That’s right. I don’t post anything for months, and now you get a couple in a couple of days.
So, brakes.
I mentioned briefly in my thoughts from Novice Day that my brakes went away by the end of the day. Well, it was actually worse than that. I lost brakes entirely on my 3rd last lap, going into Turn 6 at 170km/h: Pedal went to the floor. I’d already lifted, so was bleeding speed anyway, pumped the pedal a couple of times and got some pressure into the system, downshifted to let the engine do some of the work, and cranked the wheel over to let the tires scrub some speed, and all was well: My instructor admonished me for diving too deep into the corner and running wide and off line, I told him that it was a brakes issue. I ran the next few laps slower, just working on my line and smoothness, and pointing people by as I needed to (including the 370z I’d eaten up about three laps earlier, dammit!).
I got a look at the rotors after the session ended, and this is what I saw:
FLICKR – wheel – rotor
Not good. Tough to tell without closer inspection, but the pads were looking a little light, too.
Get on the road home, and I popped an (unrelated) engine code: P0133. Pretty sure that was just the engine reacting to the high flow catalytic converter and suddenly not running wide open, as I had been on the track for the best part of two hours. I cleared that, and no issues the rest of the way home (70km).
When I got into town, however, and off the highway, I ran into some issues.
At about Bank / Walkley, the car felt really sluggish. I had to give it more gas to make it go anywhere, and acceleration was seriously lackluster. If I took my foot off the gas, it came to a halt almost immediately.
Of course, this is when a good officer of the law arrived on my bumper, in traffic.
Because OF COURSE.
So, I’m gunning the hell out of the engine to make the car go anywhere (I’ve already got an idea where the issue is) and figure, well, I might as well set up my defense. Put my four-ways on, and hope for the best. I’m less than 2km from home at this point, so I’m going to try to limp it there, unless I’m told not to. Turn onto the primary run into my neighbourhood… and the officer follows me in. Again, I figure I might as well get ahead of the curve, and pull to the side of the road in front of the Dodge dealership. At which point, the cop pulls right past me!
Seriously?
I’m now not worried about getting a ticket, but mildly irritated that, despite my four ways, the cop didn’t stop to check on me. Sorry guys. Sometimes you just can’t win.
Nothing is visibly stuck, so after a few minutes, I get back on my way. Still really sluggish though. I get home, and the same thing: the car is stopping very quickly when it’s not under power, of its own accord. I back it into the garage, and leave it there for the night.
Sunday afternoon rolls around, and it’s time to check things out. The good news: all the bolts on the brakes came loose with some pressure: nothing seized.
The bad news. This list is longer.
First, the front rotors are, as I thought, screwed. With them off, they’re both splotchy/white, with some flaking of the edges that isn’t rust, and they’re so deeply grooved that you could climb them. Or at least play “Darkside of the Moon” if you’ve got a record player kicking around. They are ROUGH. See for yourself:
Second, the front pads. Also totally fucked. Outboard was down to a sliver of material left. The pad itself has been baked to the point at which it’s also flaking apart. The inboard pad isn’t as badly worn, but it’s really unevenly worn. Looks like it stuck in the bracket and stopped retracting/loosening off when I got off the brakes. Basically, about 1/4″ more wear on one end of the pad than the other.
Third, the front caliper sliders were completely stuck: all the lubricant had burnt off. That’s an easy fix, but contributed to the above issues, I’m sure. All the lubricant around the areas the pads touch the brackets? Yeah, that’s gone too. Again, easy fix, but the pads are dead.
Fourth, I don’t know if the front calipers are still ok. I’ve pushed the pistons back in, so they do move. Only way to find out will be to get fresh rotors and pads in there and see what happens.
So, what’s the plan from here?
Given how my brake knowledge has grown in the last 72 hours, there’s a couple of things. First, the rear brakes (same brand rotors – R1 Concepts, and same brand pads – Frixa) that I installed new on Friday night are FINE. No scoring, no over-wearing, no sticking. It might be worth disassembling them and re-lubicating to make sure everything is moving post-track-heat, but otherwise, they’re fine. What I hit the track with on the front of the car, though, had 60,000km over four years, on them, and two winters of driving in Ottawa’s snow and salt. There is (I’m told) a finite shelf-life for brakes, even if there’s material left: I didn’t know that. So, old, well-used components, stressed to the maximum on the track? It should surprise no one that they fought the good fight, and finally, lost. Everything I’ve read, and been told, says that no, the expectation is not that you will be going through a set of pads and rotors per track day. I hit a perfect storm of abuse and existing wear. On top of that, as I mentioned, I have the base OEM brake set up. It’s good, but it’s not, I don’t think, race track good. Especially not with 60,000km of wear already on the components. But, it’s taught me an awful lot about things to look for, and things to keep up with in terms of preventative maintenance. And I think, whatever brake set up I end up with in the future, I’ll make sure I’ve got spare pads and rotors on hand in case I do need them.
Well, I’m doing Tail of the Dragon with GenSport United in late September. So, I’ve gotta have decent brakes on for that. In the short term, i MIGHT have access to a set of OEM’s that someone isn’t using. If I get really lucky, they’ll get up here from Oshawa before Thursday, and I can drive the ‘coupe to the cottage this weekend. If not, then I’ll be ordering new, OEM-base replacemnts (probably EBC rotors and pads) to get me through the end of summer and fall.
After that, I’m seriously considering a BBK. It sounds like there may be a semi-local option for me. I may also have a line on an affordable OEM Brembo swap with Stoptech rotors and pads. Failing all that, the R1Concepts forged series BBK looks like it has potential as well.
As I said in the original post, I learned a lot this last weekend, not just about being on a track, but about myself, my car, and all the things that go into being SAFE on the road, and on the track.
With that explanation, if you’d care to donate a few dollars, five, ten, fifty, five hundred, whatever you can, the best place to do so is here, through me!
Yes, we have already completed our gameathon for 2015: However, donations are still counted towards this years totals until December 31st, 2015. So, if you want to donate? Please click the link. CHEO is a great, great cause. And, honestly, I would expect them to be busy in the new year: Refugee kids are going to need help, and I’m sure CHEO will be part of that effort.
Anyway, back to the event!
The team has become this weird combination of nerds, geeks, car-people, and .. yeah. General weirdos. There’s Chapter 11 Section 62 representation, @wrenchhaus, and the old university crew: The Bombshelter. Basically, we are legion.
This year, we changed things up. How? well, you’d need to know last years, first. So, here’s last year:
This year, instead of the island in the livingroom, we’re trying a long table around the walls. I think it’s free’d up a bunch of space: we had a problem last year with people needing to get in and out (food, bathroom). I think we’ve alleviated a lot of that with the new set-up.
On top of that, with The McFee being out of town, we’re skipping Rockband and making room for more PC’s. The entire basement, in fact, is dedicated to PC gaming this year.
Then, we’ve set up two bedrooms/offices upstairs with tables and chairs for serious tabletop action:
At this point, in fact, we’ve got a full walk-through video for 2015, again. My apologies for … yeah. that’s me doing the voice over. So, I apologize in advance.
Once again, I failed to do a second walkthrough. This year did, in fact, end up being signficantly different to previous years: not only did the Tabletop gaming get a lot more attention, but at the same time, one non-nerdy-family-game got played for no less than four straight hours, by a group that grew to nearly fifteen (somewhat intoxicated) bodies: “Catch Phrase”. I know. I don’t get it either. Sadly, I didn’t get any video of the idiocy involved, either, but that’s life. That said, we brought in the kids, too, and there were games of My First Carcasonne, and the like. The adults delved into a group favorite, Pandemic, as well as Elder Sign, and a multitude of others.
The PC master race was, as is appropriate, well represented by basement dwellers. I mean, I set up the PC gear in the basement. Note the network cables EVERYWHERE.
Speaking of the hardware, this is what it takes to set-up the house, to do things the way we do it. I’m not sure I’d recommend this to others: it’s a ton of work, and every year I end up buying more and more gear, especially networking gear. I got very lucky this year, and a neighbour was throwing out two tables (and by tables, I mean doors, with those folding legs bolted to them) which I picked up for free. Without that, we’d have had issues, so it was incredibly fortuitous.
So,yes, the hardware and set-up. Couches get moved from basement to ground floor: the ground floor is entirely consoles.
Also, my racing rig, which I finished at about 11pm the night before the event, and stood up extremely well. Althuogh I think I need addtional plyons… I mean, bracing.
The hardware!
Ok, so the house is rigged, before anyone shows up, with:
Ground Floor:
-Asus AC68u router
-TP Link 8 port switch
-TP Link 5 Port switch
-TP Link 16 port switch
-350′ Cat6 network cable
Basement:
-TP Link 5 port switch
-TP Link 8 port switch
-TP Link 32 port swtich (it’s what we had)
-250′ Cat6 Network cable
Basement:
-12 gaming PCs of various sizes, shapes, and forms
This year, though, we didn’t blow a breaker. You laugh, but last year, we blew breakers repeatedly (due to a bad piece of wiring we’ve since had corrected) so badly that it blew a hole in the breaker itself, which had to be replaced, last winter. I’ve never seen anything like that. Compared to last year, I think we were actually bigger this year, but it’s hard to tell, because, as I pat myself on the back, I think we organized much, much more effectively this year.
So, while it IS a ton of fun, both in the set-up, preparation, and the event itself, there is a point to all this. And the point is, to raise money for CHEO. Which we did in spades.
Again, donations don’t close on this year’s event until December 31st, 2015. So, feel free to click that link up there, and make even a small donation.
Here’s the numbers so far though.
We’re showing up as the 285 biggest fundraising team in the event (international, 6265 teams, total). However, once the $400 USD I have addtionally makes it to the organizers (next week) then we’ll jump… We may jump into the top 100 teams. Which is INSANE. Most of those top-100 teams are corporate, and where they’re community teams, they have dozens, even hundreds of members raising funds. Again, I’m incredibly proud of my guys and girls: they put a ton of effort into this.
And yes, I know it’s not a competition. But boy, leaderboards, am I right?
Team Bombshelter is, once again, the #1 fund-raiser for CHEO, via Extra-Life, and the gameathon. I’m incredibly proud of not only our direct team, but the people who support us (with fooooooooood, in large part), those who donate incredibly generously, and those who come to wish us well. Our numbers are not 100% yet: I have a number of cash donations that are still coming in, but it looks, on the surface, as though we’ve (in what we thought was going to be an “off” year) broken through $3200 USD. That’s somewhere around $3800 in Canadian funds, going back, directly, to CHEO. Over the last four years, we’ve raised juuuuuuuust about $15,000 in Canadian funds[1].
It should be noted, however, that the newly-formed “Ottawa Guild Superstars” were nipping at our heels this year! That’s pretty damn, awesome, too.
[1]we lost our team historics this year, and we still don’t know why. Fortunately, I had screen captures of the previous years’ totals, so we’re not totally lost, but it is a shame, and I have to get back in contact with Extra-Life again to see if that can be rectified. It’s not a huge deal, but we are gamers, and our leaderboards are important to us. 😉
We get together, we have a few beers, we turn the stereo up, and we work on the cars. Obviously, there’s a heavy slant towards the Genesis Coupe in the group: I own one, and that’s how I met most of these guys. But at the same time, we’ve gotten into the larger community. On top of that, some guys are selling their ‘coupes and moving on. So we’ve got, a Kia Forte Koup, a slammed Hyundai Elantra, an occasional Nissan 350z, a Dodge Dart (Don’t ask), and basically… anything within the group is cool by us. We are, at the end of the day, car folks. Which means it really goes further than just wrenching on our own cars: we do basic maintenance on our friends cars, often enough, too: brakes, suspension, exhaust, etc. We do expect two things:
1] Bring beer. It’s the universal form of payment.
2] Be willing to get dirty and learn something.
The second one, that’s actually the most important. We have had problems in the past with guys showing up and expecting us to do the work for them, to save them money. But weren’t willing to get in and turn a wrench themselves. That goes… badly. We’re not free labour: we’re a community. If you’re not willing to wrench on your own car, you’re not likely to help anyone out with theirs, either. Which means you’re not welcome, except in special circumstances.
But it’s that time of year again.
On the docket already is:
Summer Tire Day. We do this pretty traditionally: Get everyone we know to show up, get a few jacks, impact guns, and yes, beer, and get everyone’s winters swapped off for their summers. This one is fun, it’s a good start to the season, and it helps our friends out. We don’t actually expect beer for this one, but we’re not against it arriving.
CR’s exhaust – one of the new guys has bought an RS-D exhaust. That’s what I had on my car. Needless to say, we know how to install it. that’ll be fun, and more material for the DrunkenWrench.
Whatever that damn Dodge needs – T’s got a ton of parts to put on, so, that’ll happen.
Anto’s suspension – the lowest of the low elantra has been upgraded to a …. new elantra. Moar suspension work! Moar DrunkenWrench.
My car! While I got the HSD coilovers on last year, I still need to set-up the rear pre-load properly.
my car! I also need to install the tablet and all the associated stuff that goes with it. That’ll be my big interior project this summer
my car! I still also have a Stage 2 Comp Clutch to install, and an ATQ short shifter. Gotta get to those, and they’re definitely drunken wrench material (what isn’t though?)
I think there’s more, too. The upside is, there’s a second location now, which means I don’t have to continuously bother @30yearhouse with crowds of loud car people (and my neighbours, with tuner cars parked up and down the street, I guess) every weekend: pwned88 and Greg have a huge garage and driveway, known henceforth as “WrenchHaus”. They’re a couple kilometers away, which makes it really easy to change locations as required, and convenient.
I think I need a banner this year, for the inside of the garage. Or two. I’ve run my life for the last fifteen years around the Bombshelter name, so, I think “Bombshelter Garage” is probably most appropriate.
Once again, Team Bombshelter took part in ExtraLife. This is the biggest we’ve ever gone, for several reasons.
The long and short, as I’ve talked about before, is that Extra-Life.org coordinates an event wherein you play games (console, computer, tabletop, whatever you like) for twenty-four hours. The money is organized by Children’s Miracle Network, and distributed to the Children’s Hospital that your team chooses to support. In our case, that’s the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, or CHEO. This is a great cause. Doubly so, because despite the trouble that charities have had with, ummm, “overhead”, 100% of proceeds go to the hospital you choose.
We’ve done this for three years now. This is, in fact, my birthday event. It costs me a bunch of money, but, honestly, it’s a great cause, I have a good time, and it’s a good party, too.
This year was, admittedly, planned to be big. @thirtyyearhouse and I bought a new house in February, and we planned to have space to entertain (in our own, distinct manners). Which means I may have gotten enthusiastic in the way we set-up. On top of that, we not only grew the staples (PC Gaming, Xbox360, Xbox:One) but we also added tabletop.
What we ended up with was:
15 TV’s varying from 32″ to 55″
1 projector (at about a 120″ screen)
8 xbox360s
5 xbox:ones
1 PS4
1 PS3 (epic rockband setup)
15 PCs, gaming laptops, and Alienware
1 combined game of Cards Against Humanity and Crabs Adjust Humidity
1 room devoted to tabletop gaming
So, yeah. You can imagine the parking we took up on the street (at least it’s a relatively quiet street! who knows what my neighbours think?)
The list there is pretty impressive. But you don’t really (I don’t think) get the scope of it until you SEE it all:
SO, yeah. That.
We blew the breakers twice: primarily for the xbox360 room, and family room (PC game overflow). The power meter read 36216 on Saturday morning, and 36316 on Sunday morning. I don’t know how that measures, what the units are, but I’m intrigued to see the power bill.
On top of all the direct gaming hardware, I upgraded the entire house’s network. Fortunately, I have my connection through Distributel and had ZERO issues all weekend with my 28 down / 2 up connection. There’s no cap on it either, so all the updates that people inevitably had to do, won’t cost me.
Why the gigabit cabling? Well, all the consoles, and PC’s have a wired network: not everyone uses it regularly, but it’s there. With the sheer volume of devices, I figured that was going to be a better way to organize: messy, but we weren’t going to kill the wireless throughput (good thing too: pretty much everything in the family room, which we weren’t expecting to use for electronics, went on wifi, as did our lone mobile gamer, @simonsage (who also brought MobileNations into the fray as a sponsor, and with them, Nvidia, and Gameloft. Gameloft donated a thousand freakin’ dollars! So, HUGE thanks to them): Basically, what I’m saying in this tired, near-fugue state is that I wanted to keep the wireless for people who definitely needed wireless.
So, the gaming!
The gaming was excellent: I didn’t get my Forza 4 race this year, but I did venture out into the online world for some racing for a few hours. There was some typical (about three hours) HALO shouting (you put 10 people on consoles in the same room, playing HALO, there’s gonna be some shouting!) and the Xbox:one guys, with the exception of jumping to 360’s for the HALO 3 multiplayer (we had enough copies of HALO3: I’d have preferred CE/10th anniversary, but… what do you do?), played the entire time on Destiny. SO much so, that the servers was so empty at 4:30am they all ended up gathered and chilled out, together, despite technically being on different servers!
There was TombRaider (2013); @thirtyyearhouse and ProonJoos played the entirity (I think) of Portal 2, together; Fallout3:New Vegas, PAYDAY 2 (PC), WOW (PC), Borderlands2, Borderlands2:ThePreSequel (PC & Xbox), and, oh, of course:
Rockband.
I know, if you’ve read the previous years, you know that @blingdomepiece‘s rockband setup is pretty damn epic. But, if you’re new here, here’s a few shots:
He brings all of this in one car-load. It’s pretty impressive. And even more so/more fun with it being on the projector, with the right sound behind it. It’s a hell of a lot of work to tear down, move, and set-up, and he does this every year. He’s one of our total heroes here, because there’s a lot of love for Rockband in our group, and he makes it just a little bit more special than you expect with rockband.
The other thing I have to bring up is the food. We’re a (mostly) middle-aged group now: most of us have been friends for closing on twenty years, and we met in university. But the way people put effort in before the event to ensure there’s enough food for people, is spectacular.
There was (and I’m pretty sure I have a kitchen picture), 9.5 dozen assorted homemade cookies (Loralei), Chicken Tika, made fresh (Bundy), Ribs (Magoo), Chicken BBQ Dip (SketchedOut), Two pans of Lasagna (Phae), McMuffin fixin’s (Pwned88), vegetable and fruit platters (thirtyyearhouse), Dr Pepper & Keiths Lager, and Canadian (Dwight), cupcakes (Kathy & Phae), pizzabites (Jiff), and so much other miscellaneous foodstuff…. Unbelievable. No one was going hungry. So much coffee, as you can imagine.
Not everyone managed the entire twenty-four hours. No one is required to. We value the effort, and as I said, this is for charity.
4am Eternal.
Here’s the thing.
Even after all of the above, I’m blown away by the generosity of my friends: this core group, and the ones surrounding us. As I write this, I need to go to the bank and make a cash deposit: we keep a bucket at the door, and ask people to make donations that way, if they just want to come hang out: it’s not obligatory, but it’s nice if you can throw a couple bucks in (Five dollars, a handful of change, whatever). Again, these people? So far above and beyond, it’s not even funny. There were TWO hundred-dollar, effectively anonymous cash donations. It’s OK. I know who you are, and thank-you. Twenties abound. Tens. A plethora of fives.
A four year-old boy, Moe, who is awesome (and drove some Forza), donated the contents of his piggy bank:
ANd it’s so friggin’ dusty in here, we’re all tearing up on the internet.
All told, there was somewhere around $420 in the bucket when I turned it in to the bank this morning. I then made that single, lump donation with my VISA so it gets to the tally-card quickly.
WHere does that leave us?
Not so fast. There’s some serious shout outs.
Again, I want to thank our PRIMARY, leading fund-raiser. That’s @simonsage. Yes, he brought in a single donation of $1000. He didn’t stop there, and did more than $700 on top of that.
I’ll pat my own back too: prior to making the lump-sum cash from the bucket, I was at $715 raised.
Jason pulled in next, at $590.
Bambi: $390
Greg M: a new-comer, $301!
Sean: $240
Rob: $165
Ryan: $165
Greg: $130
Jaron: $125
Alex: $100
Here’s the thing. The top three teams in the event raised between $190,000 and $250,000 each. HOWEVER. They have thousands of members on their teams. RoosterTeeth (who are awesome) had 3000 members on their team. They raised about $80 per team member. Which is fantastic. But my guys and girls, who I am superbly proud of, averaged $380 per person in terms of fund raising. That takes serious effort. Asking people for money is hard, it really is. And my guys and girls do an awesome job, and have done all the way back to the days of the Labatt 24-hourRelay.
One more thing. Donations are US Dollars. SO, that $5100 or so is in US. We raised in Canadian. That means it’s closer to $5800 in “our” money, for our local (Canadian) hospital. Damn.
SO, the final numbers. I know you want ’em.
Well, you can see any movement that may occur in the next month over on the Team Bombshelter page on Extra-Life.org, but the day-after numbers look like this:
There’s a couple of things there that stand out. First: we raised more than FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. For a Children’s Hospital. It was noted that, even prior to the event, we were the largest-donating group who’s target hospital was CHEO. That’s a big deal to us. The whole point is to make a difference. And that, apparently, is what we’ve done. Second, we’re gamers: leaderboards count. There were nearly 6000 teams participating in ExtraLife this year. We were the 94th biggest fundraiser, as a team. We did better than a lot of notable corporate teams. We, as a community team, with a dozen members, did better than a large number of corporate and community teams, who had more members (in some cases, a lot more members). SO, yes, I am totally, again, patting us on the collective back, because you guys deserve it. For everything I’ve written about above, you deserve it. Those who fund-raised, those who contributed, those who ran coffee runs, wrangled kids, helped trouble-shoot electrical and network problems, everyone who spread the word, shared the links on social media, everyone who was part of the whole thing, thanks.
It’s something this group of people I call my friends do very, very well. I just rarely see it laid out in a format like this. It’s pretty damn awesome, and I’m proud of all of you.
That’s the entire international event. How cool is that?
The Extra Life Gameathon is a truly wonderful time. Let not speak of it again for a while, because… wow. Just so tired. Worth it, but so tired.
Also… can we have a fundraiser to pay my electrical bill? 🙂
So, I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve been tracking my rides, even my commuting, with an app called Strava. Now, I really like Strava. It’s got some faults (like, shutting itself down while it’s tracking a ride, to perform an update) but as a whole, it’s very, very good.
And one of the things it does that really floats my boat is turns riding into a video game. Specifically, a racing game.
See, what Strava does, that the others don’t, is socialize the ride: ok. More like, “gameify”. Riders in a particular city isolate “segments” (point A to point B) and that becomes a segment. Then, anyone who rides that segment, with the app tracking them gets a time for their ride on that segment.
And the get placed on a leaderboard.
You can see where this is going, right?
Here’s the thing. That week (I wrote this two weeks ago, been sick and lazy since) has been spectacularly good for me.
Sawmill Creek – Huntclub -> Walkley (2.4km)
Previous – 4m43s. Monday 4m27s, Tuesday 4m37, Thursday 4m24 @ 32.9km/h (8th in the city) Friday 4m27s
Sawmill Creek – Walkley to Brookfield (1.1km)
Previous 2m03s. Monday 1m51s, Tuesday 1m52s, Thursday 1m50s (12th in the city) Friday 1m48s @ 35.1km/h (10th in the city)
You’ll notice that Wednesday isn’t in there. That’s because I had one of those mentioned “reset to update” events and it didn’t track my run.
I don’t know what changed. I’d been off for a couple of weeks (flat tires, sick, etc) and actually drove to work for the best part of two weeks. Huge break in riding. As mentioned, sick.
And then I start up again, and this happens. I’m fast as fuck.
And I know I’m fast as fuck. Because the tracker tends to be right. Also, if I see other people on the path, it’s because I’m passing them.
I wouldn’t say I’m obsessive about it. Ok. maybe a little.
But, the upside is, I’ve ridden for approximately 200 minutes this week (so… 3.3hrs) commuting. That covers about 85km. The ride home is slower, for some reason, but even considering that, I’m averaging somewhere around 26km/h for the entire week. The calorie burn (if you can trust the tracker) is around 3300 cal, for the week (10 rides, approx 300cal per ride). Seems fairly legit to me, as I’m working hard to achieve the speeds/averages that I’m getting.
At the end of the day though, those segments? Damn. That’s actually motivating me. The ride on either side of them isn’t commute anymore, it’s “how I get to my charge point”. Seriously. You cannot (or maybe you can) believe just how motivating that leaderboard is for me.
It does help when that ride looks like this though (this is from this, Friday, morning):
I’m almost done for the season: it’s middle of October, I’ll probably get three to six weeks more of bike commuting before I quit for the winter. I used to ride the winter, too, but the reason I don’t anymore is another story entirely.
In the same way that some people love Christmas, I love October/November. Why? Because it’s time for the Extra-Life.org Gameathon again.
I’ve organized this for two years now, and I think we’re going to do it again this year. I really do love the event, and as the money raised goes to the Children’s Miracle Network, and then funnels down to your local Children’s Hospital (CHEO, in our case), and 100% of the proceeds go to the cause, NOT to administration?
Yeah, it’s a good cause.
There is only ONE glaring problem. It’s at halloween. Specificlly, October 25th (two days after my birthday, and six days before Hallowe’en night.)
And these are my friends:
Yeah. There’s more of them, but you get the idea. Halloween is the most important day of the year, for them.
So, what to do?
Screw it. We’re doing the 25th. Yes, it IS the final-push weekend for costume creation. However,
The other thing I want to do is, make everything bigger.
Because that’s what Team Bombshelter does.
Ok, here’s the first year. See? Looked pretty cool, right? And, apparently, I never did a write-up for the second year (dunno how that happened!). But, somewhere, I do have pictures. I gotta find ’em, but they’re there.
Again, pretty sweet. We tried to do something different. A single Forza4 race. It turns out that the longest Forza4 race you can set up is about 8 hours (Class B, modified, running 200 laps of the Nordschliefe). We only made it about an hour in before SketchedOut ruined all our cars by flipping his. So, after that, we ran some shorter (10 lap) races on smaller tracks. There was also the inevitable HALO free-for-all-deathmatch, Rockband in the basement, and gaming PC’s all over the house.
I kinda want to make it bigger again this year.
I’d like to do the big race.
Scratch that. I REALLY, REALLY WANT TO DO THE BIG RACE. Especially if we’re going to be in a situation where the majority of the console gamers are going to be car guys (more on that later), due to the costume folk celebrating THEIR holiday the same day(s).
SO, I’m thinking about bringing other car clubs and/or regions/sections of car clubs in, to see if they’ll do the same thing. IF they will, and we can get a sizable group together, I want to see if Turn10 will host the race on their own servers/hardware, and broadcast it. I’ve talked about this before. But there’s not been any real sense in actually trying to do it, with only seven or eight drivers. We can do that locally.
BUt if we had, say, 32 drivers, willing to be on their xboxes for eight hours or so, maybe Turn10 WOULD in fact get involved and help us out. This is what we did last year, and I’ll be planning the race for this year, too, but I’ll do that later.
The only bad news is, I’d love to do it on Forza5, but I don’t have the hardware (xbox:one, wheel/pedals) yet. And, I don’t think enough people have new One’s yet to make it viable.
For those who’re taking part locally, I need to know:
a] that you’re coming!
b] what you’re bringing. If you’re bringing a console, you need a TV and/or Monitor, too. Gaming PC’s, same deal, right? We can help with transport if you need it.
c] How much you plan on fund raising. It’s seven weeks to the event, lots of time to bother family, friends, and co-workers for five bucks. Go sign-up on the Team Bombshelter team page at Extra-Life.org, then get to it!
d] if you’re out of town… (and this is mostly for the car community guys & girls) are you just gonna start your own team and compete with us? 🙂 If so, go to Extra Life, sign up, and create your own team.
All in all, this started as a fun thing for me to do with friends on my birthday, and ended up being a charity we raised (in two years) just about five grand for our local Children’s Hospital. I’d love to see that jump to seventy-five hundred total this year (so, team fund raising goal of $2500 for this year). It’s a good cause, and a large number of families I know have made use of the facilities at CHEO. Even five, or ten bucks helps.
Three months to go, so more details will follow, obviously.
Ok, that was gratuitous, but I love that video. No good reason at all, but dem articulated boobs make me giggle.
This week, I started getting serious about the riding. Previously, I’ve not ‘tracked’ my commute: I did realize that, for the most part, my commute is more than 15km (about 8km each way, depending on route). So, it’s actually worth tracking. I sweat when I do it, so… yeah, I’ll “keep” those miles. But this week, I have a plan to jump face-first back into the heavy riding.
The prologue to all this is that in February, after eating my stress from preparing to sell a house, selling a house, buying a new house, moving, wondering if the roof on the new house will collapse… you get the idea… left me at 235lbs.
235lbs.
That’s the heaviest I’ve been in nine years.
So, that had to stop. Since February, I’m down about fifteen pounds: that was mostly some biking, walking to work until the roads improved, and not eating like a complete imbecile. It works. But now the serious work begins.
And that means actively trying to lose weight again.
I’m hoping 215lbs by Canada Day (July 1st), and 200lbs by Labour Day (September 1st). I’d by lying if I said that at least some of this is due to wanting to look comfortable in my clothes for the wedding next spring, but that’s not all of it. I’m not really worried about the weight per se, but rather, how I feel in my clothes. I’ve got a ton of shirts right now that I don’t wear, because they bulge in the wrong places for me to be comfortable in them. So… yeah. Gotta get back to me.
Like I’ve mentioned before, what works for me is biking. And it’s been a while since I was serious about it.
This week so far:
Monday – 8km to work, 27.4km home (35.4km)
Tuesday – 8km to work, 13.9km home (21.9km)
Wednesday – 5.5km to work, 32km home (37.5km)
Total so far, 94.8km.
Tuesday was tough: like I said, getting the eating under control too means that I underestimated my requirements. By that, I mean, by the time I was onto the final 5km section of my loop, I was getting dizzy, and out of breath. Basic sugar crash. So, yeah, gotta increase intake during the day, and decrease in the evening. Tonights plan is 30km, out to MEC because I need a couple of bike-related things that Joe Mamma doesn’t sell. Also, it’s a nice ride out through Westboro, and the Experimental farm and down Prince of Wales. Also, I’ve no choice but to finish the ride, because have to get home. So, there’s that.
Basically, I’ve set myself a goal this week of 175km. I’m actually hoping that’ll be closer to 200km, but, hey, baby steps, right?
As of Wednesday night, assuming I did accomplish my goal (ed. I did), I’m at about 92km.
Thursday will be the usual 8km to work, and then probably 20km home. So, that’s around 120km. Friday, 8km to work, and 20km home again. 148km. That means Saturday or Sunday, I need to find time for a 25-50km ride. Or, I need to do a third ride in the evening either Thursday or Friday to balance a shorter weekend ride.
We’ll see what happens. But the weekly goal is totally achievable.
So, I ordered my car on April 9th, 2009. After spending a lot of time going back to the dealership, and asking “where’s my car?” and recieving the response “No idea. It’s on a boat.” I took delivery of a 2010 2.0T 6MT Premium Genesis Coupe, on June 11th 2009. It was awesome.
Which, obviously, is the reason for this post. My car turns five today (Yes, it’s Friday the 13th. I picked the car up on Friday the 11th), so… time for a look back.
The second night I owned it, I did a cruise’n’shoot with @thirtyyearhouse. This would OBVIOUSLY set the tone for me owning the car.
I had a really big plan for the car. Some of it was accomplished, some of it is still pending. It’s funny how life is like that, eh?
I drove the car basically stock for the first year. Tint got done (22%) via a group buy through Goldwing Automotive. Tint is required. Damn. Is it ever. I got a set of Pirelli SottoZero 240 winter tires in stock sizes (225/45R18, 245/45R18) from 1010tires.com and put ’em on the stock wheels.
Come the spring of 2010, then, I needed wheels and tires. It’s a pretty good plan, you know: get your winter tires on your stock wheels, then you HAVE to buy new ones for summer! CONVENIENT. I spent a lot of time researching. This is the first time I ever considered widening the wheels (I knew you could widen tires on cars, but I never considered widening the wheels in conjunction with that. Seems obvious, but there you are.
19″ x 8″ wide wheels in the front with a +20mm offset, with 245/35R19 tire (stock is 18×7 +36mm, 225/45R18)
19″ x 9.5″ wide wheels in the back, with 275/35R19 tire (stock is 18×7.5, +36mm, 245/45R18)
So, a significant change in style, and size (and grip. The stock tires are all-season on the 18″ wheels, and while they’re adequate all-seasons, they’re not good by any means).
The wheels and tires are good. For me, the offset is perfect, pushed out to the fender, and pretty nearly the definition of flush (the word. As I would come to understand, “flush” can have very different connotations depending on which tuner lifestyle you prefer and subscribe to). Very good. BUT, they’ve accentuated the wheel gap. This, I would come to know, is known as “4×4 status”. Now, in all honesty, it’s not terrible. And a multitude would be thoroughly happy. But….
(you see where this is going, right?)
Yup. Lowering.
Again, this was my first time venturing into the world of lowering. I’d thought about it before, with other cars, but I’d never actually done it. My weapon of choice was, in deference to affordability, springs, rather than coilovers. What I bought was Eibach’s ProKit, which would give me about 1.5″ of drop, just enough to close up those wheel gaps.
And it did:
That’s pretty much how my car stands to this day, too (although not for long): it looks a lot lower in the front, however, due to some cosmetic changes there. We’ll get to that.
I wanted to do something under the hood, at this point. And, the most simple ones are, well, a cold-air intake, and blow-off valve. When I was done researching (it’s a thing I do, you may have noticed), I ended up with an HKS SSQV III and AEM CAI from G&M Performance. The BOV took some fiddling with, and I ended up running it off the stock solenoid, and letting the computer control it, rather than the preferred method of lining it into the vacuum line. On top of that, pulling the front off the car to do the intake (it means replacing the washer fluid bottle, AND the filter sits behind the bumper cover, rather than in the engine bay) was terrifying the first time. I was certain I was going to break it in half, because there comes a point where you just gotta pull on it REALLY HARD.
Still, all went well.
Sometime in the fall of 2010, I pulled into my parking spot forwards (which I never do) and scraped the hell out of the bumper cover. Some pissed off I was. I ran it like that through the winter, and come the Cambridge meet in the summer of 2011, I’d made arrangements with Uniq Performance to pick up a Prodigy poly urethene lip, pre-painted. that should cover the scrape nicely, and, I hoped, make the front look more aggressive, and interesting. About the same time, I was fighting with Korean Auto Imports (Aka KAI) about an IXION Grill (small digression here. IF you go to the link for the Ixion grill, click on the image of the blue car. That’s my car. I’ve never granted ImportShark permission to use that image, nor have I ever received a response as to why they’re using it without permission. So, I’d suggest not doing business with ’em. THey’re notoriously douchebaggy as vendors, and this is a good example). I’ll never do business with KAI again, after that fiasco. I did finally get the grill though, and I got it, and the lip, installed once I had a chance to borrow a driveway:
I also got, courtesy of Aadam‘s experimentations a new shift knob.
Totally awesome.
More reading, and more basics. I started building myself a dual catch-can set-up. There’s a lot of reasons for this, and if you feel like it, you can read ’em here. What I ended up with was this:
Again, much like the BOV, and CAI, nothing in terms of actual performance gains, but one more step towards increased reliability and efficiency. About the same time, I got a set of modified fog light bezels from one of the guys on the site. I still wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted the car to look like, but I was intrigued. Basically,t he standard plastic bezels, cut to allow airflow, and painted to match the car. I put some mesh behind the cuts, and voila, a functional pair of intakes, one of which fed cold, clean air directly to the CAI.
And they’ve definitely grown on me. I’m still not 100%, I might end up going for some black/carbon ones, eventually, but they’re definitely good for now, and a pretty good match for the lip.
At the same time, I got a smokin’ deal from another of the guys’ locally: an ARK downpipe and testpipe to straighten out the kinked stock exhaust, and remove the secondary catalytic converter. This got done up at Jay’s cottage. It’s only a 2.5″ piece, but again, gave me a ton of confidence with regards to working on the exhaust, which I’d not done before.
We got that dealt with in an afternoon, after running the car without any exhaust for kicks, briefly. No point with a picture here, nothing really to see, but here’s what the car sounds like sans-exhaust:
So, that opened up that avenue for me. What I really wanted was a proper exhaust. I’ve had my eye on the exhaust that TurboXS makes for a while: I’d followed a guy with one of them on during a cruise, and it sounded spectacular. So, in the spring of 2013 (see, we’re getting there now) I ordered it. That was a fun afternoon’s work, for sure! And, I’ve already documented that installation, so go read it here, if you want. It’s a sexy exhaust.
Which brings me to 2014!
I was still not loving the way the ARK pipe and TurboXS cat-back mate together. So, sometime during 2013 (and I forget when) I picked up a used TurboXS RacePipe: basically, it’d bolt to the stock primary catalytic converter, and replace all the ARK 2.5″ with a single 3″ pipe, to the TurboXS cat-back. Perfect. Except… we tried to install it (again, at Jay’s cottage) and it wouldn’t go over the bolts on the catalytic. It was CLOSE. It’d go on, but it wouldn’t go on far enough to seal, even with the nice, thick, TurboXS gasket. We tried reaming out the bolt holes with a drill, and that was going nowhere fast. So, I put it aside for after selling the house, and buying the new one, under the anticipation I’d have a garage that I could work in, and if the car was on blocks for two days while I worked on widening and re-re-re-checking the fit, that’d be ok. And sure enough, it was. With a hardcore bore/ream bit specifically for that kind of work, I finally got it opened up enough this spring that I could install it. And I’m MUCH happier now. I still have a mild leak, and I think that’ll be easily taken care of with a new gasket between the racepipe and the catalytic. It’s not enough you get exhaust in the cabin, you can just hear it wheezing a little through the exhaust, behind the front wheels. Not too shabby.
Well, primary on my list is the suspension. The stock struts and shocks are nearly done. So, it’s time to do the right thing, and replace it all with a good set of coilovers. The real advantage here is that I’ve learned, thanks to the Quartermaster and his files what I really need.
I’m not a “slam it to the ground” guy. I understand the benefits of lowering the centre of gravity for handling’s sake, but, I’m not planning on running 4+ degrees of negative camber: I’m not going to be stretching my tires, and poking my wheels. What I want is for the damn car to go round corners REALLY FAST, and be able to soak up any bumps without making @thirtyyearhouse grind her teeth. What I need, then, is a set of adjustable, FULLY ADJUSTABLE coilovers. Not just ones that lower the car, but that I can adjust the damping on. I also want them to do the job right, so I’m moving up-market a little bit, to the most affordable set of inverted monotube. I’ve still never been to a track, but I do want to go occasionally. And I’ll be able to afford to, once the car is paid off next spring. So, affordable as possible, inverted monotube, adjustable damping and camber. Well, that’s the Stance SS series of coilovers. I could go more expensive, but I don’t have the need to. I definitely don’t want to go cheaper, because the ride quality IS important to me. So, there you have it. Stance SS Coilovers.
That was all my research. Which I promptly threw out the window the first weekend of June, and bought a set of HSD Coilovers (again from Uniq performance). Eveything I’ve read so far is that these are a] far beyond “adequate” and b] able to stand up to Canadian winters. Customer service with HSD has been spotty, but the product is known to be good. So, I got a decent price, and dove in.
Once that’s done, and that last payment is made, it’s time to FINALLY look at the engine.
Oh, wait. It’s not. The CLUTCH, the damnable clutch. at 60,000km (maybe 40,000miles) the clutch is definitely going. I know some guys have lasted as long as 100,000km, and some as few as 19,000km. And, honestly, I got a new one at 6000km, because of a bad throwout bearing that came from factory. So, new clutch. And not the stock replacement, either. Most likely, I’ll roll with a Competition Clutch stage 2, which comes with a matching, lightened, flywheel. That should be more than enough for what I want to see in terms of power and durability. And I got that at the same time as the coilovers (it was originally what I approached Uniq about, Rob just talked me into more stuff). The question now is whether or not I (with assistance) attempt to do the clutch in the driveway, or pay someone to do it for me. Likely, I’ll approach Extreme Autocare here in Ottawa and see what they’d charge me, and if it’s good enough then I’ll let them do it in a shop, rather than Colton and I lyin’ on our backs under the car, in the driveway. Makes sense? Makes sense.
Beyond that, I want an intercooler and the associated piping. Again, I’ve had three or four of these on my list for two years now, and the longer I’ve waited, the more I’ve learned about what I actually need from an FMIC (Front Mount InterCooler). And it appears, what I want and need is a Treadstone TR8 kit. That will provide enough cold air to any of the other upgrades I might want to do in the future, with this car. I don’t have 500hp dreams. I have 300hp dreams. And, yeah, maybe 350lb.ft sub-dreams. The TR8 is more than capable of helping to get me there.
Along with that will be injectors. Probably 750cc, although I’ll have to look a little deeper and see if 550cc will do the job.
So, that’s air, fuel, evacuation, and power transfer. And, honestly, once that’s tuned properly (likely with that BTRcc custom tune) there is every good chance that that will be enough for me. I can finish off the drivetrain (I still want a Limited Slip Differential in there, and maybe work on the paint. But I’m GUESSING, from what I’ve seen of other people, that all the stuff above, properly tuned, should be good for around 270hp to the wheels, and 300+lb.ft of torque. And that’s more than good. That’s enough to get into serious trouble. So, maybe, then, I save my pennies for tires, and track time.
In the meantime, I’m gonna keep enjoying my now five year old car. Oh, I am tempted by the trade-in with the new engine (40% bump in power) and transmission (more smoother naow!) and the better put together interior. But, at the same time, I LIKE my car. It’s not at all perfect (as you saw from the fiasco with the chassis bolt): the sunroof and seat both squeak, and that’s never been adequately dealt with: the interior on the newer cars is markedly better, too. And, there’s already rumours of a major redesign of the ‘coupe in 2015/16 (rather than the refresh they just did), AND it looks like the 2.0T will be dropped. At the same time, it’s likely the 2015 Mustang will be available, with a 270-300hp turbo-4-cyclinder, and that the Subaru BRZ-STI will hopefully have hit, too. But at the same time, I’ve got blood, sweat, and history in this car. Yes, it was the cardinal sin: never buy a car in its first run-year. But things have been good. I’ve met a ton of great people I wouldn’t likely have done if I’d not bought it, or maybe even if I’d bought it later than I did. I still get looks, thumbs-up, questions, and necks-snappin’ when I drive it. It’s… me. It’s definitely me. So, I’ll keep making it me, and not fall to grass-is-greener syndrome.
Once upon a time, I wrote about how damn spoiled we are that a multitude of sub-$30k platforms will run speeds that you couldn’t have had for less than the cost of a Corvette, fifteen years ago. I stand by that. I should maybe even repost it from the forum I wrote it for.
What is awesome is that, in the next few weeks, the car will be paid off. It’s mine. That puts a bunch of money back in my pocket. Most of that is going towards the new house I mentioned somewhere up there, but some of it will always be earmarked for more upgrades. The FMIC, injectors, and tune are definitely a thing that’ll happen. I’m also considering new wheels: I like the ones I’ve got, but it’s been four years, and it’ll be five on ’em by the time I can even think of pulling the trigger. That’s a bunch of time. And my goals with the car have changed. I’d originally wanted to do shows and stuff, but, honestly, I’m never gonna win a trophy: I don’t have the time, or money, to build a show-winning car. More realistically, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, which is have the car for me. And what “for me” means is driving it. And that means, the track. Which means if I’m replacing the wheels, I may keep the width, but drop down to lighter weight 18″ wheels, something serious. Like I said, I’m not really about stance, but there’s still something about big fat wheels and tires, with bulging, obviously-functional sidewalls, that turns my crank. Maybe 18×9/18×10 GramLights, or Enkei, and shave some eight or nine pounds off per corner? If I get really into it, maybe it will be time for an internal rebuild, and a turbo upgrade. Maybe. No idea what the next five years are gonna bring for the beast. I complain about the seat-squeak, but a set of recaro’s would solve that problem right away.
Finally, the greatest thing I’ve gotten out of the car, is a community. I’m part of the Durham Basterds, and Chapter 11:Section 62, I’ve become active in the more general KDM community (so, all Hyundai and Kia) as well as the Genesis Coupe specific ones. I’ve been making friends in the Scion FRS/Subaru BRZ communities, too. But the friends I’ve made through the Genesis specifically? They’re the same friends, all over again, that I made in high-school, and again in University. It’s startling, in fact.
I’ve been to 150+ car meets pretty much every year. Do I get along with everyone? no, but the vast majority, totally. And the ottawa crew spends an awful lot of time in my driveway, now that I have one. My place has become a defacto headquarters for the Ottawa KDM community, and I’m ok with that. In fact, I want it to get bigger. So it looks like this more often:
Ok, I’ve said entirely enough. That’s five years with the car, it’s not going anywhere. Why?
So, a thing happened yesterday: had my first ‘hit’ of the summer. Minivan on Bank St South. For those who know the area, right at the crest of the bridge, north of South Keys, northbound. The road there is awful: it’s basically impossible to bike within a meter (three feet) of the curb, due to sunken drains, foot wide potholes, and winter debris, including broken glass. It is also a stretch of road that runs “fast” for cars. It’s a sixty entering a fifty (KM/h), but most people tend to crest doing seventy to eighty.
And I took a mirror to elbow. Guy never even noticed. Or if he did, he didn’t slow down. And he was going fast enough, and I was worrying about keeping the bike upright, that I didn’t get a plate number (although he did have, irony of ironies, a “This vehicle does not exceed 100km/h, for safety” bumper sticker).
So, this morning, I figured I’d try out a new route. I’d head south from my place, instead of north, and cut across Hunt Club. Now, Hunt Club isn’t exactly bike-friendly around the Bank/Bronson/Airport Parkway area: it’s the only section where they didn’t bother with bike lanes. But at 6:30 in the morning, it’s better than Bank Street itself.
However, it IS longer. How much longer? This much:
Now, add another 0.2km to the first one, and .75km to the second (shorter one), and that fits the directions to my house, NOT my neighbourhood bar. 😉
So, it’s a lot longer, a little over 3km longer, via the safer route. But it is a LOT safer.
Keeping all the fun going, the next two days will look like this:
commute to work, leave work go get new bike tire in the Glebe (at my friendly neighbourhood bike store, Joe Mamma Cycles, ride home via … probably Col. By/Riverside/Huntclub. So, like this: http://goo.gl/maps/yaiB7
Then tomorrow, Work, downtown (Trillium Dental), back to work, and then home again, for just shy of 30km total: http://goo.gl/maps/OJPGr
Man, it really is a shame that google.maps won’t let you embed any route except driving. It’d be way more fun to have visible maps, rather than links to maps. I suppose I could expand my run home tomorrow to hogsback/riverside, and bump up to 35km, but why be crazy about things? (Yeah. I’ll totally end up doing that).
So, it just occured to me, that, yes, I’m talking about commuting a lot at the moment. But this is really starting to intrigue me. What I hear regularly from my coworkers is:
“you’re insane”
“I’d never do that, that’s way too much work”
“What if I sweat?”
“Ugh. Cycling.”
“6 kilometers? that’s like, an HOUR on a bike!! why would you do that?”
And no one believes me that my commute, by bike, is between ten and fifteen minutes. And right now? I’m not in particularly good shape. Walking the same 6km (45 minutes each way) has been beneficial, but I’m not in GOOD shape right now. But here’s what’s interesting to me. I’ve complained about the buses in Ottawa for years. I’ve lived in two places where it was literally quicker to walk a straight line (one street, Bronson, to work) than wait for a bus, take it, wait and transfer to another, and then get to work. Plus, I didn’t have to stand around freezing in the cold, because movement/exercise = warm. So I have….
AN IDEA.
And my idea is this. A Top Gear-esque challenge.
I need someone (preferably someone I know, so this isn’t creepy) to arrange with me to “race” by bus, to work, from their home. On the map, I’ll use an intersection close to them, but not their address, and to their workplace ( I’m currently using 333 Laurier Avenue as the “workplace” but that can change). Right now, I’m basing things on a “mid-point 10th Line, Orleans” map, but I’ll straighten it out so it’s accurate. I want to gauge door-to-door, rather than “once I get on the bus”. This will actually make things more difficult for me, because… I’ll have to bike from Ottawa South to their place in Orleans, FIRST. So, I’ll already have done about 25km. I’ll be warmed up, but I’ll also be the beginning of tired.
Now, I have two choices, as I lay this entire idea out in my head. First the bus route:
So, that gives a few options: as short as 34 minutes (at 8am, on a Monday), and as long as 48 minutes. I’ll leave the busing route up to the experts, BUT, I’ll want to know what route they’re using.
For myself, I have two choices.
First there’s the shortest route (sorry for no visual on this: GoogleMaps won’t let me embed a route that isn’t car/bus based). This is physically the least distance, at 20.2km on the map. Sounds like the smartest route, right? But it’s St. Joseph, Ogilvie, St. Laurent. In the thick of the morning commute (and obeying all traffic laws) this is going to be stop’n’go on a bike, and relatively tense. I would assume. So, IS the shortest route the fastest? I don’t think so, but maybe I’ll have to do this challenge twice.
My preferencial route, however is about four kilometers longer. UP 10th line, away from my destination, and then across the parkway, and bike paths (some of which are gravel). The majority, in fact, is bike paths, and then cuts down through Rockliffe Park, into Vanier, and then over into downtown. The majority of this ride can be done avoiding traffic. In fact, along the paths on the parkway? I can probably go non-stop, full-out, for ten or twelve kilometers. And, it’s prettier.
Now, google maps claims that either of these routes (20.2km for the most direct, shortest route and 24.1km for the “off the beaten path” route) should take me an hour to an hour and a half. HOWEVER. That seems to base average speed on about 18km/h. I tend to average closer to 25km/h, and on the right bike, with the right, open route, with little in the way of signs and lights to slow me, I can easily break 30km/h. The last “race” I did, I averaged 29.8km/h, but got stopped in traffic through downtown, where they hadn’t shut traffic down for the event).
Assuming I can hit and maintain my last-summer average of 27km/h, well… That 20.2km should be about 35 minutes, and the 24.1km should be around 50 minutes. That’s squarely in line with the bus route’s estimated 34-48minutes. But, that’s also best case scenario for the buses, and I don’t know how accurate that is.
I will be choosing my weapon carefully. Specifically, for this, I’d leave my commuter at home, and bring out the Cyclocross. I’d never planned on commuting on that bike, BUT, at the same time, I was never planning a 20-25km one-way commute. If I was doing 50km a day? I’d be riding something faster and more efficient than my fixie. I’d be willing, at some point, to try this again, and ride the single-speed. But realistically, a single speed would not be my commuter of choice with a 20+km one-way commute. So, lets be realistic about it.
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Life, the Universe, and Everything 