{"id":1746,"date":"2009-08-14T14:38:59","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T14:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/08\/14\/asymmetry_derail_leur_ed\/"},"modified":"2009-08-14T14:38:59","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T14:38:59","slug":"asymmetry_derail_leur_ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/08\/14\/asymmetry_derail_leur_ed\/","title":{"rendered":"Asymmetry, derail(leur)ed"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve cycled to work almost every week day for the last eleven years. I started this habit in Glasgow out of financial necessity, and came to love the daily fresh air, sun<\/del> daylight, and exercise. So when I moved to Vancouver, a bike was high on my list of requirements; my first pay cheque went towards a rent deposit and kitchen stuff, but my second went on my Norco<\/a> Mountaineer. I upgraded to a De Vinci<\/a> St Tropez in 2007, but the trusty old Norco still gets the occasional outing on frosty days, or when I’ve left my other bike at work.
\nCycling in Vancouver has its frustrations, but is infinitely better than riding in Glasgow. There are designated bike routes on the quieter streets with plenty of bike-activated lights, favourable stop signs, and a more limited number of chicanes, speed bumps, and other car deterrents.
\nDespite these advantages I had a hard time adjusting to riding in Canada, and had a few near accidents in my first week or two. The most obvious difficulty was riding on the right. I found this to be much more difficult than driving on the right; without the constant cue of being on the wrong side of the car it’s easy to forget that you aint in Kansas<\/del> the UK any more, especially on left turns. I also had to learn how to deal with the mysterious four-way stops, and the frustration of only ~20% of drivers and other cyclists knowing how the growing number of roundabouts work. The hand signals are slightly different too, but those were much easier to pick up.
\nThe above difficulties were at least expected. I had not anticipated some of the other problems that I had. The first issue was that the brakes are set up backwards; in Canada your right hand operates the back brake, and your left hand pulls the front brake. This actually makes more sense than the reverse system I was used to; you want your stronger hand on the brake you use the most. And it only took three or four near over-the-handlebars experiences on steep downhills before I started to adjust.
\nThe other issue is that try as I might, I just can’t get on or off my bike from the right hand side. Taking my brand new bike out of the store for the first time, I tried to mount it from the sidewalk on the right of the bike… and promptly fell off, before I’d even got on. Getting off on the right is even harder. I just can’t do it. My brother-in-law is a ski instructor, and he’s always going on about muscle memory. I fear that my muscle memory, developed from the age of three onwards, is just far too deeply ingrained to overcome (and it doesn’t help that my right leg is shorter than my left).
\nSo I’m stuck getting on and off the left hand side of my bike. I put my left foot down when waiting to cross major roads, too – I just can’t help it, no matter how much safer it would be to put my right foot on the kerb, or to mount \/ dismount from the sidewalk.
\nBut you know what I just<\/em> noticed?
\nCanadian bikes still have the chain and gearing system on the right hand side of the bike.
\nThe side from which normal<\/del> other people get on and off, and push the bike while walking.
\nDon’t they get chain grease all over themselves? Don’t they snag their trousers on the gear cogs, or scrape the skin on their legs? Does no-one ever get squeezed too close to the kerb by a passing car, and bend or otherwise damage their gears on it?
\nIt’s not like there’s a reason the chain and gears can’t be moved to the left, away from the kerb and from the standing leg. It makes no sense to reverse the brakes, but not the gears.
\nHmmmmmm. Further investigation required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve cycled to work almost every week day for the last eleven years. I started this habit in Glasgow out of financial necessity, and came to love the daily fresh air, sun daylight, and exercise. So when I moved to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}