gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

The bump that stumps

I ride my bike to work whenever the weather is good. My preferred route in from the east end is along the bike path on the north side of Lakeshore Blvd. (It takes a few minutes more than going straight along Queen, but I get to see ducks and rabbits instead of streetcars and prostitutes.)

The bike path is pretty decent, with one irksome exception: an enormous bump caused by a tree root growing under the path.

This bump has been there for years, at least as long as I've been cycling that path. At first it caught me completely off guard, with a bone-crunching thud followed by my bike being launched into the stratosphere like something out of BMX Park.

I quickly learned to give the bump I wide berth. Soon after, I noticed that someone had helpfully painted the upper ridge of this escarpment with white spray paint. Later on, it was marked with yellow paint. Then someone added a grid of yellow contour lines (is the thing computer generated?). Then a yellow runway approach arrow was added. For a couple of weeks, there was even a pylon beside it.

It reminds me, in a painful yet nostalgic way, of the dearly departed Gardiner Hump. They placed permanent warning signs around that sucker too, but it took years before anyone actually fixed it.

Which makes me ask the same question about my hump: why make so many trips to warn people about it, and none to fix it?

OK, so the people who put up the warnings were probably cycle Samaritans, not city workers – though I can't imagine nobody has ever complained to the city about it. And perhaps the stripe painters don't know how to fix a pothole themselves.

Of course, the problem won't go away for good until someone severs the tree root, which is probably tricky and, for some cyclists, morally repugnant.

But if you let a tree get away with tripping you with its roots, what's next? Thorns in the eyes? Clotheslining your throat with branches?

Give these things an inch and they'll take an acre. Teach the brute a lesson, before it's too late!