The Latest Results

Of the war between me and the bus.

Since the new office is closer to home, I'm tempted to cycle all the way home whenever I'm cycling. Only ~25km compared to 31. This also completely ruled out the possibility of saving money with Metropass.

The new office is pretty much located on Woodbine. So instead of going down Don Mills, I tried VicPark the other day. In terms of comparing to the speed of the bus, I think I can pretty much win every time if I go on VicPark cos it was completely jammed up near 401.

Also, since Don Mills is not a straight road, it's actually shorter go to with VicPark although it seems a bit out of the way. And VicPark is a lot flatter then Don Mills. The overall average slope is probably similar but Don Mills has a lot more ups and downs. I don't really like cycling uphill, although downhill is a lot of fun. But usually 有咁耐風流，有咁耐折墮, the more downhill u get, the more uphill is waiting for you.

On the other hand, Don Mills has this diamond lane thing that only buses, bicycles and cars with more than 2 persons can use. With the amount of ppl carpooling in Toronto, this lane is a lot less busy than the rest of the lanes. I feel a lot safer to cycle on Don Mills. Also, last time I said that the road on Don Mills is quite crap with holes and stuff but compared to VicPark, the road condition along Don Mills is actually not so bad. VicPark is not bad north of Sheppard but south of it, it is a disaster.

So I've decided to stick with Don Mills for now.

Back to the racing part, excluding the 1st race, I raced on VicPark once and Don Mills twice so far. VicPark is a definite win (without the diamond lane, the bus got stuck with the rest of the traffic). Surprisingly, I also won the races along Don Mills. First, I pass the bus stop where I would get on the bus and within minutes, a bus caught up with me. But I managed to stay with it before it has to go into the Sheppard station. And after that, it did not catch up with me.

And yesterday, the bus came out just before I reached the bus stop. I caught up with it near Finch and passed it before Sheppard and again, it didn't catch up. I was lucky both times though cos I managed to pass a light while the bus got stuck. And both days has slight wind from the north. 天助我也.

In any case, these all lead me to believe that it's faster to cycle than taking the bus. Honestly, I don't cycle too fast. Another cyclist passed me with ease yesterday. I think my average speed without counting the stop time at lights is around 24,25km/hr. That means that the average speed of the bus is less than 26km/hr with all the stops and all that. Seems ridiculously slow considering the fact that the speed limit on the road is 60km/hr.

Anyhow, let me continue to make more tree trunk legs more tree trunk-like.