What's cooking?

Now, now, now...
MAYBE, after all, maybe, something is going on. Something is simmering, just there, below the surface of things... I don't know...
I might have to admit to the mainstreaming of cycling after this:

Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake in Toronto. (Sean O'Neill for etalk). Shamelessly taken from here.

 While James Schwartz over at The Urban Country was being bullied for cycling and for looking too hot be straight, these two were cruising around Toronto, during the very same weekend.

Yep, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel. Cycling. In Toronto!

Ok, I am not a celeb groupie. I still don't know who the heck she is, probably some starlet, encore. Hum, actually, I had to google both of them up to ensure I do not write nonsense.
But geez, I find this picture powerful.

Why is that? Because they look like everyone. They look like they could be just any Torontonians. Seriously.
They are dressed like regular folks. She is wearing a skirt. He's got that shirt (OMG, I am NOT even commenting on that shirt). They are both on mixtes. They are sitting not folded over like Jamaican patties. Hers has got a wire basket!!

Actually, if I did not know for a fact that this, in the background was the goddamn Queen City, I would have sworn they were cycling in Montreal. Well, except of course, for the streetcar. And for the tracks. And for the lane. Well, whatever, that's besides the point anyways.
Wire baskets are sooooo Montreal! Oh but hold on: we do not know whether those bikes rattled. Hum, that's a very important element of our identity. And, after closer examination, I am not seeing any duck tape!
Ok, I guess this looks typically Torontonian after all.

So, I am not sure whether this is really a natural and unprepared shot or a piece of some elaborate PR stunt, but they made optimal choices. Nobody could have recognised them. They blended with local fauna just perfect.

So let's go over it once again:

- Normal clothes, tick
- Girl feminine looking, tick
- No freaking helmets, tick
- Hair flowing in the wind, tick
- Regular bikes, tick (they could NOT have picked a more appropriate choice really)
- Sitting upright, tick
- Basket, tick (wire basket!!!)

Awesome. Just freaking awesome.
This made my day!

Attitude towards cycling: Quebec vs. Ontario

While not a fan of the Toronto Star, this time, Christopher Hume's piece is worth a read:

"When it comes to cycling, Quebec leaves Ontario in the dust. While we spin our wheels arguing over whether bikes belong on the streets, la belle province has turned pedal power into a transit and tourism phenomenon.

If you haven’t been to Quebec in a while, prepare to share the roads — and even more amazingly, the highways — with the two-wheeled. Everywhere you turn now, bicycles are part of the traffic mix. In addition to separated lanes in Montreal, highways are marked and divided into bike lanes and vehicular lanes. Even routes that aren’t marked have signs that make it clear the two — bikes and cars — must share the road.

In Toronto, by contrast, bikes have become a cause for panic, a wedge issue exploited by elected leaders for their own benefit. It is a topic on which municipal elections can be won or lost, at least in part. That’s not entirely new, of course, but it is another indication of how the politics of Ontario — and Toronto — are becoming sclerotic. So frightened are we of change that we buy into the promise that the province’s glorious yesterday will never end.

It already has."

You can read the rest here.

Things are not as nice a portrayed in this piece, there is an awful lot that needs to be done. Especially, some backlash recently appeared and people have started mildly agitating against cyclists. However, that noise is still being drowned under the great brouhaha generated by all the Bixis coming down Berri.
Yet, it is true that Quebec's cycling atmosphere is slightly ahead of Ontario's, where some cyclists find it normal to write open letters to insult fellow cyclists instead of focusing that energy on infrastructure improvements.

Personally, I think it has to do with the issue of Anglo-Saxon mentality vs. French-Canadian. Quebec's mentality is closer to Europe (continental) than many realise, especially in Montréal.

Mikael Colville-Andersen said it: this city has the potential, all we need is the political will (i.e. balls) to make that happen.