Category: cycling

• Anything above zero compounds

  I haven’t been riding much this summer (I can’t wait until Vivienne can join us on our bikes!), but I did go for a bike fit over the weekend — something I’ve been meaning to do since I basically got my “new” bike.

  

  In case any of you are curious/in the market, I went to Racer Sportif at Bloor & Runnymede. Ask for Dennis and tell him you want to see the photo of him on his first-ever bicycle. The west side of Toronto has such a great road biking culture.

  So, it turns out my setup was off. My seat was too low, my seat was too far back, my handlebars were too high, and my stem was about 2 cm too long. These micro-adjustments were all it took for my ride to feel significantly better on the way home.

  

  Of course, these micro adjustments become even more important on long rides because small things do compound over time. I like thinking of things in this way, and it reminds me of one of Sahil Bloom’s core philosophies: “Anything above zero compounds.”

  The smallest positive changes and actions can have an outsized effect when you play the long game.

  The same is true for city building. It’s easy to focus on big plans and tall towers, but let’s not forget the micro adjustments that are being made every day. A new bike lane here, and a new coffee shop there, all have an impact and add up to something more.

  2026.07.20

• Paris may have the busiest bike route in the world

  

  In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we’re actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

  Let’s look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we’ve spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.

  The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year — up to November 17, 2024 — this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.

  The busiest route in Eco-Counter’s entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it’s less than in the warmer months.

  Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn’t an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.

  If you look at Montreal’s top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you’re trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.

  Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash

  2024.11.17

• Weekend cycle around the city

  On Saturday, I went on a bike ride all around Toronto. We cut across midtown (checking in on One Delisle), stopped at the Chester Hill Lookout (which if you grew up in the east end is where you probably went as a teenager to make out), shot down the Don Valley, and then turned west along the waterfront. The weather was perfect.

  

  

  As we were going along the waterfront, we passed the new Aqualuna building that is under construction on Queens Quay East, near Parliament Street. Being the architecture nerd that I am, I immediately noticed that as you pass by — at the speed of a bike — the balconies create this really nice cinematic effect.

  So I stopped to take these photos (I probably should have taken a video now that I think of it):

  

  

  I then tweeted a tweet calling it one of the most beautiful buildings going up in Toronto today. Judging from the responses, most people seem to be in agreement, but a few people questioned the practicality of balconies like this. Namely how private and usable they will be. I don’t disagree, but I still think it’s fine looking building.

  What do you think?

  2024.10.06

• Salt Lake City wants to build a new linear park around downtown

  It is well known that Salt Lake City has some of the biggest blocks and widest streets in the United States. This is typically a challenge if you’re trying to create a walkable urban environment; however, it can also be an opportunity, because it means you have a lot of public space that you can do other things with.

  It is for these reasons that SLC is working on something called the Green Loop:

  

  And the idea is to turn a ring of downtown streets into a new linear park that looks something like this:

  

  More specifically, the Green Loop wants to do the following five things (copied verbatim):

  • Develop a robust downtown urban forest
  • Serve as an active transportation corridor for walking and biking
  • Improve water quality through stormwater management
  • Create inviting social spaces that provide a variety of amenities and attractions
  • Create public front yards and gardens within the downtown that support the needs of all users

  In my mind, albeit as a non-Salt Laker, this has the potential to be truly transformational for the city and as impactful as the High Line was for New York. So if you are a local, I would encourage you to complete this short project survey. It’s open until Nov 30.

  2023.11.07