Urbanus Magnus

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 ...

Went for a few hours' ride today - the first full test of the 'new' tyres; they are actually 16-year-old 'Dual Sport' (i.e., wide as a mountain tire!) Chen Shins which came with the bicycle. They did a real swell job, once I let some air out to run them at ~45 psi, handling the snow, road, gravel and even some ice without slipping. .  My GT has lots of extra room for an even wider tire, despite already having on 42mm ones.  The steep hill down to the buffs is  salted and in use by dump trucks   I headed down to Guild Inn to access the bluffs' lakeside trail, and enjoyed a pleasant photographing and sight-seeing session. The bluffs change so much from their summer appearance!  The bluffs look even more awesome in person. Sadly, they are predicted to gradually turn into steep hills, some as soon as 15 years from now.  Even in the winter, dump-trucks laden with dry-fill keep on tipping their load...