The other morning I woke up and thought to myself: "My cycling isn't nearly nerdy enough. Sure, I've got the spandex. But what I really need is an enormous rear-mounted selfie stick on the bike so I can capture footage of my rides and the city." So I searched around and found a seat mount rig from Insta360 that looks like this (please note that the stick extends to 1 meter):
Now, I don't have an Insta360. I've heard they're fantastic. I have an old GoPro Max that is, well, okay. I find it has terrible dynamic range. The sky is often blown out. It also shuts off constantly when I'm snowboarding due to the cold. It's suboptimal and at some point I'll likely invest in an Insta360. But for now, I used an adapter to connect my GoPro to the mount.
Below is what the photos/videos end up looking like. As an aside, captured on the right is Good Gang Ice Cream on Annette, which my friend Chris Spoke (of Toronto Standard) tells me is top.
And here's a video from Instagram.
The way these 360 cameras work is that, as long as the camera is perfectly aligned with the selfie stick, then the entire apparatus disappears in the videos it captures. But if the camera gets misaligned because, for example, things start bouncing around, then it can show up. I'm not exactly sure what's happening in the above, but something is getting in the way of a clean 360-degree stitch.
I'll keep working on it.
Cycling is good for you. This much is obvious. But what might be some of the lesser known benefits?
Here's a fascinating study (that I discovered through Lloyd Alter's blog), which looked at the association between active travel modes and brain health — specifically dementia risk. For this study, the researchers analyzed nearly 500,000 people in the UK and then tracked them for a median period of 13.1 years. How people got around was classified according to the following groups: non-active (like driving or taking public transit), walking only, mixed-walking, and cycling and mixed-cycling. This latter category is meant to capture people who cycle exclusively and who mix it with other forms of mobility.
Based on this, the researchers uncovered these cycling benefits compared to non-active travel:
19% reduction in all-cause dementia
22% reduction in Alzheimer's disease
40% reduction in young-onset dementia
17% reduction in late-onset dementia
Cycling was by far the best performing category. Why is that? Well, exercise in general is good for brain health. It increases blood flow and oxygenation to the brain, decreases cortisol levels (stress hormone), and reduces anxiety and depression, among many other beneficial things. But perhaps the most important feature for this particular discussion is that it's simultaneously a physical and cognitive activity. In other words, it's exercise, but your brain also has to do a lot of other stuff like balance the bike, avoid obstacles (such as car doors being flung open), and generally navigate an environment with many stimuli.
Okay, so we know that Paris has transformed itself from a car city into a biking city. Between 2015-2020 the City doubled its number of bike lanes. Then in 2021, it announced that it wanted to become a "100% cycling city" and further add to its bike network. Today, it has one of the busiest bike routes in the world and more people cycle than drive. The Globe and Mail reported, here, that last year 11.2% of trips in Paris proper were made by bike, compared to only 4.3% by car. "You would not be wrong to call it a war on the car," Marcus Gee writes. However, the result was a "victory for the city."
At the same time, we know how people will respond to this data. Lots of people will read this article and immediately say, "yeah, but that's Paris, where the average highs and lows in January are 8 and 3 degrees, respectively. It simply won't work in Toronto where our January highs and lows average 0 and -7 degrees. We have snow to contend with; they don't." And of course, they wouldn't be entirely wrong in this argument. Cycling does tend to decline in the winter months in most cities. (Note: The months of April to November in Toronto are just as warm or warmer than Paris in the winter.)
But just for fun, let's look at Oulu, Finland which has been called the "winter cycling capital of the world." Oulu has a population of around 210,000 people, an extremely low population density of approximately 150 people per km2, and January temperatures that average between -7 and -15 degrees.
The other morning I woke up and thought to myself: "My cycling isn't nearly nerdy enough. Sure, I've got the spandex. But what I really need is an enormous rear-mounted selfie stick on the bike so I can capture footage of my rides and the city." So I searched around and found a seat mount rig from Insta360 that looks like this (please note that the stick extends to 1 meter):
Now, I don't have an Insta360. I've heard they're fantastic. I have an old GoPro Max that is, well, okay. I find it has terrible dynamic range. The sky is often blown out. It also shuts off constantly when I'm snowboarding due to the cold. It's suboptimal and at some point I'll likely invest in an Insta360. But for now, I used an adapter to connect my GoPro to the mount.
Below is what the photos/videos end up looking like. As an aside, captured on the right is Good Gang Ice Cream on Annette, which my friend Chris Spoke (of Toronto Standard) tells me is top.
And here's a video from Instagram.
The way these 360 cameras work is that, as long as the camera is perfectly aligned with the selfie stick, then the entire apparatus disappears in the videos it captures. But if the camera gets misaligned because, for example, things start bouncing around, then it can show up. I'm not exactly sure what's happening in the above, but something is getting in the way of a clean 360-degree stitch.
I'll keep working on it.
Cycling is good for you. This much is obvious. But what might be some of the lesser known benefits?
Here's a fascinating study (that I discovered through Lloyd Alter's blog), which looked at the association between active travel modes and brain health — specifically dementia risk. For this study, the researchers analyzed nearly 500,000 people in the UK and then tracked them for a median period of 13.1 years. How people got around was classified according to the following groups: non-active (like driving or taking public transit), walking only, mixed-walking, and cycling and mixed-cycling. This latter category is meant to capture people who cycle exclusively and who mix it with other forms of mobility.
Based on this, the researchers uncovered these cycling benefits compared to non-active travel:
19% reduction in all-cause dementia
22% reduction in Alzheimer's disease
40% reduction in young-onset dementia
17% reduction in late-onset dementia
Cycling was by far the best performing category. Why is that? Well, exercise in general is good for brain health. It increases blood flow and oxygenation to the brain, decreases cortisol levels (stress hormone), and reduces anxiety and depression, among many other beneficial things. But perhaps the most important feature for this particular discussion is that it's simultaneously a physical and cognitive activity. In other words, it's exercise, but your brain also has to do a lot of other stuff like balance the bike, avoid obstacles (such as car doors being flung open), and generally navigate an environment with many stimuli.
Okay, so we know that Paris has transformed itself from a car city into a biking city. Between 2015-2020 the City doubled its number of bike lanes. Then in 2021, it announced that it wanted to become a "100% cycling city" and further add to its bike network. Today, it has one of the busiest bike routes in the world and more people cycle than drive. The Globe and Mail reported, here, that last year 11.2% of trips in Paris proper were made by bike, compared to only 4.3% by car. "You would not be wrong to call it a war on the car," Marcus Gee writes. However, the result was a "victory for the city."
At the same time, we know how people will respond to this data. Lots of people will read this article and immediately say, "yeah, but that's Paris, where the average highs and lows in January are 8 and 3 degrees, respectively. It simply won't work in Toronto where our January highs and lows average 0 and -7 degrees. We have snow to contend with; they don't." And of course, they wouldn't be entirely wrong in this argument. Cycling does tend to decline in the winter months in most cities. (Note: The months of April to November in Toronto are just as warm or warmer than Paris in the winter.)
But just for fun, let's look at Oulu, Finland which has been called the "winter cycling capital of the world." Oulu has a population of around 210,000 people, an extremely low population density of approximately 150 people per km2, and January temperatures that average between -7 and -15 degrees.
Here's a video comparing winter vs. summer cycling in Oulu.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't generally cycle in January and February. Partially because it's cold and partially because I don't want road salts all over my business. But the correct framing isn't that it's not possible in a city like Toronto; it's that I'm too soft. That, and we need to invest in the right infrastructure if we want more people to do it.
Here's a video comparing winter vs. summer cycling in Oulu.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't generally cycle in January and February. Partially because it's cold and partially because I don't want road salts all over my business. But the correct framing isn't that it's not possible in a city like Toronto; it's that I'm too soft. That, and we need to invest in the right infrastructure if we want more people to do it.
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