April 19, 2023

Gord's message: Time to get out there for some spring rides

I hope everyone got out for some rides during the recent period of summer weather. That was a fast transition from indoor riding on the trainer to outside in shorts. It does look like a return to jackets and tights for some more usual spring riding in the next couple of weeks. Lots of rides on the calendar now, please be sure to have a look.

Thank you to everyone who attended the first jersey fitting session on April 16. There was an  excellent turn out and there are plenty of orders for the first batch. For anyone interested In the second fitting session and placing an order in the second batch, see the details in this issue. The second fitting session should have the shorts samples too.

Be sure to join us at the TBN Spring Kickoff, May 6 at Etienne-Brule park. Details are on the calendar, and the various post-breakfast rides will be appearing there shortly. So sign up in advance for (a) food estimation and (b) your favourite route and pacing.

The UCI Track Nations Cup returns to the Milton Velodrome April 21-23. The world's elite professional track cyclists will be competing. The racing at past World/Nations Cups at Milton was fantastic and this weekend should offer more of the same. I plan to be there for Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, so email me at president@tbn.ca if you would like to meet at the velodrome. Here's the link to order tickets: www.Tncmilton.com.

--Gord Irish, President

TBN's New Jersey design: Here's our winner

Many thanks to those who cast their votes to choose the new design for TBN's jerseys, via the Survey Monkey option that was made available to members. The results are in. A total of 318 votes were cast and design No. 2 (pictured below) received the most votes: 199. Design No. 1 garnered 133 votes. We are currently in the final stages of designing our shorts, jacket and gillet with our supplier, Scimitar. More on that coming soon.

Thanks also to those who joined us on April 15 for the jersey fitting and new member combo event. If you missed it, don't despair. We have a second jersey fitting session at our Spring Kickoff, May 6 at Etienne-Brule park.

For more details visit the TBN calendar page.

What is your jersey size?

If you attended our jersey-fitting session on April 15, you might be ready to order your new TBN jersey or other kit items. To get an idea of your size in advance, or to review the order process, go here. The next upcoming order deadline is May 15. The size chart on that page applies to jersey shorts and jacket according to our supplier, Scimitar.

Tax credit notice re Cyclon 2022

In January, the Cyclon Planning Committee sent all participants who attended Cyclon 2022 at Western University an Ontario Staycation Tax Credit receipt. After the receipt was sent, it came to our attention that Western's HST number was missing. For your reference this is the HST number: HST# 108162587 RT0001.

We understand that CRA will accept Staycation Tax Credit receipts with the above number hand-written on the receipt. Alternatively, you may choose to print this notice and submit it with your paperwork and/or keep a copy of this notice for your files.  

We apologise for the inconvenience. Looking forward to seeing you at Cyclon 2023!

Sign up for Zoom rider-leader workshop

TBN will be offering a Ride Leaders Workshop on May 14 from 7:00 to 8:30 pm led by Touring Director Dennis Szilvasy. This is your opportunity to learn what it takes to be a ride leader. 

The workshop will cover how to organize city, country and overnight rides. The format of the class will be based on the Ride Leaders Manual, which can be found on our website. Please read this before the course. Our Zoom meeting will expand on the information found in the guide.

The main themes of the course will be planning and checking out the ride you wish to lead. We will talk about the day of the ride and what you should bring to the start. We will talk about things that can happen on rides and how we can deal with them. These issues can be things like pacing in the group, rider issues and repair problems.

The workshop will be held via ZOOM. Please click here to register for this event early as there are only 20 spaces available.

TBN presents Know Your Rights Workshop

Join us May 31 for a free workshop led by Dave Shelnutt, managing partner of the Biking Lawyer LLP, a firm working for injured cyclists but also serving as dedicated road-safety advocates and cycling community champions.

The workshop will focus on cyclist rights and entitlements in the event you’re involved in a collision with a motorist. The workshop will be followed by a lengthy Q&A to give you an opportunity to share and discuss. Topics covered will be bike cameras, road rage, police, rules of the road, cycling insurance and more.

The workshop runs from 6:00 to 7:00 pm at Bloor/Gladstone Library, Community Room, 1101 Bloor St. W. in Toronto. 

Member Experience Director

Trish St Pierre has resigned as the Board's Member Experience Director. We will miss her and hope she will volunteer again in the future. Director-at-Large Robert Elvin will take over the Member Experience position. Thank you Robert. We are searching for a new Director-at-Large to replace Robert. If you are interested please email president@tbn.ca

TBN seeking new Cyclon Director 

We continue to search for a new Cyclon Director. While Cyclon 2023 is largely planned as it returns to London, Cyclon 2024 is a big question mark. Next year will provide an exciting opportunity as the goal is to take Cyclon to a new location not used before. Cyclon has a strong committee to make it all happen but needs a director to pull it together. If you are interested please contact cyclon@tbn.ca.

The Cyclon Planning Committee is pleased to announce that Early Bird Registration for Cyclon 2023 will open on April 30 and run until June 7. This year we will be staying at Western's Perth Hall, a larger residence than last year's Ontario Hall, but with the same layout. 

We look forward to seeing everyone for another great Cyclon in the Forest City!

Changes to Ride Leaders Report Web Application

The TBN board recently approved changes to the Ride Leaders Report Web Application, which will no longer include fields for submitting Ride Leader expenses. Instead, we are asking that Leaders submit an Expense form to the club. Also note that since we are no longer accepting at-start payment of non-member fees, and that all non-members must register, we have removed the fields for "Total fees paid to the ride leader" and the entire non-members section. The bottom of the Ride Leaders Report is now a little simpler. Clicking on the "Click here... " link will open a new browser page and display our Expense Claim form page.

Ride Leaders with questions or issues regarding this new process are asked to contact Technical Director Martin Lansche.

Zwift meetups finished for the season

With the nice weather, the Zwift Meetups have shut down for the season, with a preference for Real World rides. Just remember:

• Layering of clothing is important in 5C weather.
• Cracks in the pavement, potholes, etc., all hammer your tailbone, over and over and over. In Zwift, the roads are smooth.
• Remember to steer. And brake. And balance. All skills that are unused since autumn.
• Unclip, then come to a stop (not the other way around). There is no trainer there to keep you upright.
• The other "avatars" are solid. Cars, trucks, people. You don't pass through them. You can crash and it can hurt.
• There is no Trainer Difficulty in the Real World, there is only 100%.
• Out of the saddle is far more dynamic in the Real World. You have to control your bike.
• I mentioned it above but it is worth repeating: use the brakes. Especially when descending and turning on descents (luckily I had no hairpin turns at 60kph today).
• Adjust your expectations. In Zwift I average 30kph. With real world hills, stop signs, traffic lights and other obstacles, I average around 23 kph. My virtual bike is much "lighter" than my real bike, and I am less aerodynamic than my avatar.

See you again next fall. For those who want to know more, I am always willing to answer your questions.

Martin - Zwift Meetups Coordinator

New RideWithGPS features

RideWithGPS has released a new way to browse for routes, based on map location. Using a computer's browser, our TBN routes can be found here. Zoom in to an area you are interested in riding in (for example, we have 19 different routes starting from Edwards Gardens in our library, situated in the first image below). Then select an arrow (if there is only a single route), or if there is a number (as the number 19 here), click on the number and choose from the list that appears (the second image below).

Another way to find a route is to browse the TBN Route Library directly. You can filter based on tags, or search based on strings, or locations.

TBN is seeking volunteers for several activities

Marketing: Event Management (1), Photographer(1). Email publicity@TBN.ca for more details. Must be current TBN members.

Spring Kick-off: Please contact Marc (social@tbn.ca) to volunteer for the May 6th Spring Kickoff setup and cleanup. 

Bike for Brain Health: We are still aiming to recruit 30 ambassadors and 30 marshals to take on special roles during this year's Bike for Brain Health, June 4 along a blessedly closed Don Valley Parkway. These volunteers will ride in pairs to perform their duties. For details, visit the event page: BFBH TBN volunteers.TBN Communications Director Alice Chan, who is overseeing the club's presence at this major fund-raiser, is also seeking an event assistant to support her for the prep work leading to the event.

Alice is also looking for three or four volunteers to help Touring Director Dennis Szilvasy, who is hosting the TBN booth at Bike for Brain Health. If you are interested, email Alice at publicity@tbn.ca. Another reason for volunteering as soon as you can is that Alice is organizing a volunteer appreciation dinner on June 8 and needs to plan for the potential headcount.

Slower-paced ride leaders wanted: TBN is looking for no-drop ride leaders interested in leading either Urban Roller-paced or slow Leisure-Wheeler pace no-drop rides. We are particularly keen to find potential leaders willing to explore new routes. If you are interested, email no-drop@tbn.ca.

Need to cancel a registration for an event?

We have tried to clear up the process for cancelling your event registrations. We have updated the How to Cancel my Event Registration page on the website. The links in each event now show

for registered users. See the web page for more details.

--Martin Lansche, Technical Director