Work-life balance and Montreal trip

It's been a while since I posted on here. Apologies to any frequenteurs and weekly readers of the site. 

The thing is this: working in the healthcare industry has it's ups and downs when it comes to workload and acuity. There are maybe two to three times per year when work switches from a somewhat manageable workload and acuity to a whole other beast that I call "Work 'till it Hurts" mode. During this time, it's ridiculously difficult to drum up enough energy to get anything done in your personal life. Although every unit in our hospital system switches into these modes, I suspect that my unit in particular sees more of these acuity spikes annually, and they tend to last longer than other units --likely due to the nature of our surgeries and our major lack of resources.

With any luck, compressing the province's nine health authorities into three will open up some funding that has been previously locked into the administrative level of our healthcare system. One prime example is the CEO of Capital Health, who earns more annually than the Prime Minister of Canada (over $300,000). Of course the other directors, VPs and CEOs that get the axe will probably be getting severance packages over several years. Therefore the savings that we'll get from cutting the fat won't be available for another three years (my guess) after the amalgamation.

Moving right along...

Winter is probably my worst season for slacking off, and watching the inches around my waistline increase substantially! The result is that, come spring, I'm completely deconditioned. In order to prevent this, I was able to snatch up a fluid-trainer from MEC.

This little fella has been excellent at keeping the ol' legs strong, and the belly-girth under control! I would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking of investing in bike-related, winter fitness equipment. Also, I think if this is your first trainer and you're used to throwing down some pretty long distance rides during the summer/fall seasons, a fluid-trainer is the way to go. Haven't been hearing such great things when it comes to air-trainers (not enough resistance), and magnetic ones can be pretty expensive and clunky. 

I was also able to head out to Montreal recently to check out one of our larger Canadian cities, and also see how the bike infra is treated over the winter months. 

Great snow clearance of a separated bike lane.

To be honest, I expected a lot more from such a large city. Dedicated bike lanes were really nice to see, but a fair amount of the time they were snowed under or were really chopped up by icy patches that were over two-inches thick. In fact, even the sidewalks were in really rough shape. I was hoping to head out for a run at least once during my time there, but the conditions made that idea totally impractical. In any case, I'll probably try to head out there in the summer to get a good balance of what the city has to offer during the warmer months.

There's a bike lane under there somewhere...

Brutal for pedestrians as well.

Just a few more photos of the trip. Pretty great Metro system! Busses worked great with Metro timings if you needed to go multi-modal with your trip. 

I'll try to be posting weekly again. Don't expect much considering the season. It's kind of a head-down-power-through paradigm out there right now!

Peggy's Cove-Tantallon Loop and a new bike AT Priorities Plan

Just a quick note that I was able to blast out 100km to Peggy's Cove and back via Prospect Rd. and Tantallon. It was a challenging ride full of incredible coves and harbours that pretty much summarize the Maritime experience in coastal Nova Scotia. Just a couple pics below to share, enjoy!

Just to let everyone know, the Joseph Howe Century is going down this weekend thanks to a partnership with MEC and Velo Halifax. Having done this ride a few years ago, I gotta say it's worth signing-up and giving a try. It'll push your limits for sure, but it follows a great route around some picturesque areas of North-East HRM. 

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Moving right along, it's been a busy month for cycle-planning in HRM! On a micro-level, Dalhousie has recently released plans to convert half of university avenue to a cycle-track, much to the chagrin of cellists and brass players that frequent the Rebecca Cohen Auditorium. Backing-up to the macro-level, HRM is moving a new Active Transportation Priorities Plan along the bureaucratic chain for approval. This will see a bit more focus on certain bike projects --as well as ped and greenway projects-- gleaned from the 2006 AT Plan. It also updates road candidacy for on-street bike lanes, either by removing a few from the 2006 list for various reasons or suggesting where bike lanes can be replaced by multi-use pathways/greenways. To see a list of changes, see page 90. 

The real meat-and-potatoes of the document revolves around which projects actually have a funding estimate tacked on. Dartmouth-Halifax commuters should be heartened to see that a $2.05-million price-tag has been earmarked for figuring out how the hell to solve the MacDonald Bridge Bike lane access problem (both sides). Another notable goal is the creation of a protected bike lane pilot project within the regional centre --part of a 5k target of on-street bike infra expansion within Halifax and Dartmouth proper (total expansion costs estimated at $2.5-million). Although having a simple, specific five-year target is great to incorporate into this AT planning document, I'm not particularly impressed with the 5k goal that is divided between Halifax and Dartmouth. Each side of the harbour certainly deserves 5k each judging by the increase in cyclists on both sides of the bridge over the past five to seven years. For more cycling-specific plans, see pages 67-71.

If you're from outside the city centre, there's good news in this plan for you too! Lots of shoulder expansions on some routes that are more or less integral to access either the city centre or longer touring routes to other parts of the province. Trail folks: lots of funding out there for you! Main focus is on expansion of a lot of existing trails like the Dartmouth Waterfront Greenway (great ride!), the Halifax Urban Greenway (another great ride!), the Barrington St. Greenway (the one that loops under the bridge access ramp), and several more that I didn't know existed. For any randonneurs out there, there is mention of a Windsor-Hansport trail that might be designed and/or developed over the next five years. Having done Hali-to-Valley rides semi-regularly over the past five years, this is pretty exciting! See pages 72-74 for a better breakdown. 

I'm still reading over this plan and having some brain difficulties lately so I might have more to say in the future. I'm not particularly let-down by this priorities plan, but I'm not sure how I feel about Local Street Bikeways yet. There's no real blueprint on how they'll look, but I would assume speed-bumps and chicanes will be prevalent techniques in the traffic calming process. Tell me what you think in the comments: do local bikeways add needed variety to the bike-network, or just water it down?

Church goers crying foul and Sambro Loop safety issues

Well fall is rearing it's ugly head (I'm more of a spring guy). The leaves along many a bike route are starting to show crisp, rusted fringes and bikers are starting to group together for that one last, exceptional cycling trip of the season. Unfortunately, we're seeing a couple complaints in HRM regarding cycling infrastructure and cycling behaviour. 

Let's start with the more ridiculous issue.

Last fall, the city finally created a functional bike lane connecting the South End of the peninsula to the North End. Doing so effectively connected residential neighbourhoods to commercial areas, the universities and the hospitals --the latter two being HRM's largest employment sectors along with the Army/Navy bases. It was great! Current cyclists seemed happy to see a piece of the AT plan of 2005 come to fruition. New riders from the City Streets neighbourhood (such as Cork St., Liverpool St., Edinburgh St., London St., Berlin St., Vienna St.) came out of the woodwork to cycle using this new piece of infrastructure. Everything was going so well until someone noticed parking signs stating "No Parking, Mon-Sat." The ensuing Sunday-bike-lane-blockage was like clockwork. Starting at about 7am , church parishioners would come out, clog the lane and shut things down for new cyclists on possibly the most appealing day for recreational riding.

Thanks to some handy camera-work by @zeptep (photo above), the issue came to light on a local cycling group on Facebook. The Halifax Cycling Coalition then swooped in to rectify the issue with city staff and have the signs replaced. 

Staff looked into issue of parking in Windsor St bike lane. “No Parking Mon-Sat” signs will be removed, will notify @HfxRegPolice @IBIKEHFX
— hfxgov (@hfxgov) September 8, 2014

Unfortunately, we found out blotting out bike lanes is a hobby for a few folks in HRM.

Washmill Lake Dr.

So who is dropping the ball here? The blame would have to go to Halifax Regional Police as well as municipal staff. Despite staff's great work in establishing the broad strokes, HRM has to pay attention to fine detail with such an intense change to Halifax's transportation infrastructure. HRP has to pick-up the ball from there and consistently enforce the law. Plan, promote, enact, enforce; this should probably be an acronym for HRM staffers to keep in mind for future roadwork. P.P.E.E. ... Pee? Well, maybe we can figure out some new letters first.

Is this the end of cycling in HRM? Definitely not. New cyclists are probably a little put off by these events, but established, year-round cyclists will always be there to call attention to these issues and have them fixed. The HCC is also here to help and has proven particularly capable of responding quickly when issues come to their attention. 

Enter the next player in this debacle. 

Despite the ridiculously high amount of public parking on nearby side streets, churches are deploring the move which is steering their parishioners towards actually walking a whopping two to five minutes to get to mass. 

Imagine! Walking! On your hind legs! Like a Cretan! The nerve...

The really confusing portion of the article linked above is that families are taking two to three cars to church every Sunday. Is that not a completely ridiculous concept to anyone else here?!

I hope this story ends here with churches capitulating to the fact that maybe a short walk might be good of their congregation, and older members of the church or people requiring wheelchairs or walkers are differently-abled, not disabled.

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Now let's switch to the complaint going on right now that has a degree of legitimacy. 

The residents of everyone's favourite cycling route, the Sambro Loop, are getting a little frustrated with cyclists not obeying the rules of the road. The creation of the "Make the loop safe" group on Facebook seems at first blush to be a great way to share concerns, offer some solutions, and mobilize residents and cyclists in solving a space issue on the Sambro Loop. After reading a few comments however, you'll quickly see that this is yet another cranky-motorist-ranting page.

Taking pictures of cyclists riding in an unsafe manner is encouraged and really goes to show how biased many members of this group are against cycling. The pictures on the page would be laughable if so many people didn't take them so seriously. Here are some examples:

Cyclist positioned excellently to the right.

Another great example of responsible riding

Maybe hard to see here, but two bikers, single file, staying to the right

This might be a legitimate complaint. Do these guys go single file as soon as they are through the intersection? We don't know.

Believe it or not, every picture above had complaints that the cyclist(s) is not far-right enough, or they are simply at a section of road with a blind crest or a piece of winding road --difficult to see around those corners.

Think about that: someone is mad at you for existing in a certain place at a certain time. A remarkably poor attitude towards cycling, but hear me out for a minute...

Group rides. Probably one of the best ways to spend an hour or two working out with a friend, shoot the shit about your week, make some plans to get together for coffee sometime soon. Definitely helpful in increasing your average pace, and covering a great amount of distance with a reduced amount of effort. These guys riding like this --which is probably the most common riding pattern for groups of six riders or larger worldwide-- although promoting camaraderie and riding efficiency, is not particularly lawful in the strictest sense. Put another way, people that don't cycle don't get why you need to have two columns. On top of this, there are a few stories by motorists that group rides will curse, flip-out or otherwise act like a jag towards passing cars. 

There are a plethora of reasons for cyclists to freak out. Are all these cars passing at times when it's safe to do so? Are they giving the proper metre of distance required by the law, regardless of how many abreast these cyclists are? Could these bikers do better in thinning out when cars are approaching? How does their behaviour reflect cycling in area? How well are motorists promoting equity in road sharing when they come upon a group like this? Are group riders making the rest of us look bad?

The answer to all these questions is: I don't know. A Facebook page bitching about cyclists and showing a few stills of individual cyclists giving massive amounts of space for cars juxtaposed against group rides at a moment when the pack might not even know a car is behind them is not proof that cyclists are behaving particularly poorly. It does not show that this route is significantly unsafe either. It does illustrate that this is one of HRM's most cycled routes, and as more people take up cycling for it's health and social benefits, there are more interactions between the two road users. 

But there is good news to motorists in the area: you're not doing that bad of a job! I usually hit this route once, maybe twice a week and I have to admit that nine out of 10 of you car-folk give me space, slow down on your approach, or wait for oncoming traffic to go by before you pass. Would a bike lane be beneficial to increase the safety of the area? It would likely make riding more comfortable for cyclists, albeit on a road that hasn't seen a motorist-cyclist collision resulting in serious harm or death in the last 10 years --very likely much longer. 

Will it make things better for motorists?

If these two folks serve as an example of "poor cycling," then there's going to always be a section of motorists that will always have a hate-on for bikers and who will bitch at every chance they get when they find a cyclist ahead of them, whether in a bike lane or not.

Either way, I'm not particularly anti-bike lane on the Sambro Loop. I do think there are better places to invest in cycling infra, such as off-road trails or sprucing-up urban bike routes. There is a poorly written, online petition encouraging government to create a bike lane around the Sambro Loop, but I encourage you to write to your councillors or MLAs and encourage them to invest in cycling in HRM and Nova Scotia. 

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This was a long one and I have to thank you for reading this far. I'm interested to see what you guys think about this, so leave your comments below.

Happy trails!

Back in the saddle

It's been a remarkably long time since I've last hit this blog. I've probably forgotten and remembered and subsequently forgotten it again several times in the past... two years? Holy shit... it really has been that long since the last post, eh?

I'm not sure anyone really cares though. A whopping three official followers, and I'm sure two of them don't exist anymore. Knowing the third in real life, I recently learned I had slighted her by ignoring her for about a year or so. Overall, I don't think many people are miffed or clamouring to their internets at the end of the day to see if this blog has updated lately. 

You

In any case, not too much has happened on this end for the past couple years. Work has continued to dominate my life, imbued with the typical healthcare lifestyle stresses --poor sleep patterns, not much time for proper exercise, no time to go on dates or meet anyone in any inkling of a romantic fashion, etc. I've been taxed by the absolutely abysmal management behaviours of the 'leaders' of our healthcare system --write-ups, suspensions, absolutely zero official recognition for the multiple patients and family that seek me out upon their discharge to share how much my effort meant to them. This is sadly an experience many nurses worldwide face on a pretty consistent basis, leading me to give you the following instructions if you're ever encouraged, inspired, or generally impressed by the effort of anyone in the healthcare system:

It's not enough to tell them that they are doing a great job. Tell unit managers, service directors, VPs or CEOs!

Seriously. The person you are most impressed with is probably being reamed by management because they fight for improvements in their workplace, identify safety issues on their unit, or try to initiate change in the healthcare system as a whole. There's an unfortunate saying shared in the realm of nursing: the nail that sticks out in gets hammered down.

But I digress...

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In this same timeframe, I gained about 40-50 lbs. over two years. It wasn't a good scene. I lost touch with the saddle (cycling) in anything other than a commuting capacity. I didn't realize how much divorcing myself away from the bike reduced my horizons. After turning 30 this year and receiving a great blog about hitting your 30s from my good friend Jabes, I realized I needed a bit of a re-adjustment. I would totally suggest the blog to anyone entering their dirty-30s!

In March I started running again with some help from the always stellar Zombies, Run! app. In April I had enough saved up to buy a brand new Giant Defy 2 in order to get back on the saddle and re-discover what I'd been missing from riding over the past two years. 

Ain't she a Beaut!!

It's been wonderful: feeling the power slowly returning to the legs, the wind whipping against my face when blasting down a curving stretch of road on my way out to Sambro, or feeling the accomplishment of climbing one of the tougher hills during the Cow Bay Loop. The crush of traffic at your heels. Even points of exhaustion have been enjoyable. Feeling the strain in my quads, the sweat sticking to my back, sun pounding and stinging any exposed skin. Thinking I'm totally spent, but reaching down and finding some modicum of energy to climb off the saddle to power out the last section of rolling hills after a 50 km ride. 

Halifax itself has improved slightly in the world of cycling. We have at least one bike lane that makes a degree of sense which runs down Windsor St. (you're welcome). Drivers are getting more experienced in sharing the roads with cyclists and the NS Motor Vehicle Act now requires a metre of space between cars and bikes. Of course the rule is broken constantly, but at least there is more of just a shrug from police and a "get over it" mentality when accidents happen. Personally however, I don't really mind being close-cut by traffic. I think that comfort comes to almost everyone on a bike in time. Also, I've never been in an accident. That may also have something to do with it. 

In any case, I'll leave you with some photos as this entry is getting a little long. Hope to see more of yous out there!

Tee-Pees, Chickens, Car Shows and Herring Cove Road

Starting things off here. I've been away from Halifax for a while --spending some time in the Valley with the family. Before I left though, this Native Canadian meeting came to the Halifax Commons for the weekend. It was marked by these huge tee-pees which looked pretty cool! It made me wonder if tee-pees were really that big back in the day. At night, they lit them up with all sorts of different colours. It was really a magnificent sight!

For more info (and more cool pics) of this big meeting --dubbed Membertou 400-- click here or here!

It's been kind of weird to be back in the Valley so far this week. Right off the bat, I helped set up a chicken coup for my aunts father, and checked out a car show in downtown Kentville (see pics below). Aside from that, I've put about 70km into cycling this week. It's a lot easier to bike out here with less traffic lights and stop signs to hinder your ride.

Finally, last night a vote went to council to install bike lanes and reduce travel lanes on Herring Cove Road. I went in to check out the vote and see where the chips fell when it came to council support for cycling. Not only was the areas district councillor --Steve Adams-- against the idea, it became apparent that the business commission had been lobbying certain councillors for quite a while. Furthermore, Steve Adams seemed to have no problem flat-out lying to council and ignoring evidence indicating that lane reductions in Herring Cove Road would actually turn out being a good thing for local business. It's frustrating that benefit packed cycling still takes a backseat to the petty and baseless tactics of ignorant businesses. I hope this changes within the next couple years and we see real traction in active transportation in Halifax. If I had to based my hopes on the past performance of Halifax on this issue though... well let's just say I'm not going to hold my breath.