journal features

adopting north road handlebars

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2013.10.11

I'm in physiotherapy for lower back pain that's been plaguing me for over a year. I'm now on a regime of daily exercises (about eight types) and while progress has been noticeable it's slow going and a lot of work. Compounding the basic problem of being immobile behind a desk for the majority of the day is that I ride to and from work on a bike with a flat handlebar. The roads aren't in superb shape, and there's a lot of abrupt stopping and starting.

So with my physiotherapist's advice, I've decided to mutilate my bike.

Goodbye manly flat handlebars.

manly

Hello "North Road" handlebars.

This will, I hope, further a second aim of mine: to slow down on the road. I bought a KHS Urban Xpress bike last year for its more upright frame and modest gear ratios. And yet I find myself leaning over the handlebars and passing other cyclists. With these bars I hope to slow down, relax, get less caught up in getting to work quickly and maybe notice some more of life around me. I do this every day and quite frankly there's no panic to get to the office when my colleagues who take the TTC or drive have no prayer of getting to the office on time.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges