Hooray, I can get to the South Shore again. The Jacques Cartier Bridge bike path has reopened for the season. Definite sign of spring!

I’m a big fan of DIY alcohol stoves. They’re cheap, lightweight, efficient, and not terribly difficult to make. Until now I’ve used different iterations of Mark Jurey’s Penny Stove. It’s based on an air intake loosely covered by the penny in the middle and six jets on the outside. Alcohol poured into the middle primes the stove and once that has been used up the stove draws air through the center and starts the jet burn. ...

I just came across this awesome 1897 bike map of Montreal on reddit. Back then, Montreal had not yet encountered the automobile – only in November 1899 did Ucal-Henri Dandurand drive the first car in Montreal. As you can see on the upper left of the map, the dotted lines represent “good roads,” whereas the solid red lines are just “roads.” It would be fun to do an overlay of the present-day bike network and the cycling roads of 1897… ...

After the tall Boulder custom I linked to last week I discovered this pretty 63cm Schwinn Voyageur 650B conversion on Craigslist. This is more in my price range and seems like a great opportunity to give the 650B thing a try. The front geometry isn’t low-trail (as far as I can tell) but maybe Soma will soon deliver on their promised low trailer conversion fork. I think if this bike hasn’t sold by the next time I’m down in Madison the next time won’t be able to resist. ...

To all the woman cyclists and cycling women out there: Happy International Women’s Day 2014! A few topical links: Lovely Bicycle on the bike as a tool to get away from racists and sexists Some coverage of the recent Women's Forum at the National Bike Summit And a shout-out to the Woman/Trans/Queer shifts that happen every second Wednesday at the Flat Bike Collective!

Once I’m rich (in other words: never) I’m going to get a bike like this beautiful custom Boulder Bicycles All-Road. The owner is almost as tall as me (198cm/6'5.5") and the frame size is 67cm. The wheels are 584mm (650B) and they don’t look disproportionate to me.

On this cold winter day, I can very well use some warm memories of the past, in this case from my first “real” bike tour. “Real” because when I was maybe 10 my parents and I had gone on an organized bike tour of the Loire Valley in France, complete with SAG support and staying at hotels.On this trip, in contrast, the biketopus and I were fully self-supported, carrying all our stuff and spending the nights on campgrounds, making it a very different experience. As it usually the case with me, I had spent a lot of time acquiring theoretical knowledge about bike touring before actually engaging in the activity. So theoretically, we were well prepared. Our trip would start from home in Ithaca, NY, following the western shore of Cayuga Lake to Cayuga Lake State Park for the first overnight stop. On the second day we would we head east towards Auburn and then follow the eastern shore of Lake Owasco to Moravia and spend the night at Fillmore Glen State Park, before returning back south to Ithaca. Three days of 60 to 70 km and two nights of camping seemed like a good trip length to figure out if we actually were into bike camping. ...

Panorama from the Bellevue Kondiaronk  I got into a severe bout of winter unhappiness this Monday. After a few warmish days, the forecast for the coming week was all in the -20 to -7°C range—certainly not atypical for the end of February but depressing nonetheless. I made various plans to get me on the bike before an afternoon work meeting, only to discard them again quickly. In the end I was like, “Screw it, it's too cold. I'll just bike to work and that's it.” My commute is only 4km, but the conditions confirmed me in my decision: -7°C, but with a brutal 50 km/h headwind. Brr. After the meeting I was all ready to bike home directly. However, an inner voice told me, “Hey, you're already out. Why don't you quickly check the trail conditions on Mont-Royal? You can still turn around if it's too icy …” And so up I went McTavish and des Pins, before turning right onto Chemin le Serpentine. Much to my relief, it was obvious that they do a good amount of trail maintenance there. It was icy but fairly smooth and the road even had been gritted a little. And so I followed Chemin Olmsted all the way up to the lookout, the Mont-Royal Cross, and back down again. The surface varied between smooth ice, packed snow, and everything in between—very rideable with my Ice Spikers. The mountain mostly shielded me from the brutal wind, and so overall this was a very pleasant ride that pulled me out of my Winter Blues, at least temporarily. To be repeated!

[Update January 26: So a mere week after registration opened, all 500 spots have been taken already. Pretty awesome!] For the first time, Vélo Québec and Environnement Jeunesse will organize what is kind of like the winter equivalent to the massively successful Montreal Bike Fest (primarily known for its Tour de l`Île and Tour de la Nuit): an organized bike ride through Montreal’s streets in the middle of February. The aim of the ride is to both have fun on the bike, but also to underline the recent growth of the winter bike movement in Montreal and to advocate for changes to further support that growth. ...

It’s been four months now since we completed our tour, giving me enough distance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t on the trip. This trip was our longest so far, both in terms of time and distance. What worked REI Half Dome Plus, keeping us dry and protected from skunks... The route: Both the parts of the ride on the Route Verte and on regular highways was great. Yes, we were often cursing the Route Verte planners for the gratuitous hills, but it was nice to have a mostly car-free route through beautiful scenery. And once we left the Route Verte the highways were empty and the few cars we encountered polite. I can recall only one short stretch near an autoroute interchange where we felt uncomfortable. Penny stove: My ultralight DIY penny stove performed well initially. Unfortunately, I lost my special penny early on. It's special because the alloy pennies are made from has changed over the years and to regulate the stoves air flow the penny has to be from a certain era. For the rest of the trip I ran the stove with a more recent, lighter penny and that resulted in a larger and less efficient flame. Note to self: bring spare special pennies. Distance and speed: We started out with a rough plan and made adjustments along the way. As a result, we usually rode between 80 and 100 kilometers a day. This was neither easy-peasy nor overly brutal for either of us. Sometimes the lack of appropriate accommodations forced us to go further than we would've liked, but we compensated for that by taking it easy the day after. Me carrying most of our stuff helped equalize things between the two of us. Gear: Except for the things mentioned below we seemed to be carrying the perfect amount of stuff. We used everything we brought at least once and we also weren't missing anything except for a can opener. What mostly worked Wolfgang, the Cross-Check, fully loaded Sleeping bag: I brought my 900g summer sleeping bag instead of the heavier three-season one. I knew that this was a bit of a gamble, as I sleep very cold and at the end of August there's a good chance of chilly nights. On the first night, which also turned out to be the coldest, we left one door of the fly open, resulting in me getting pretty cold, despite wearing all the clothes I brought. So for future tours with the chance of temperatures below, say +5°C I should bring the warmer sleeping bag. Our bikes: Both my Cross-Check and the Biketopus's Fuji performed almost flawlessly. No flat tires, no mechanical problems other than having to adjust the angle of the Fuji's shifters to make them easier to shift and adjusting the Cross-Check's rear derailer once. On the Cross-Check, however, I frequently had to deal with shimmy. During previous tours I was able to fix it by shifting the front-back weight balance or adjusting the headset, but this time that didn't help. Fortunately, the shimmy was of the tame kind: it started at relatively low speeds but then stayed constant, meaning that the bike never felt out of control. Interestingly, the rougher the road the less shimmy I encountered—probably the random vibrations from a rough road damp the oscillation pattern. Gearing: If you've read the tour report you'll have noticed that steep hills were a recurring issue throughout much of the ride. I had kind of forgotten that I was running only a 1:1 gear as my lowest option and this was definitely borderline. I only had to dismount once but it would've been nice to have a cassette with a cog larger than a 26t... On the other end of the spectrum, I only used the large chain ring once! Because of my heavy load every little downhill lead to rapid acceleration, making it unnecessary to pedal. So having an ultra-compact double crank in combination with a wide-range cassette—maybe 46/30 with 12–34—would have been perfect. Riding for seven days: This was our longest tour so far and we both like it. It takes a few days to get into the rhythm of touring and on a shorter tour by that point you're already almost done. Because of the sleeping problems mentioned below I must admit that by day six I was ready to be back home in my own bed, though. So seven days seems like a good length. Warmshowers: In the end, we only stayed with one Warmshowers host—and had a great experience! In general had a good response rate this time. We felt a bit bad for canceling on two people relatively late, as we realized their homes would be either too far or too close to make for a day's ride. What didn't work Both of us didn't sleep all that well in general. I had problems getting comfortable on my Thermarest Prolite. It kept losing air over night at a slow rate and so by morning my back was lying on whatever was beneath our tent. Both the Biketopus and I also suffered from the quality of our pillows. The Biketopus had sewn nice little pillowcases which we then stuffed with spare clothes. This worked better than just stuffing the clothes right under our heads, as we had done on previous trips, but still it wasn't that great. For the next trip we're going to try some proper camping pillows.