tacking into the bike lane

It’s finally summer and I am happy to trade in the computer screen radiation for sunshine. After all the rain I am loving the evenings on the seawall. my ukrainian/scottish skin just turns from turn white to red, so I need to avoid the peak hours. Moreover, quads like me can’t thermoregulate, so heat feels good at first, but can get dangerous fast. Like today. After setting a personal best a few days before, today, I was working hard for every meter when the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Wheels, or feet? which side of the seawall am I supposed to be on? I got yelled at the other day from a bike that was whipping through the same narrow part of the seawall that I was rolling down. “wrong side”, was the complaint, but i was moving faster than the foot traffic. Where is it fair for me to be? See, I have to often tack in and out of the bike lanes to get the most optimal line up a given hill. I merge in as best I can, but sometimes that is difficult with bikes, dogs and old people too. So it draws a few strange looks, but the only way to climb up any real grade is to tack, like a sail boat, back and forth. This means crossing lanes and sometimes cutting people off. Everyone is friendly, but when down hill and going up to 10km/h, it’d almost helmet time. So, I bomb the hills at night instead, way safer right? The goal is to collect enough data to model how I wheel on uneven surfaces. My stronger right arm certainly creates my own style of wheeling. It’s taking forever, but I will be able to match this motion with a power assist motor one of these summers. Creating more left/right symmetry will save my neck and back from torquing when needing to make big corrections.

Here is a map of my route, all 5.9KM of it. One lap around Science World is further than I’ve ever used as a weekly training route. It’s one of Vancouver’s well known sights and it always reminds me of being a kid during expo ’86. So, I call this “red route two” after one of my favourite 80’s movies… anyone know it? (hint, Clancy)

My friend CJ, who took most of the climbing photos on my blog, broke list leg kite boarding in Squamish few months ago. He was pushing a chair for awhile and got see what it is like. He said it was ok to copy part of an email here:

Hey there dude, leg coming along, walking in the cast, hoping soon to be hobbling without cast 😉

Getting injured is good cause it humbles ya and reminds ya what you take for granted.

You’re hardcore dude – wheelchairing around is HARD!

chris

created: Jul 21, 2012