July 2005 Archives

The official Tour de France started on July 2nd and finished on July 24th. Lance won his seventh tour with a time of 82 hours 34 minutes 5 seconds over the 3608 km. That's an average speed of 43.7 km per hour. Now it is plainly unsafe to attempt those speeds in London traffic which is probably why I haven't been able to clock up the same number of kilometers as the pros during the three weeks of Le Tour. I did manage to do 699km during the same period of time, though, which isn't too bad considering I had to hold down a day job.

And as you can see by the chart, I kept going until I'd finished the total distance. It took me 124 days, 99 cycling days and 25 rest days, which is an average of 36km per cycling day.

(More Pics of Cycling to Berkhamsted)

The Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted is COOL! Vicki, James and I cycled 32 miles up there to see "Sin City" on Saturday. The ground floor of the theatre is set up like a Las Vegas show lounge with beautiful little tables and red plush revolving chairs -- four per table. There's also a bar. We had a bottle of wine while we watched the show as well as some olives and cheese and crackers. And the tickets were £8 each!

We stayed in a rather boring but pleasant enough hotel at Bourne End near Berkhamsted called the Water Mill. The next day we cycled back up to Berkhamsted and checked out Berkhamsted Castle and then went up to Ashridge where I'd been on a training course from work.

It poured rain on us the entire time. Picture an Ocean; now drop it on your head; repeat indefinitely. James and Vicki opted to take the train back to London. However, I am in the middle of this crazy thing where I'm trying to see how quickly I can cycle the length of the Tour de France in order to raise money for the Red Cross, so I didn't feel I could wimp out quite as easily.

It's a good thing I had this bigger goal because I was relying on a borrowed pda and gps unit thing to find my way and the batteries died almost as soon as I left Berkhamsted. "No Big Deal," I thought to myself. "The important thing is to crank up the miles anyway. I'll just follow the signs."

Oh MY GOD, this was a BAD idea! Signs on B roads in England are extremely vague. There seems to be a rule that a particular town can only ever be on one sign and that sign must be some random distance and direction from the town. I got very lost. The good news is that it gave me an excuse to pop into a lovely pub called the Bricklayer's Arms somewhere near Sarrat. I didn't get a chance to have anything to drink there but I'd love to go back some time (if I can ever find it).

Eventually I made it to Watford where I bought an Ordnance Survey map and a pair of dry socks and then found my way to London from there. All told, that day I cycled 55 miles, almost all of it in pouring rain, and about 15 of it without having any idea where I was going.

Now that's dedication! Come on, cough up a couple of quid for the Red Cross!

The sad news is that today is the last day of the Tour de France. I'm afraid I didn't quite keep up. I've cycled just a hair under 700km since it began on July 2nd. The pros did 3608. But I'm going to keep at it. My sponsorship page runs out on November 3rd so that's my target date. The biggest obstacle is that the missus and I are off to Canada for three weeks in August. This might put a small crimp in my cycling schedule.

By the way, if you'd like to stop by and say Hi while we're there, Vicki and I have weekend passes for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Stop on by.

There have been four more explosions in London today at Warren Street tube station, Oval tube station, and Shepherd's Bush tube station, as well as on a number 26 bus on Hackney Road in Bethnal Green.

So far, there has been a report of only one minor injury at Warren Street.

Today was not a good day for Le Tour de Yanda. I broke a spoke this morning and had to limp the bike back home. I was forced to journey to White City via a more complicated route. I took an overland train to Highbury and Islington which is near the Union Chapel where I once physically touched Woody Harrleson. It was a thrilling encounter, although he is much shorter than I expected.

At Highbury and Islington I transfered to a Victoria line train to Oxford Circus. I believe this train line is named after Queen Victoria in honour of the fact that of all of England's monarchs, she had the largest caboose and used to make loud "Woo! Woo!" noises when excited. Oxford Circus is, of course, where leading scholars of the day were made to jump through fiery hoops by the great Walvendo.

From Oxford Circus I took a Central Line train to White City and from there, due to the lack of suitable camels, ventured on foot to my office.

All and all, it was quite an adventure, but sadly contributed no mileage to my noble goal of cycling the tour de France.

Ha! Today is the first day I showed those so-called professional cyclists who's got the real dedication. I've been trying to keep up with the Tour de France in order to raise money for the British Red Cross. Admittedly, I've been completely failing in this aspiration so far.

But I think that's because until today the other racers (Lance Armstrong, Jan Ulrich, et al) were slightly outclassing me. Yesterday, I was 1267 km behind the peleton. But today, those wimps had to have a rest day. I kept on trucking. And so, for today at least, I'm a winner. I reduced my deficit by 31 km (only 1236km behind now). At this rate, I'll be blitzing by those shmoos by the end of the race.

Ha!

The police have confirmed three explosions on the London Underground and one on a London bus near Tavistock Square in Central London.

Vicki, John, Sinead, and I are all safe.

More Pics of Tourism with Godo

An old friend from Canada stopped by to visit for a couple of days on his way back from a business trip in Germany. Because he was a vegetarian environmentalist who used to live in the same housing co-op as Vicki, on the first night he was here we took him out drinking with a bunch of investment bankers.

I suspect he may have had a better time on Sunday night when we saw an open-air production of the Canterbury Tales. It took place in a variety of outdoor locations in Southwark, starting at the Old George Pub. James cleverly brought a blanket and a few bottles of beer which helped quench our thirst between the third and fourth acts. It was the perfect way to while away a summer evening. It was fun and mildly bawdy and there was singing and Vicki reverted to her perfoming instincts and got up on stage and danced like a chicken. She was startlingly believable in her poultryness. I fully expected to be hen-pecked when we got home that night.

I'm a bit envious of Godo. He's managed to become quite successful doing doing an incredibly useful job that he loves. He started a company called Carbon Busters which advises local governments and school boards how they can save money by being more energy efficient.

Yesterday it was Canada Day and I spent last night thinking a lot about what it means to be Canadian. One of the defining characteristics of the Canadian psyche is an insecurity about who we are. Canadians are terrified they are secretly just Americans who know the difference between a poutine and a toque. I've heard a number of definitions over the years:

"A Canadian is anyone who can make love in a Canoe."

"A Canadian is someone who says sorry when you step on their foot."

"A Canadian is a sanctimonious twit whose greatest pride is that they aren't as bad as their neighbour."

I think the first two are things to be rightly proud of. I'm not so sure about the third.

Now I consider myself a Canadian. I was born there. I lived there for 34 years. It will always be home. And I guess to me, a Canadian is

1. Funny in a goofy, self-deprecating way
2. Almost sickeningly polite
3. Frost Tolerant
4. Generous
5. Environmentally aware
6. And, yes, a teeny bit smug

However, I recently read a book called While Canada Slept - How We Lost Our Place in the World which destroyed many of my beliefs. It is all about how we as Canadians have this image of ourselves as a fair nation, an exceptionally generous nation, and the World's leading peacekeeper. This was certainly true once, but it is no longer, despite the fact that it is what most Canadians want to believe about their nation, myself included.

In 1950, along with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, we helped create the world's first aid programme for the developing world. The intention of the Colombo Plan (no relation to the famous disheveled detective) was to help the people of the Southern Hemisphere lift themselves out of poverty.

In the 1970s we were one of the first nations to commit to the target of giving 0.7% of our GDP in foreign aid to the developing world. Every Canadian government since then has renewed that promise at every election. Despite this, and despite consistent public support for such a commitment, Canada's levels of foreign aid have dropped drastically in recent years. In 2001, the Canadian government contributed 0.22%, its lowest level in 37 years. Eleven other countries including France, Great Britain, and Germany have already reached their 0.7% commitment or have timelines for doing so.

No wonder Bob Geldof told Paul Martin to stay away from Gleneagles. Martin was, after all, Canada's finance minister throughout this decline.

And let us not forget that Canada is the only country attending the G8 to have a budget surplus, its 7th in a row. Personally, I'm a bit embarrassed by this. I'm proud of the fact that Canada has a surplus. Admirably frugal. Admirably sensible. But I'm embarrassed that it was ranked 19th out of the 22 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in terms of foreign aid.

And the aid that we do give often has strings attached. Canada's food aid policy is 50 years out of date and was originally designed to clear markets of surplus with little thought on the effect this might have on the recipient country. According to a recent Oxfam Briefing Paper:
"Canada is the world’s second largest food aid donor after the USA in terms of per capita donations. Its food aid policy is also the world’s second most restrictive, requiring 90 per cent of the budget be spent on the purchase and shipment of Canadian commodities. Only the USA, where virtually all food aid is tied to US purchases, is more restrictive."

This is called "tied aid". In simple terms it's like saying, "we will give you money to buy food for your people, but only if you buy it from us." This has two serious side effects. It damages more local markets for food. It can create bizarre scenarios where farmers just a few miles away from an area of famine can't sell the food they grow. It also means a large proportion of the money allocated as food aid actually gets spent on transport. According to the same report,
"Of the $165m budgeted for 2005, $66m (40 per cent) will be spent not on food, but on shipping."

Canada used to be the World's diplomat. It took an active interest in the rest of the world. It has a history that all Canadians should be proud of. And right now, there is an opportunity for Canada to reassert itself on the World stage. The Live 8 concerts and Make Poverty History campaign have sparked a renewed interest in helping eradicate the injustice in relations between the Developed and Developing worlds. I happen to think Make Poverty History is a good initiative. It has three basic principals:

1. More and Better Aid
2. Trade Justice
3. Cancel the debt of the 32 poorest countries.

Cancelling this debt would cost Canada about $100 million a year through to 2015, or about $3.33 per person per annum.

There are a number of books out at the moment discussing the debt issue. One of the better ones I've read is IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It.

And if you want an eye-opener about how Canada rates environmentally, take a look at this environmental comparison of Canada's performance against other OECD nations . I'll give you the quick executive summary. We are ranked 28th out of 29. In other words, Canada sucks monkey gonads when it comes to the environment.

In short, I think the Canadian government has let me down. Somehow it managed to brainwash me into thinking they were doing a good job with the big issues, but really they have been a bit crap. For me, that means I have two tasks.

1. I need to pressure whatever government I have any influence on to make sure they don't screw up the big issues.
2. I need to put my money where my mouth is.

I can't just sit idly by and wait for the governments of the world to spend my tax money sensibly on foreign aid and development. And so I've decided to set my own goals and ensure I spend at least 1% of my income on charitable donations which will benefit others, particularly those in the developing world.

With that in mind, I've decided to cycle the Tour de France to raise money for the Red Cross.

Well, I'm not actually going to cycle the exact same route. Unlike certain Texans, I don't have the luxury of pedalling around the French Countryside while my rockstar girlfriend pays the bills. I'm just going to see how long it would take me to cover the same mileage as Le Tour -- 3608 km. I'll do my best to keep up with the peleton but I'm going to have to fit my riding in with work and having a life and stuff.