Today was the 4th Brompton ride held around the time of Oktoberfest. We have gathered at Pedaal, and as per usual there were a lot of shiny Bromptons in evidence.
Leonard’s purple electric T series was best of show.
There was another build inside the shop that also had the Cerakote process done to the frame.
Not sure if the same folks that yarn bomb the bike rings by Sam James Coffee did this one. (Note that several people have confirmed that this is the handiwork of Martin Reis)
This year our host Janet Joy told us that the theme has shifted away from Germany to feature some of the newest parks in the downtown area.
The intro contest was seeing who could do the fastest unfold and fold. Our first contestant chose to do it blindfolded.
However, she soon discovered that the sample bike had the extended seat post.
Here are some of the other contestants.
Doing it one legged.
Not to be outdone, Pier does it one legged and blindfolded.
This fellow had the fastest overall time.
Fastest one legged.
By process of elimination, I’m assuming that Matt here did the fastest blindfolded.
A last group picture. Always surprised how well an iPhone does shooting into the sun.
Thanks to Janet Joy Wilson for organizing, and to Pedaal for hosting the start of the ride.
Also thanks to David “big wheels” Keogh for marshalling, and Lance for being sweep.
On the way home with David and Lance.
David points out that bike traffic on the MGT near Harbourfront is much higher than on Bloor. BTW we need more of these solar powered bike counters, please.
Riding up Ellis: I already knew that I wasn’t going to vote for this guy, having met him earlier.
I had a little time to relax this afternoon, so I did one of my favourite things: a bit of bike maintenance. First off: the Pletscher kickstand on the tandem broke a while ago. I was told that this is not uncommon.
Installed the new one from Velo Orange.
However, I moved the aluminum top plate from the old kickstand over to the Haul a Day where it provides much better clamping for that kickstand that I installed back in August.
Next up: on my Brompton, I replaced a half rear rack (top) with a full rack from H&H that was titanium (middle). However, I heard that Blue Lug was selling a new cro mo rack from Nitto (bottom) so I couldn’t resist. I know that I’m adding weight to the bike, but…..
You can see that the Nitto is a bit shorter. It comes with the mini rollers shown.
It is also a bit wider.
Here it is installed.
There’s still some work to be done to keep the fender in place properly, but for now it seems to work.
Today there were two bike rides with similar themes: drawing attention to loops in the city that take advantage of the many off street bike and pedestrian paths that thread through the city, while at the same time are held back by significant gaps where there are no safe bike route connections. The longer route was the Loop Ride which includes parts of the Don Valley, the Don Mills Trail, the Finch Hydro corridor, and the Humber River Trail. I did the Loop Ride earlier this year.
I chose to do the Link Ride which draws attention to some of the gaps in Scarborough between the Don Valley East trail, the Gatineau Hydro corridor, and the Gus Harris and the Taylor Creek Trails. This ride was put on by Scarborough Junction Community and Scarborough Cycles.
On my way to the start point, I ran into Roger who was headed to the Distillery District to join the Loop Ride. We were on the first eastbound Line 2 train this morning.
West Scarborough Rail Trail organizer Misha Perozak gives us an intro into the need for the rail trail to help complete a loop in the area.
Two municipal candidates were present. Sharmina Nasrin said that safe infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists is important, but she admitted that she does not know how to ride a bike.
Parthi Kandavel is the incumbent. He said that he supported the forthcoming bike lanes on a portion of Kingston Rd. He did sound a bit defensive, and stated more or less that he supported bike lanes where they make sense. He said that motorists, cyclists and pedestrians should all have input into road design.
One should be aware that Kevin Rupasinghe is running against him, although he was not present. Kevin is a long time cycling advocate, and he finished a close second the last election.
Marvin Macaraig from Scarborough Cycles is our ride leader today. He outlines the route, and also gives us some safety tips. He will lead, and Douglas will be the sweep.
A group picture before we set off.
Off we go, headed to Warden, then turning south.
Turning onto the Gus Harris Trail off of St. Clair.
My first time on this trail. Very nice biking through the woods. There was one short patch of fresh, loose gravel along the way.
Regroup at Pharmacy where we have to jog a bit north to cross over to the Taylor Creek Trail. Marvin reminds us that the bike lanes on Pharmacy were removed back in 2011. If they were still here, this area would have been future proofed as Pharmacy is a great connection between Danforth and Eglinton.
If you look closely, you can see where the paint stripe was ground away, just to the right of Marvin’s bike.
Now turning toward the Taylor Creek Trail, just off of Victoria Park.
Now we meet up with the riders on the Loop Ride. They were a much bigger group.
Albert talks about the Loop Ride, and the collaboration with the Link Ride. Misha reminds us that Scarborough is underserved in terms of funding for upgrades to off street trails for cyclists, compared to projects such as the West Toronto Railpath.
Albert says that they will leave 30 seconds after this picture.
There go the Loop group. I see Rob in the lead. He’ll be blogging about today’s Loop Ride.
Some riders taking advantage of one of the seating areas.
Lined up before tackling the “thunder dome”.
Now the actual steep part.
Regroup at the top of the hill by the Bermondsey Transfer Station.
We elect to walk along the sidewalk to the Victoria Village Arena.
Rest break.
The stretch between the end of the East Don Trail and the start of the Gatineau Hydro Corridor is the first major gap in our loop ride. The city has some plans to close the gap. The project passed through the IEC this year, but it is not clear what the timeline for the project is.
Crossing Bermondsey as a group.
Now on the sidewalk on the north side of Eglinton.
If you look closely, you can see the lead group turning left on the Gatineau Hydro Corridor, which seems to have been rebranded as part of the Meadoway.
Nice displays of wildflowers.
Now regrouping in a neighbourhood just west of Kennedy.
Turning south down the Kennedy Hydro Corridor.
Using the underpass near the Eglinton LRT Pharmacy Station.
Now walking along Eglinton towards Pharmacy.
Turning onto a trail that parallels a rail line.
It was amazing that the couple with the bike trailer made it through this section.
I was told that CN only uses this line once a week.
Travelling between the end of the Kennedy Hydro corridor and Birchmount is the major gap in our loop. Here is a diagram of the route we took in this section.
Cycling towards Birchmount.
Now eating to turn south on Birchmount.
Amused/appalled by this sign. On the other hand: five star Google reviews!
Down Birchmount. There used to be a bike lane here too.
If you zoom out from the earlier map, you can see that if a trail was put in along the CN rail line, it would provide a valuable connection between Eglinton and further south on Birchmount.
Now approaching the end of the ride.
A group shot at the end. We arrived right at noon as scheduled.
Thanks to Misha and Marvin for putting this ride together. I saw several people taking videos during the ride. Hopefully we can bring more attention to the need to close the two major gaps that we saw today on our ride.
Riding home, I couldn’t resist a ice cream truck on the Taylor Creek Trail, just past Dawes Rd.
Unfortunately, as I was riding through UofT campus, my rear disc brake started severely dragging due to a mechanical failure. I was really lucky that this didn’t happen earlier on the ride. As it happens, I managed to ride a bit further to Curbside Cycle where I left the bike to be worked on. I was doubly lucky since I was told that today was the last Sunday that they would be open for the year.
Update: Rob’s account of the first half of today’s Loop Ride is here.
This guy had a great lighted sign. You might guess who it is referring to at the moment.
Two of the many usual suspects it was great to see.
David goes over some safety instructions.
And we’re off for one lap of High Park.
I’m corking at the Grenadier. It took a looong time for everyone to go by.
Back towards Bloor.
Now west on Bloor.
photo: Geoffrey Bercarich
At Runnymede.
This gentleman ran the whole way with us.
Now across the Humber.
Bikes as far as the eye can see.
Turning into Tom Riley Park.
David tells everyone that this is where the first phase of bike lane removal is scheduled to happen, perhaps as soon as in the next couple of weeks. He asks that people show up to make it difficult for the bike lanes to be removed, to show that it will be even more hard to remove all the bike lanes.
Jess reminds us that the removal of bike lanes means that people will be killed or seriously injured.
A month makes a big difference in terms of how fast it gets dark.
photo: Geoffrey Bercarich
At South Kingsway
A nice guy stood on his e-scooter to get this shot.
Corking at Jane.
Now back through Bloor West Village.
I peeled off at Runnymede.
Thanks to everyone who came out tonight. I’ll let others guess at the numbers. I saw Brian Tao, and perhaps he will do a video analysis.
Update from Brian: “I counted 783 bikes, 16 of which had an extra person, another 2 had doggos. We also had a couple of longboards, 1 recumbent (Christopher Hoyle), 1 runner (Alex Bonenfant), and 1 alto sax player (Richard Underhill), who gifted us with an unexpected collab between the bikeSauce beats bike and the Shuffle Demons front man.”
We’ll keep an eye out for bike lane removals. The province needs to know that people are opposed to the removal.
And so ends another week of racing down Route 305 in Battle Mountain, the fastest road in the world for human powered vehicles. It was a year with relatively few entries, and a mix of experienced and rookie teams. As per usual, what follows is a few notes on each team, in the order presented in my preview post.
University of Toronto Human Powered Vehicle Design Team (HPVDT)
photo: Danny Guthrie
This team came with two vehicles, and three riders for each. Typhoon suffered drivetrain gremlins, and the hatch blew off and then had to be pieced together, but in the end two of the three riders earned their first hats: Ethan Todd (55) and Justin Tangpongprush (50). Frank Fang had evil luck with only one complete run on the 4km course.
Eta Prime was more problematic, with the main thing holding them back being the time it took for them to stage the bike. There was one single bike heat with only Eta Prime, and it still went over the 20 minute limit on road closure. After that point, control and start were more strict about the time limit for staging, and this lead to a lot of scratches for the team. Also Erin was blown off the course by a strong crosswind and it took some time and effort to repair the bike. In the end, only Erin got a hat, and both Christopher and Harrison were unable to upgrade hats that they had earned last year in what was theoretically a slower bike.
In the end, the team learned a lot about the logistics to run multiple riders in a vehicle in consecutive heats. We’ll see how they do next time.
Team HPT North
This was a hybrid team of HPVDT alumni with the addition of the dynamic duo Hans and Ellen. They set a new world record for a mixed gender multi rider team at 65.06 mph which figured prominently in Lander County Tourism publicity during the event. You can see from the photo that the crash shell was still on the bike. I will note that the tandem record was also set some years ago with the shell not being finished.
Unfortunately, they didn’t achieve their other goal of resetting the multi rider record. They also fell just shy of getting a 70 mph hat for stoker Ethan. Part of what set them back was the fact that Calvin had not ridden a streamliner since the last time that TITAN was a Battle Mountain (back in 2022), let alone a streamliner that was very sensitive to cross winds. I should also note that Calvin was very gracious to let me ride in the tandem, something that I will remember for a good long time.
Human Power Team Falcon
Adam Hari had Niklas and Wiebke crewing for him, with additional help from Battle Mountain Mike and Nik Runner. His new bike was really a work of art. Take a look at the elegant ventilation setup.
He was not able to improve his personal best from two years ago, but he did much better than last year. Hopefully with more time in the new bike, and more opportunities to run under good conditions, he’ll be able to reach his goal of 80 mph.
Cal Poly (San LuisObispo) Human Powered Vehicles
This team had two riders, and Justin fell just short of getting a 55 mph hat. They made good progress during the week, going from weaving down the course to being able to keep the bike straight even under windy conditions. I hope that they learned a bit about the shortcomings of their current design and will be able to do better in future years.
Most of the team had departed by the time for the awards dinner, so I’m stealing a photo from their instagram feed. Their rider Alexis had not practiced with the bike with the shell on before the competition, and so he used the whole road during his first successful run through timing. They made some revisions to the bike during the week, including removing the heavy steel cylinder behind the seat and changing the vision system. They also made use of a carbon crash shell that they made with the assistance of Luke from HPT North. I’ll always remember hearing the people in the chase car yelling “Allez, Allez!” as if they rider could hear them. We hope to see them back.
Notes:
Although we didn’t see any sessions rained out, the wind conditions were not ideal. In total there were only 16 wind legal runs, and seven of these were on Wednesday morning.
We restricted heats to a limit of three vehicles per heat because people were taking a long time to both stage their bikes and to run down the course.
There were five hats earned this week, but only one of those runs was wind legal. I’m glad we changed the rules so that wind was ignored for hats.
I’d like to thank all of the people that made the event run smoothly. In particular:
Hans at Control
Joyce as chief chase organizer, as well as handling all of the paperwork and sale during the event.
Danny for his help at timing
Larry at start
Bill on sweep, and occasionally Dave
All of our flaggers
I’d also like to thank all the members of this year’s organizing committee who did a great job in putting things together.
Joyce as project manager, and also for handling all of the financials, as well as checking the road maps and the insurance language. Also she chased sponsors
Arnold on the website, as well as almost realtime support on the timing app during the week
Adam for course setup, and all of the associated items.
Joyce for handling all of the financials, as well as checking the road maps and the insurance language. Also she chased sponsors
Larry for also checking out language on documents, as well as managing the equipment
Joyce for handling all of the purchasing of T shirts, posters, trophies, etc, with an assist from Marieke
Also Joyce for communicating with locals such as Holly, Maite, and the flaggers.
I worked with both NDOT and the county to get the road permit. I was also the initial contact for insurance
Calvin did outreach to the media and prepared PR materials
You’ll note that Joyce’s name appears many times in the above list. There were weeks when she was spending about 20 hours on organizing the event.
Finally, all the people that helped with both set up and tear down and clean up.
Also thanks to all of our sponsors:
Nevada Gold Mines
SSR Marigold Mining
Battle Mountain Chamber of Commerce
Battle Mountain Civic Center
Lander County Tourism
Blue Moon Portables
specialbikeparts.com
So what comes next? It is the almost the same amount of work to run the event for six entries as it is for sixteen, and it is clear that the event is not sustainable with such low attendance. There is a long list of teams that chose to stay away but would come again if the road is repaved. It looks like there is a strong possibility that the road will be resurfaced, but it is not clear whether it would be done in time for Sept 2027. One possible scenario is to have the event run in 2028.
In the meantime, we will be organizing a letter writing campaign to ensure that the road will be repaved, and if you are on one of the current or past teams, you will be hearing from us.
Here are all the racers that earned new hats this week. Three 50 mph, and two 55 mph.
A bad selfie with all of the volunteers. We really ran the event on a skeleton crew this year.
The flaggers kept us safe, and Mason did a great job as head flagger.
Special recognition to the representatives of the local community who provided an unprecedented level of support for the event. Some of them were seen during the week on the grandstands, even at 7 AM! Left to right: Maite (Civic Center), Holly (Chamber of Commerce), Jolene (Librarian), Becky (Lander County Tourism), Angel (Becky’s assistant).
Then Officer Arthur Aten arrived to lay down the law.
Adam cited for speeding. Officer Aten noted that there was only the one speeding ticket this year.
A very large number of riders were cited for failure to maintain lane.
Calvin. Officer Aten said that this was not the violation that he expected from Calvin.
Erin.
Ethan (although it wasn’t his fault).
Alexis, representing the other Alexis who had already fled the jurisdiction.
Justin S.
Jadon.
Finally, Frank was cited for impeding traffic.
Now the trophies.
1st place Women’s: Erin Price.
Men’s. L to R: Ethan (2nd), Adam (1st) and Justin (3rd)
Men’s multi rider: 2nd place (Calvin and Jun), 1st place (Calvin and Ethan)
1st place, Mixed Gender Multitrack: The world record holders Calvin and Ellen. I didn’t get a photo and will recycle this one.
Collegiate Award: 1st place: Toronto, 2nd place Cal poly SLO, 3rd place Sherbrooke
Special recognition to Holly, Maite and Becky.
Finally Calvin made some special awards. The first for innovation to Cal Poly for reintroducing the use of landing gear.
Adam for Sportsmanship. He not only arrived very early to supervise course set up, but he served as launcher for other teams.
Finally, a special award for Leadership to Joyce Lem who was the lead organizer this year, and spent many many hours in preparation for this year.
Nik got a certificate of appreciate from Lander County for his many years of supporting the event,
I was surprised to get a trophy for 2nd place multi-rider. The backstory: there was a trophy made for 2nd place Women’s but it was relabelled as my award.
Six heats from the 8 km and one 4 km run this morning. Winds were forecast to decrease slowly as we approached noon,
In the first heat, Alexis went 52.49 mph, earning a 50 mph hat. There were some very interesting decorations added to the shell.
In the second heat, Justin Strahm went 51.04 in WooHoo!2, earning a 50 mph hat.
In heat 3, Adam went 73.94, a bit slower than his best run this week. At this point in time he is the only person to potentially be cited for speeding.
In heat 4, Ethan went a bit slower than his best at 54.59 mph. Typhoon now has purple stripes on it.
Typhoon continued to have drivetrain problems for any one other than Ethan Todd. Justin was not able to start properly in his first attempt in heat 5, but he managed to get down the course in the next heat.
Heat 6 was tacked on to allow more riders to have a chance at low wind. Calvin and Ethan went just shy of 70 mph, which is a shame since Ethan has a 65 mph hat. The wind was dead at timing, but it was a crosswind during their run. Justin S improved his best to 54.32 mph. Justin T went 44.17, and I think that he had chain problems.
The final heat was from 4km to give Frank and Jadon a final shot. Jadon did not run, and Frank was not able to start.
Additionally, I was given a chance to ride in the back of TITAN. Unfortunately the primary camera screen went dark partway down the track, and Calvin and I used the brakes to get down to a safe speed with Calvin using the secondary screen which was at an awkward viewing angle. Thanks to Calvin for getting us down the course safely, and I set the slowest speed of the week at 30.57 mph. Here’s me getting into the bike (photo: Dave Larrington)
Results – Saturday AM (AM) – 2026-09-19
Heat 1 · 5 Race · 07:00
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Alexis Imbeault
Beluga One
Men
07:12
8.524
52.49
84.47
525
2.67
✗
✗
50 hat
Heat 2 · 5 Race · 07:30
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Calvin and Ellen
TITAN
Mixed Gender, Multirider
07:39
6.976
64.13
103.21
698
3.55
✗
✗
Justin Strahm
Woohoo! 2
Men
07:43
8.766
51.04
82.14
529
2.69
✗
✗
50 hat
Heat 3 · 5 Race · 08:00
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Adam Hari
Dark Star
Men
08:12
6.051
73.94
118.99
429
2.18
✗
✗
Heat 4 · 5 Race · 08:30
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Ethan Todd
Typhoon
Men
08:40
8.195
54.59
87.86
341
1.73
✗
✗
Heat 5 · 5 Race · 09:00
No results recorded for this heat.
Heat 6 · 5 Race · 09:30
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Calvin and Ethan
TITAN
Men, Multirider
09:32
6.460
69.26
111.46
225
1.14
✓
✗
Justin Strahm
Woohoo! 2
Men
09:42
8.236
54.32
87.42
463
2.35
✗
✗
Justin Tangpongprush
Typhoon
Men
09:21
10.129
44.17
71.08
394
2.00
✗
✗
Heat 7 · 2.5 Race · 10:10
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Calvin and Jun
TITAN
Men, Multirider
11:13
14.637
30.57
49.19
327
1.66
✓
✗
Now time for the group photos.
All the teams.
Riders only (photo Dave Larrington)
HPT North with TITAN
Cal Poly.
The Typhoon riders.
The Eta Prime riders.
Toronto has the rest of the afternoon to chase out the drivetrain gremlins in Typhoon, and to fix the camera system in Eta Prime.
It was assumed that the winds would be bad for this entire evening session, and sure enough, the wind meter looked like this, indicating a strong headwind.
Despite all that, Justin ran Typhoon in the first heat from the 4 km start and logged a 51.1 mph run, earning him a 50 mph hat.
In this picture, you can see the repaired hatch, the front wheel fairing, and the Michelin Blue tires. I will also note that when Typhoon was being brought up to start in the pickup, they had the fairing hatch in the cab.
Jadon tired to run Woohoo 2! but ended up in the ditch. Wishing him better luck tomorrow. At this point, he is the only rider not to have had a successful run.
All the rides in the second heat scratched.
Unfortunately, the wind gods were fickle, and the wind actually picked up towards sunset. The only person to ride in the final heat was Ethan Todd in Typhoon who went 55.62 into a 22 kph headwind. His 55 mph hat is only the third one to be earned so far this week.
Winds look good for tomorrow AM, but it will be cold.
The first heat started out with a bang, with Adam Hari going 73.41 mph in Dark Star. He was followed by Justin Strahm in Woohoo! 2 with his fastest time of the week at 44.84 mph.
Finally, Alexi in Beluga went through for the first time without the crash shield, going 48.05 mph.
In heat 2, Calvin and Ethan pushed their speed up to 68.80 mph. Calvin said that they didn’t really push it due to crosswinds.
Everyone in the next two heats scratched due to higher winds.
Finally, in the last heat from 4 km, Jadon made a first attempt in Woohoo 2! but tipped over after a short run.
Results – Friday AM (AM) – 2026-09-18
8 km Heat 1 · 5 Race · 07:00
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Adam Hari
Dark Star
Men
07:07
6.094
73.41
118.15
216
1.10
✓
✗
Justin Strahm
Woohoo! 2
Men
07:09
9.977
44.84
72.17
418
2.13
✗
✗
Alexis Imbeault
Beluga One
Men
07:11
9.311
48.05
77.33
208
1.06
✓
✗
8 km Heat 2 · 5 Race · 07:30
Rider
Bike
Category
Launch
200m (s)
Speed mph
Speed kph
Wind fpm
Wind m/s
Legal
New WR
Note
Calvin and Ethan
TITAN
Men, Multirider
07:41
6.503
68.80
110.72
416
2.12
✗
✗
The winds are not forecast to be good tonight. Nevertheless, it was decided to have two 8 km runs and to squeeze in one more 4 km run to give Jadon another chance to run the bike down the course.
For tomorrow AM, as per usual, there will be four heats of 8 km, but we will squeeze in a 4 km heat at the end.
