Urbanus Magnus

My buddy O'Malley and I got up early Saturday morning, strapped our bikes onto the back of my family's van and drove up to East Duffins Headwaters for a few solid hours of biking. This fairily well-kept secret of the GTA is a hiking and mountain biking park located in Glen Major forest. The park is owned by the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority (TRCA) and, although not fitted out with large berms, beams or MTB-specific structures, it is spectacular for its single track and quite a few good hills. Not to mention the *huge* length of its trails - there are enough winds, forks, and parallel paths that you wouldn't have seen them all in one full day of riding. Its on Sideline 4, a few kilometers north of Concession Road 9. Here a map of the place: Lots of multi-use, and MTB-oriented, trails. I fooled about with my phone and set it up so that GPS was on, and tracked the expedition: View MTBing the Glen in a larger map --> There are some more routes on...

Got up early this past Saturday morning at the behest of my pal, who reminded me that the Toronto Int'l Bike Show was on this weekend, March 2-4. It's a place where all of the big names in cycling in Toronto (plus a few other major brands) meet to strut their stuff, and where a few bargains can be found for those so inclined - such as myself. This time it was held in the Better Living Centre of Exhibition Place, as opposed to the Fall "Blowout" show, which is much smaller, and held elsewhere at Exhibition Place. Here are some shots of the show: From Entrance Trek Bike store's display And of course, there are a buncha bikes to drool over. Lots of carbon, whether road or MTB. The bike show seems to cater to "what's new", of course, so there were tons of fancy lightweight components on the road bikes, and 29er bikes galore! Enough carbon here to solve China's energy problems... ...with more carbon! Argon's display ...

I've done it - the bike is completely finished, and it has been distance-proven; I took it for more than 40 km of wintery riding over the past two days. All the riding and abused has allowed me to 'dial in' all the settings of the bike: the Brooks saddle has been moved foreward, the derailleur cables have stretched/settled and been adjusted, the handlebars have been positioned, the STI levers have been re-positioned, and more than all these other combined, the new brakes have been worn in and re-positioned. Ta daaaah! Hells yeah - 'Standard' That's right; new brakes. Those old Shimano low-profile cantis are gone, and are replaced with one of the widest-of-wide profile brakes; some Tektro 720s. They really have cleaned up the problems, so now there is about 1/2 cm of clearance each side of the rims and more than double the braking power. The quality of workmanship is superb - they come with 6mm allen key fixing bolts, a stainless-steel bushing, both sides ...