This past weekend, I rode my bike down through Surrey, North Delta and Annacis Island. It was the first time I’d taken my bike across the Alex Fraser bridge, and it had a few scary moments: a narrow sidewalk, and a low railing, plus three danger spots. The freeway signposts block the path at two points, narrowing it to essentially the width of my handlebars. At another point (shown in the photo from behind and front), the path makes a sudden sharp jog. Two of those three danger zones were in downhill sections, where cyclists could easily be riding quite fast. When I see scary bridges like this or the Second Narrows bridge, I always think about what would happen if I made a mistake. Could I tumble over the railing and fall right off the bridge? Optimistically, I assumed the engineers considered these things when they design the bridges.
Apparently not. In the paper yesterday, I saw a report from Mississauga. “From witness reports it is believed the handlebars of Sacawa’s bike may have become caught between two of the bridge’s metal posts. The impact caused him to lurch forward and tumble over the side of the bridge.” (CTV) “The railing he went over stands a bit more than one metre high, roughly the height of a tall man’s waist.” (Globe and Mail). He fell 150 feet to his death. Scary, scary stuff.

The BBC is running an entertaining photo series on bad bicycle routes, and they have a link to some other photos too.
Apparently, they’re considering amending their highway act to require cyclists to use a bike lane if present. This is an effort by cyclists there to stop that, since so many bike lanes are badly designed or unusable. The problems are wide-ranging: obstacles in the path, too narrow, parking allowed on the bike lane, no lane sweeping, and so on.
Does it matter, when you can just break the law? Well, yes. If a driver hits a cyclist when the cyclist is breaking the law (no matter how stupid the law), the cyclist will often have a hard time getting compensation. In some European countries, the law sides with cyclists, and the responsibility almost always falls on the driver, but not in most Anglo-Saxon countries.

Spacing Wire is carrying a curious story about a road rage incident in Kensington Market, between a parked motorist and a bike courier. Normally, this would be no big deal, just another day in the big city. But Adam Krawesky captured some evocative photographs, and now the story is making the rounds on the Internet.
The photographs only show one side of the story, the end of the altercation. It began with passive aggression: the motorist throws food out of the window, and the courier throws the food back in the window. (Passive aggression is both very Canadian, and very typical for a cyclist, I think.) The driver then escalates to assault by dumping coffee on the courier, who retaliates with property damage by keying his car. And it ends with the driver escalating to full physical assault, shown in the photos.
The full set of images are available here.

I’ve had used bikes all my life. I did own a nice one, once upon a time – in 2000, I bought a Miele racing bike for $500 used. Unfortunately, it was stolen in 2003 just before I graduated (from behind my back, as I was picking up glass off the bike lane). At that time, I had no cash left in the bank account, so I bought an old racer from a labmate for $100 – and I mean old; it had a serial number stamped with 78xxxxxx on the bottom, and I think that means the frame’s as old as I am.
But now I have a little more cash, and I still bike everywhere. So I thought I’d invest in my first brand new bike. As a utility cycling advocate, I wanted to see if I could buy a bike off-the-shelf with all the practical things you need for commuting: fenders, a rack, a chainguard, a kickstand, and lights. I discovered that you could buy these bikes easily in Europe, but they were hard to find in North America. The Cannondale Street is a bit overpriced at $1100. Local boutique Jorg & Olif sell stylish imported Dutch bikes for $1150, but they’re not quite good enough on the hills for my house (at the top of the city’s ridge), and they’re also pretty pricey for a basic bike. There are a few other nice bikes elsewhere in North America: Kronan sells in Victoria, Breezer is at a Vancouver shop that I didn’t get to visit, Biria doesn’t have a Canadian dealer any more, and Kettler and Skeppshult never sold to Canada. So, I gave up on an off-the-shelf utility bike. It just can’t be done in North America yet. (No one even sells or displays bikes with fenders. Maybe they haven’t noticed that it rains in Vancouver yet.)
My next choice was a regular hybrid bike, with accessories tacked on. I settled on two models: the Specialized Sirrus Sport and the De Vinci Oslo. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the gorgeous De Vinci bike in stock in my size. The De Vinci Amsterdam was even more beautiful, but a bit too flashy for my taste – too likely to get stolen. So, I went with the Specialized bike, and I haven’t regretted it one bit. The regular model had a nicer red colour, but I wanted the higher-quality components of the Sport model. I tricked it out with a full set of accessories, and finished up with a bill for about $900. There are a bunch of photos here.
I bought the bike at Dunbar Cycles in the end. I visited a lot of shops, and I was quite impressed by manager Lea Holz’s friendliness and knowledge regarding commuter bikes. I would also recommend Dizzy Cycles highly, and both Reckless Cycles and the Cyclepath were good. I’ve heard good things about the Bike Doctor but didn’t get out there. The Jorg & Olif boutique was very different but neat – lots of fashion, very few bikes – but they were fun bikes to ride.
I wasn’t very happy with Bicycle Sports Pacific’s service, which tended to be a bit pushy and know-it-all, and disparaging of commuters’ needs. and I hated Cambie Cycles weirdly sexist website enough that I didn’t even go there. Most other local bike stores had too little variety in hybrids, with more of a focus on mountain bikes or road bikes.