Canadian Cycling Magazine

the best, and weirdest, time to get a bike

This is the strangest time to be making a buyer’s guide. Since the spring of 2020, I’ve heard from shops, from brands and from reps that demand for bikes has been…I believe the technical term is bonkers. And not just bikes. This past winter I was in a local bike shop and did a proverb-ial spit take when I saw a shipping pallet full of trainers. “I can’t believe you have trainers,” I said to one of the staff. “They just arrived. That’s why you’re seeing them,” was the response. Scarcity aside, this development is great. More people are riding bikes. (If this is your first time reading Canadian Cycling Magazine, welcome!) They are coming to bikes to get fit, enjoy the outdoors and get around. I hope you new riders fall in…

vol. 12, issue 2

Editor Matthew Pioro matthew@cyclingmagazine.ca Senior Editors Dan Dakin, Kevin Mackinnon, Dean Campbell Associate Editor Andre Cheuk Photo Editor Matt Stetson matt.stetson@gripped.com Copy Editors Amy Stupavsky, Rebecca Tucker Art Director Warren Wheeler layout@cyclingmagazine.ca [Roseander Main, roseandermain.com] Production Artist Warren Hardy MTB Web Editor Terry McKall terry@cyclingmagazine.ca Web Editor Lily Hansen-Gillis lily@cyclingmagazine.ca Podcast Producer Adam Killick Web Developer Sean Rasmussen Digital Operations Dmitry Beniaminov Publisher Sam Cohen sam@gripped.com Editorial Director David Smart dave@gripped.com Advertising & Sales Andre Cheuk andre@gripped.com Account Managers Joel Vosburg joel@gripped.com, Lorena Jones lorena@gripped.com Circulation Manager Robyn Milburn robyn@gripped.com Social Media Nikita van Dijk nikita@gripped.com SUBSCRIBE Send $20.95 (1 year) or $38.95 (2 years) to Canadian Cycling Magazine PO Box 819 Station Main Markham, ON, Canada L3P 8L3 or call: 1.800.567.0444 SUBMIT Manuscripts, photographs and other correspondence are welcome. Please contact Canadian Cycling Magazinefor contributors guidelines, or see them on the web at cyclingmagazine.ca. Unsolicited material should be accompanied by return mailing address and postage. Canadian Cycling Magazine Tel 416.927.0774 Fax 416.927.1491 cyclingmagazine.ca Gripped Publishing Inc. 75 Harbord St., Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1G4 Copyright 2021 Gripped Publishing Inc. The contents of this…

news

Emily Batty’s new bike day, officially On Jan. 20, Emily Batty could stop hiding. It wasn’t that no one knew where she was. A little less than two weeks before, she, her partner and manager Adam Morka, and their two dogs, Buddy and Bonnie, moved to the Victoria area. In a normal year, they’d be in Arizona or Maui at that time, riding and preparing for the cross country season ahead. With the pandemic making travel difficult, they instead headed west, where they could ride during the remaining winter months. That riding, however, had to be kept on the down-low. In December, Batty announced that she and Trek, her bike sponsor of more than 12 years, would be parting ways. Up until that day in January, her new relationship with Canyon, which…

spécialités t.a. 130-tooth chainwheel

There’s a 130-tooth chainring on the wall at the Mariposa Bicycles shop in Toronto. For Michael Barry, it’s a component that’s always been around. During the 1970s and ’80s, Barry’s father, Mike Barry Sr., ran the Bicyclesport shop. He was a big fan of the French compon-ent maker Spécialités T.A., which still makes cranksets and bottle cages. Sometime in the early years of the shop, Barry Sr. acquired the monstrous chainring. “I think he got the chainwheel in the ’70s because I remember it being on the wall at all the shops that he had over the years,” Michael says. The 130-tooth ring is a replica of the one used by José Meiffret during his record-setting ride in 1962. The French rider reached a speed of 204.778 km/h while drafting behind…

broken world record, healing paramedic

“Inuvik paramedic may have broken cycling world record on trans-Canada route,” read the CBC headline. It worried Chris Bruckner for more than a year. He knew he broke the Guinness World Record for cycling across Canada: 13 days, three hours and 49 minutes (beating the previous record by two hours and 24 minutes), but he had another journey ahead of him. “I had never done anything like this before. As soon as I had finished, I was mentally checked out,” he said earlier this year. Many factors – a hectic work schedule, mental exhaustion and procrastination – meant that he didn’t get around to submitting all the evidence until more than a year later. “The adjudication process was looming in the back of my head,” he said. Collecting photos, videos and…

reggie miller

Reggie Miller is an NBA Hall of Fame inductee, a legend of the sport of basketball and, now, a mountain biker. While his hard-court contemporaries have coasted peacefully into retirement, the 6'7" former Indiana Pacer is hammering up and down the hills of Malibu on his XXL Santa Cruz, between game nights, when he works the NBA’s live broadcast. Like his career, Miller’s introduction to cycling is extraordinary. Miller had just moved to Malibu, Calif., when a chance encounter with Rage Against the Machine’s bassist Tim Commeford at a restaurant led to an invite to join in a group ride as a welcome to town. On a borrowed, heavy 26" bike, Miller joined Commeford, big wave surfer Laird Hamilton and fitness guru Don Wildman for a ride. “I was still playing professional…