pitch and Putt is going to inform Park Board officials of anything, or move them to get anything done. This may, or may not, be any fault of the custodian, I do not know.
3) Most importantly: ALWAYS remember the two points above, and ESPECIALLY that we, the hoary public, the users of those tennis courts, must not be too timid to squawk when something appears to be amiss.

But where to squawk? I’m not too sure about that one. Park Board officials are numerous, and sometimes have titles which seem to imply that one ought not to trouble them with any matter that will cost less than tens of thousands of dollars. Try not to let that dissuade you. At the very least, the wrong official may be able to direct you to the right one. Check this link.

QEhardrocks will all have noticed by now that the hitting wall has had its “net line” restored. The line had been obliterated as collateral damage in the City’s relentless war on graffiti. There had been some anodyne “John loves Mary” and similar inscriptions on the wall, that apparently could not be countenanced by civic authorities. Everything was painted over in a quick “hit & run” operation sometime last spring. Anyway, thank you, Park Board, for restoring the line. Now the site has the look of a serious biznez tennis centre, with a both a net line on the hitting wall, and a baseline on the ground before it.

Turns out the base line, which is the same distance from the wall as a court baseline is from the net, will not be that useful for many folk. Unless whacked very hard, the ball will not rebound off the wall far enough to bounce and and rise to a player at that base line. Ah well. I myself like to hit the ball on the second bounce when practicing, so I can stand near our painted base line, and get a feel for where my stroke is sending the ball in relation to the net, at a “game situation” distance from it. The base line is also useful for players who wish to practise a serve against the wall. Alas, that hitting wall is not high enough to be useful for doing overheads, where one hits the ball at the ground near the wall to make it bounce up high. In fact, generally, the wall at Queen E punishes all but the most skilled players by being too low. Too much time is spent retrieving one’s ball from the off-leash dog run on the other side. And doing it quickly, before the mutts can grab your ball. Nothing like trying to practise with a ball soaked in dog slobber.

This QEhardrock only knows of only three good hitting walls in town: Stanley Park courts, Kits Beach Tennis courts, and the courts at Kits High, where the gymnasium wall avails itself for tennis use with a “net line”.

The old ice rink near the courts at Trout Lake used to provide a good hitting wall, but when the new rink was built, there was no accommodation made for that use of the facility’s outer wall by the tennis players. Of course there are other hitting walls and practise boards around the town, on both Park Board courts and Vancouver School Board courts. But they are placed at the back of the court area and cannot be used much of the time. The charm of those I have fondly mentioned are high hitting walls that can be used without interfering with play on court. Useful, all of the time, all year long.

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For those of you who do not know, the artificial turf fields that our City has been so enthusiastically building use something called crumb rubber – small bits of old tires. These bits serve to hold up the phoney grass, which is planted into a plastic (polypropylene, or polyethylene) underlayer.

(click on image to enlarge)

Photo of the artificial turf at Andy Livingston Park. The little black things are the "crumbs" of old tires.

Crumb rubber is cheap – there is little else that can be done with used tires, and they are abundantly available. But old tire rubber contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals such as zinc, iron, manganese and lead (absorbed from road dust). Many tire PAHs and VOCs are known to cause human health problems, including cancer and organ failure, in people who have been exposed to sufficient concentrations of the stuff. The heavy metals can likewise be very harmful to human health.  Aside from heavy metals in the crumb rubber, the pigment in the phoney grass of an artificial turf field contains lead chromate, also toxic, to anyone who has got enough of it into one’s system. And, of course, the polypropylene or polyethylene underlayer of an artificial turf field are precisely the common plastics that GreenPeace, and ecologists of many stripes, warn us to eschew.

With all the toxic substances in artificial turf, the great danger for people is breathing the stuff in, or somehow swallowing it. That ought not to be difficult - a crumb rubber turf field will send up a “splash” of rubber particles when anything smacks the surface, like a bouncing soccer ball or a falling player. As crumb rubber breaks down over time, it makes particles of dust that can be wafted on the breeze, or rubbed onto one’s skin, or carried off with rainwater. To a much lesser extent, this will happen with all the other materials too. Not to worry! The people who have been installing artificial turf fields assure us that there is no way any of that bad stuff can build up in concentrations necessary to harm anyone. Crumb rubber turf has been declared safe by various public agencies.

Just the same, the two largest cities in the USA, New York and Los Angeles, have banned use of crumb rubber in all new installations of artificial fields, since 2008. They are willing to pay more to be on the safe side, and have non-toxic fill holding up that phoney grass, in their artificial turf. See article here. I note that they seem not to be troubled by the plastics. Read info New York City posts for its citizenry about artificial turf fields here.

I am told that crumb rubber turf much eases the pain of falling. And that the relative indestructibility of an artificial turf field allows for an endless number of games to be played on it in a day or week. That is an impossibility with natural grass, which needs time to recover, and grow new blades, after having been chewed up by the pounding of many cleated shoes. Nevertheless, this QEhardrock hopes we will soon see an end to the artificial turf enthusiasm in Vancouver. Let other jurisdictions mortify their public spaces with old tire rubber and plastic. Leave us some sport fields as lovely public tracts of grass that feed the birds with their seeds, worms, and insects, and provide a comfy spot to lie around, or have a picnic, on a summer’s day.

Other articles on the human health aspects of artificial turf:
Consumer Affairs, July 2010
NY Times, June 2010
Boston Globe, January 2009
Vancouver Sun, March 2008
Environmental Health Perspectives, March 2008

Read about artificial turf in Wikipedia here.

Apparently most of the fraudulent tennis racquets carry the brand names Prince, Babolat, and Wilson. The fakes are usually missing the hologram sticker (Wilson), they have a fake trap door on the butt cap (Wilson), the grommet strips are different in fit to the authentic,  racquet covers of the fakes have no zippered pocket, the serial number is on a simple sticker rather than embedded in a laminated thingee on the frame, and there is slight colour variation in the graphics.

No laminated serial number thingee???!!!  Jehosephat, has this shameless Asian skullduggery no bounds?!!!!!!! Well, dear reader, if you have an authentic Wilson racquet, or an authentic Babolat, or an authentic Prince, or an authentic made-by-any-other-big-brand-name racquet, and you look closely at the frame, you will see somewhere printed on it the phrase “made in China”. And the truth of it is, these shameless knockoffs may well be made, if not in the same plant that makes the big name brands, then a plant down the street staffed by equally adept workers working the same, or similar, equipment. Not unlike the way all the guts of your Apple computer, or Dell computer, or HP computer, or Compaq computer, or Sony computer, or Toshiba computer,  or Acer computer, or Gateway computer or any-brand-name-I-have-forgotten-computer, are all made in a few Chinese factories. Such is the siren call of cheap labour to big capital that the Chinese make just about everything we buy, these days. And not too badly, in many instances (they are sure good with electronics). So, if you happen to buy a knock off racquet, you may find it does not play much differently than the real thing. Stormin’ tells me he has tried a phoney Babolat, and could not tell much difference between it and the big sticker price original.  Then again, I have read accounts of counterfeit sticks that were way off the authentic racquet’s weight and balance. So if you cannot resist a bargain that looks to be made in heaven,  beware,  you takes your chances.

Anyway, for those who wish more info on counterfeit racquets, I post below a number of links that shed light on the subject:

fake Wilson (2008)
fake Head Prestige Pro 600 (2009)
fake Wilson K Six One Tour 90 (2009)
phoney frames (2008)
fake Head Flexpoint Radical Tour

Remember now, don’t take any wooden nickels.