The Cross Canada Cycle Tour Society October 2018, Volume 35, Issue #10
President’s Report John Pringle
The Good Guys and Cycling Safety.
Long term data: brilliant presentation. Are we not blessed to have George Zorn and Bruce Daykin, respectively, as Directors of Hub & Spoke (H &S) and Tours. Not only have they brought you 10 events (a collective term used here to denote either a H&S or a tour) this year, but worked as industrious members of the Board. An example is the brilliant massaging of data our Board has collected lo these 35 years on each tour and H&S. Allan Buium recently collated the data in tabular form for the first time, figuring it might be useful at some point. In fact, it is part of a Club history that Allan is quietly putting together. (And were truth be told, we can thank Bruce McLean for his many years of carefully documenting the data and guarding it when ludite Board members wondered its usefulness.)
A seasonal point of angst this time of year is the Board wondering where our 2019 tours are going to come from; who will come forward? We asked ourselves, can we assist members in taking the plunge – to throw their hat in the ring – to lead an event. We thought Allans events data might be the fodder to fuel the creative juices; might we present these data in some way to show the large number of tours that have been created and led by our past members. I could hear excitement in George’s voice; “Allan this great news. Please send me the data .” George is retired forester with a nack for data analysis and presentation – I knew the results would be interesting.
It was then agreed that the events Directors, George and Bruce, would write an article for the October Newsbrief. An article that would attempt to motivate members into stepping up to the plate – to lead an event. They would present Allan’s data. They massaged the data, and presto; It was accomplished. (Please see the article with accompanying figures further in this Newsbrief). Each tour per year for the 35 years is given along with precise geographic locations (Allan’s raw data in tabular form). As well two graphs accompany these data: one pie diagram colourfully illustrating all tours from the original tour in 1983 to the six held in 2017. It also includes H&S data from the first one held in 1996 to the four held in 2017. The data are broken down into broad geographic locations; Canadian locations include the BC Coast, the BC Interior, the Maritimes, etc; and international locations including China, Africa, US Westcoast, Europe etc.
The second illustration, a line graph, shows separately the number of H&S and Tours per year. The graphs are simple yet brilliant. How does 1990 compare with the number of tours ten years later; 10 and 9 respectively. The Club has had seven cross-Canada tours and four Alberta tours. Forty-six in BC’s Interior. Thirty-one on the US West Coast. So easy to see. Now we await for the proposals from you, our lucky members who can peer back in Club history: Dream of taking on the Himilayan foothills in China’s Buddhist-populated Szechuan province, or looking down on Dubrovnik after three weeks in Croatia with tour contractor extraodinaire Alan Agustin. It is all there.
This was a team effort; Bruce McLean and Allan doing the original “heavy lifting”, and Max in his eager and ever-competent manner ready to post “stuff” on the website. But it took George and Bruce to bring these data to life after the first data point was added 35 years ago. And to them I ask you on your next meeting with Bruce or George to buy them a coffee, a beer or simply say “thanks”.
Personal safe riding. Recently I took a refresher driving lesson from Wallace Driving School Ltd. This was to prepare me for the gruelling Enhancement Road Assessment (90 minutes behind the wheel) demanded by those having reached 80, or have had neurological damage such as a stroke. I have retained my licence and have been driving since about four weeks after my stroke (my doctor felt I was capable). Rational for further testing was decided byRoad SafetyBC. I found the driving assessment as given by Wallace thoroughly professional and most useful. This brings me to my bike; could I similarly learn a thing or two about safer riding? I think so and am going to pursue an instructor. How about you?
Club safe riding. Time may be nigh when our Club may have to “take the bull by the horn” and insist that riders either follow common safe riding practices or face removal from the Club events. On a recent tour a rider was warned to curb his dangerous ways. He refused. He was not endangering others, but was putting himself in danger. But can we prevail? The only reference in our Constitution to safe riding is the following “2 (c) To educate members in responsible and safe riding …”. And our Guidelines offer little better; they state the following; P 8 The tour leader will outline “ … road conditions, safety and hygiene …” and “Each participant is responsible for his own decisions, and actions on the road: Please cycle safely.” We leave it up to you. And for most of you this is just fine. But, there are the few who make cycling dangerous for their fellow riders and for themselves.
We have a group, led by Lawrence Vea of Comox Valley, who will be advising the Board on cycling safety.
This is an advance notice for the 2018 AGM (Monday, December 3rd).
As the “official nominating team” I’m asking you to consider giving up a bit of your leisure time. Why not try an activity that is both rewarding to yourself and beneficial to the cycling community. Yes, being part of the CCCTS Board of Directors. Just give me a call, or send a note, and I will give you the information that will hopefully help you to put your name forward for next year’s Board.
You are Invited – All Members Welcome!
Completion of CCCTS bike trips this fall on Manitoulin Island, in Andalucia, Spain and on the Big Island of Hawaii will mark the 336th Tour or Hub & Spoke hosted by our Club since it formed in 1982. That’s quite an accomplishment and many happy “bike time” hours! The Club’s first bike trip took place in 1983 with 35 members participating in a Victoria to St John’s cross Canada tour.
Over the past 35 years Club members have “stepped up” and volunteered their time and talents to host great cycling experiences for fellow members at a reasonable cost.
Do you have an idea for a CCCTS cycling adventure that you want to discuss and develop for 2019 or beyond? Please contact these Club and Board members who would be happy to chat with you:
Bruce Daykin, Tour Director – (250) 858-0304, bdaykin@gmail.com
George Zorn, Hub & Spoke Director – (250) 832-9335, gjzorn@shaw.ca
Are you interested in where CCCTS Tours and Hub & Spoke rides have taken Club members and which regions have been most often visited since 1983? Check out these new CCCTS bike trip summaries for the 336 Tours and Hub & Spoke trips:
- List of CCCTS Rides by Year 1983 – 2018
- Pie Chart of CCCTS Ride Locations 1983 – 2018
- Graph of Number of CCCTS Rides by Year 1983-2018
Upcoming Tours
Remembering Walter Griffioen, 1932-2018
Walter Griffioen died peacefully on August 29 in Langley, BC.
Born in the Netherlands, the second of twelve children, Walter emigrated alone to Canada at age 24, returning to Holland two years later to marry his love, Marion. They honeymooned on a ship across the Atlantic and a train across Canada. Walter and Marion were blessed with fifteen grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Walter was a strong supporter of CCCTS, a member since 1996 and over the period 2005-10 served as Equipment Manager in charge of tents, stoves and all camping gear, our inexpensive travel style then in vogue before motels took over. Walter was an avid cyclist, participating in 16 tours and hub & spoke events, including a partial cross-Canada tour in 1996. He and his wife Marion led a very popular Holland tour in 2005. In spite of a hip injury in 2006 and subsequent illnesses, he continued to cycle, most recently on an electric bike.
Vaarwel Walter, it’s been a privilege to have pedaled so many kilometers with you. We’ll miss you dear friend!
Welcome New Members
| James | McMichael | Ottawa | ON |
| Rene | Parent | Vancouver | BC |
| Marie | Jones | North Vancouver | BC |
Vancouver’s holier-than-thou cyclists are ruining it for everyone
Grant Lawrence / Vancouver Courier
As cycling has grown in popularity in Vancouver, so too has the number of cyclists behaving badly. Photo Dan Toulgoet
There’s too much anger on Vancouver’s bike routes, and there’s no excuse for it. For the most part, I’m proud to say that I’ve been a bicycling commuter in this town for 25 years, long before there were almost as many designated bike lanes as there are pot shops. But I don’t want to lord my cycling prowess over you, or shout it in your face.
One of the most positive results of the explosion of bike lines in Vancouver is the physical separation of bikes from cars.
As you’ve likely witnessed, there were way too many conflicts between drivers and riders; drivers often thinking that cyclists were taking wild liberties, straddling the benefits of both cars and pedestrians; that cyclists generally peddle a better-than-everybody-else attitude.
Some cyclists of course think of drivers as clueless slaves to the oil industry, wasting their lives in traffic jams, while cyclists joyfully pedal by, wind in their helmets.
To my disappointment, the anger that often gears up between cyclists and drivers has somehow shifted over to the bike routes when there’s often nary a car in sight.
I take the Adanac cycling thoroughfare to and from work, Monday to Friday, year round. It’s one of the busiest east-west bike arteries in the city. At rush hour, there are often so many cyclists that it really feels like the bicycles have won, that we are the champion commuters. Until we’re not.
Several recent incidents along the bike route have flattened my enthusiasm for commuter cycling.
One was a helmet-less hipster on a leftover fixie (remember them?) who was racing westward down Adanac full speed between Commercial and Clark. An elderly woman was crossing Adanac.
“GET OUT OF THE WAY, YOU F******’ RETARD!”
This is exactly what a young man on a bike yelled at a senior citizen trying to cross the street in Vancouver. The cyclist didn’t slow down. The pedestrian was startled and froze in her tracks.
I was so incensed that I barked at the offending cyclist to ease up and show some respect. He shot me an indignant look and kept on rolling. I apologized to the woman on the jerk’s behalf. She smiled and nodded.
A similar incident happened on Union Street in Strathcona. An older man was crossing Union towards Benny Foods, on a collision course with yet another helmet-less hipster, this time urgently pedalling an old-school 10-speed, likely late for shift at a nearby craft brewery.
The cyclist could have easily avoided the pedestrian, but chose not to. Instead, as if to send a message of pure assholery, the cyclist steered into senior’s path, forcing him to abruptly hold up to save himself from being clipped. It’s clear the pedestrian didn’t see the bike coming.
I caught up to the cyclist.
“That was rude and dangerous.”
“Dude wasn’t paying attention to where he was going.”
“He’s a pedestrian and has the right of way!”
The hipster shot me a look and turned off the bike route in the direction of 18 craft breweries.
Last week, at Adanac and Nanaimo, a young kid on an E.T.-style BMX turned into bike traffic from a side street, slicing in front of several commuter cyclists who had to brake suddenly.
One man, who was possibly five times this kid’s age, took it upon himself to scream at him. “YOU’RE A F****** IDIOT!”
The kid appeared to be fully freaked out.
Look, I’m not trying to come off as some sort of crusading cross between Ed Begley Jr. and Charles Bronson. But, again, I felt my own anger rise up. I caught up to that jerk, too, but this time I chose a philosophical approach: “Why is there so much anger on the bike route?”
“MIND YOUR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS!”
Is it adrenalin? Work stress? Is the infamous holier-than-thou attitude of the Vancouver cyclist turning on our own kind?
This time it was my turn to turn off the bike route, in more ways than one.
For better or worse, the city has given us hundreds of kilometres of designated bike lanes and routes. If you use them, you owe it to yourself and anyone else who may cross your path to CHILL OUT. This is not the Tour de France. This is commuter cycling through residential neighbourhoods. Don’t give city cycling a bad name. You’ve already beaten the traffic. You’ve won. Be happy. Be nice. And pedal on.
Pedaling is a passion for doctor with 22 bikes
© Bill Wechter/San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS
Dr. Daniel Marks takes one of his bicycles for a test spin through his Carlsbad neighborhood.
Not long ago, Dr. Daniel Marks rented a garage at the La Costa Glen retirement community where he has lived for the past two years with his wife, Judy.
The garage isn’t for his lime-green Fiat, which he parks on the street. It’s for his nearly two dozen bicycles, a collection he downsized from a high of 50 several years ago.
The retired general practitioner has been an avid cyclist for more than 40 years, so these bikes aren’t for show. At age 78, he still pedals more than 100 miles a week and he enjoys riding them all.
For each ride, Marks chooses a different bike, depending on whether he’s planning to climb hills, speed on a flat course or take a leisurely touring trip with weighted packs. He keeps a calendar of which bike he rides when and for how many miles so that each one sets rubber to road every month or so.
Dr. Daniel Marks with his collection of bicycles at his Carlsbad, Calif. home.
“For me, cycling down the road is like being in a low-flying airplane where everything’s speeding by,” he said. “There’s so much to see and it’s a great feeling to do something under your own power.”
Marks got his first bicycle at age 7 in his native Detroit, where he said the cycling season is sharply limited by harsh weather so riding days were all the more precious.
“I loved the freedom of just getting out and riding a great distance around the block to go buy candy,” he said.
He gave up biking to play baseball in high school and college. And in his 20s, he gave up sports entirely to focus on medical school, studying radiology and nuclear medicine. After college, he went to Vietnam, where he served as an Army combat surgeon.
It wasn’t until after he and Judy married 56 years ago and the oldest of their three children was ready for his first bicycle that Marks rediscovered his love for cycling. He started out by buying himself a $25 model from Kmart. A few years later, he graduated to a $99 bike.
When a colleague at Henry Ford Hospital bet Marks he couldn’t lose 10 pounds in a month, he accepted the wager. Although he lost the bet, he felt like a winner because through active fitness riding that month he dropped eight pounds and ignited a lifelong passion for fitness cycling.
While living in Detroit, he regularly logged 25-mile bike rides. Then, when the Markses moved to Fresno in 1983, he began cycling year-round and taking longer rides of 80 to 100 miles.
It was in Fresno where he began collecting bikes in earnest. Some bikes he purchased for their different uses and materials. Some were souvenirs from trips. Some were collectibles.
In 1980, he bought a rare Masi bike built for the Russian Olympic cycling team. Another year he spent $100 on a 1938-era English 3-speed bicycle. He loved looking for bargains and sometimes just bought bike frames and swapped out parts from older models.
Judy Marks said she has always supported her husband’s hobby because it was fun, affordable and it kept him in good shape and spirits.
“I feel anything anyone has a passion for is wonderful,” she said. “It’s emotionally healthy to love something as much as he does. We all need to find a passion in life.”
The Markses moved to the Aviara area of Carlsbad in 2006, bringing along much of the bike collection, which occupied two bays of their three-car garage. Eventually, he sold about half of the collection before they moved to La Costa Glen in 2016.
Inside his new garage, Marks has a workbench area with extra wheels, seats, pedals and tools. The bikes are suspended from ceiling and wall racks. He says picking a favorite is like choosing a favorite child: impossible.
There’s a red-and-black Time bike from France made from lugged carbon fiber. With its light weight and 30 gears, it’s ideal for climbing steep hills. Nearby is an aluminium Cinelli bike from Italy, which Marks said he likes riding on Twin Oaks Valley Road.
There’s a Montague bike that folds in half for travel; a titanium Airborne bike that’s ideal for all-around riding; and a neon-orange 24-pound Voodoo touring bike with fatter tires, which makes it good for carrying bags.
There’s also an 11-speed composite-fiber Campagnolo Focus from Italy that weighs just 16 pounds. He likes to ride this one on Camp Pendleton because it’s light and very fast.
He also has a soft spot for a Lapierre bike, which he bought in France when he and Judy traveled there in 2003 to watch the Tour de France.
Although he can’t calculate how many miles he’s cycled over the years, he admits they haven’t all been smooth sailing. In 1994, he was seriously injured when he missed a turn in the road and crashed into a ditch. He broke seven ribs and a finger, punctured a lung and injured his shoulder. Two months later, he was riding again.
“I worry about him all the time,” Judy said. “But I know there’s no stopping him. I know every cyclist has these sorts of accidents and I know it’s his passion.”
For safety, he always rides in bright-colored clothing and a helmet, with a rear-view mirror and flashing front and rear lights on his bike. He has no plans to give up his hobby and he recommends the sport to everyone he meets.
“It’s important to keep active,” he said. “You don’t stop cycling because you’re old, you get old because you stop cycling.”
Published at least ten times a year by The Cross Canada Cycle Tour Society, a non – profit organization for retired people and others who enjoy recreational cycling.
Items for the NEWSBRIEF must be received by the 28th of the month. The Editor reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity and suitability of publication. The views expressed in the “NEWSBRIEF” are not necessarily those of the CCCTS or the Editor.
Submissions for NEWSBRIEF should be emailed to derailler@gmail.com
Please be sure to notify the office of any changes in your personal contact information; be it address, phone or e-mail.