Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biking. Show all posts

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Object lesson in how Vancouver is not Milan, or New York



Saw this picture on The Sartorialist not too long ago, and that clinched my decision that YES! I too could be one of that cool race streetstyle blogs revere above all - The Biker. For the Biker is not only stylish, but is going places, and quickly. And has chosen an outfit that does not hamper their mobility, but instead inspires envy in all of the everyday Sidewalk People they whip past. Extra points if The Biker (as in the above picture) manages to wear a helmet and still look put-together and badass.
I no longer wanted to be a Sidewalk Person.
This morning I tossed aside my rain pants, pulled on my combat boots and headed out to conquer the world.

Only, I forgot this small fact. I live in Vancouver. Not New York.

It rains in Vancouver, if you haven't heard. I mean, I'm sure it 'rains' in New York, but it RAINS in Vancouver. In my class today, we had a twenty minute discussion about the meaning of "It must be raining." Now, it was a semantics class, but in Vancouver we take discussion of the weather to a whole new level. It is a legit conversation topic, thanks very much.

But I was not thinking. I was convinced that I could defy basic rules of practicality and sanity, and so I had to bike home in a rain/sleet storm on a bike with sketchy brakes and suburb roads that looked like rivers full of leaf muck.
And so, this is what I looked like.




Scroll back up to the top picture again, if you will, just for effect.



My poor darling Fluevogs. Thankfully designed by a fellow Vancouverite, who obviously foresaw the need to make the leather impervious to water-stains.



This is my "next time I will do the smart thing and wear rain pants" face. (And peace, because I never know how to pose my hands.)

So hopefully I learned my lesson. Though I don't know if I can ever resign myself to complete practicality. I'll just have to be a strategic dresser.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

In which I explain some things no one needed explaining

I apologize to anyone who cares that my updating has been so scarce. And that this blog kind of follows my capricious approach to hobbies. One week its Cooking! then Gardening! then Fashion! then Cooking Again! then Art!
I may have inherited my Opa's bipolarness when it comes to such things. For him it manifests more in terms of collecting objects. When I was young it was Clocks! (a WHOLE garage full) then the clocks disappeared, and it was Exercise Machines! then Bikes! then Organs! (the instrument, don't freak out)... currently I think he is on a chair kick, but I'm not sure.
In any case, all of that to say - don't expect consistency from me.

Lately fashion has fell by the wayside as the nicer weather rolled into Vancouver for a week. I knew I had reached a critical moment when I turned down the Fluevog sample sale to go buy rain pants for biking.
Slightly regretting that at the moment...
But I did have a fun afternoon. My roomate Inga and I biked over to Deep Cove and then went kayaking. It was kind of an epic trip, considering neither of us knew where we were going and Dollarton Highway proved a challenge to find.

Deep Cove. Full of Aussies who know how to dress. One girl had the most gorgeous cable knit sweater. Should have snapped a stalker picture.



Squinty-Wool-Hat and her roommate Inga.



Adventure #2 was today, a sojourn to Les Faux Bourgeois on Fraser. We just went to the cafe, but reviews for the restaurant praise it as being better than Paris fare. Me and Laura suspect this was just people name-dropping their fancy Euro credentials, but it could be that good. Further research required.





This last picture is awesome because of the hippie dude and the fat black cat.