I just want to give a quick shout out to the friendly people at The Bike Joint for getting my bike going again when my chain jumped ship yesterday. I was stranded at a stoplight with a mere 15 minutes to get to my appointment and low and behold, The Bike Joint was there to help. Thanks for the bonus of pumping up my tires and giving me the phone number for the Community Bicycle Network so I can learn how to do all of these things myself and not feel so helpless.

Last year Catherine wrote a piece on the Community Bicycle Network and most notably, Wenches with Wrenches - “an ongoing program of CBN volunteers who host bicycle repair workshops run by and for women in downtown Toronto. The idea has been to make basic bicycle repair skills accessible to women in the hope that participants will then share their knowledge and their confidence with others in the community.” Registration is now open for September 2008 classes.

The skill set that WWW offers would have come in handy yesterday, but at least I had the very friendly and helpful folks at The Bike Joint to save the day. If you need a tune-up, brake change or a gear adjust, I highly recommend them.

If you live in Halifax, and enjoy kicking it on two wheels, check out this awesome weekly event:

Every Tuesday from 6 until 8, there will be women/identified bike nights at the Bike Space at Bloomfield Centre. The idea is to have a casual, drop in style night where basic bicycle repair skills are accessible to women and trans folks. Bring your bike in and ask questions and we’ll move through some basic repair and maintenance info.

These nights are to bring folks together in a safe, non-competitive and friendly learning environment. The workshops are run by women/identified folks for women/identified folks because, many times, it’s just more comfortable learning that way.

Bloomfield Centre is at 2786 Agricola Street, at Almon.

I love using free weights — so I completely enjoyed seeing Sitara Hewitt on CBC’s Steven and Chris (I’ll blow right past the overall quality or not of this show) talking about weightlifting. As well as displaying some refreshingly healthy attitudes to food and exercise.

Check it out here.

From the Toronto Star:

Danica Patrick was always sure a woman could win a race. And now the questions about her will surely stop.

Patrick made it to the place she wanted to be for so long – Victory Lane. She became the first female winner in IndyCar history Sunday, capturing the Indy Japan 300 in her 50th career start.

Last time I wrote about the Derby girls, it was mostly to lament the fact that there were no tournaments in my neck of the woods for months to come. Well, the snow is melting, the leaves are budding, and is that a wristguard I spy?

The Beast cometh (Montreal Roller Derby)

The Montreal Roller Derby league is about to kick off its season with a tournament of heretofore unheard-of proportions - The Beast of the East, a full day of hip-checking, body-slamming, fishnet-ripping insanity. It all goes down April 19th from 10 AM to 10 PM, at Aréna St-Louis, 5633 St. Dominique. Teams from all over Canada and the States will be playing for the title (and the admiration and swooning of the fans).

There has been some debate, on this very board no less, as to whether or not Roller Derby constitutes a feminist activity or intervention. The point has been made that, while fun, Derby delegitimizes female sports, because of the outlandish costumes, sexy undertones, and focus on performance rather than skill (though skill is obviously necessary as well. Look at that photo. Good god, would you want to mix with that if you didn’t think you had what it takes?). But I kind of think that Derby is to sports what The Cramps are to barbershop quartets; granted, the latter is more refined, more about sheer skill, discipline, and good clean living, less about showiness and attitude. But I know who I’d rather be watching on a Saturday night.

(*no, I did not some up with this title myself. I’m not that genius, okay. It’s from a fundraiser the ladies held last week to help pay their way to a tournament in San Diego.)

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A great example of when the right answer isn’t. Also, it’s funny. :)

A group of teen athletes are fighting to get women’s ski jumping into the 2010 Games after the IOC stated that “the sport has not met its stringent standards:”

Men’s ski jumping will be included at the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Female ski jumpers and their supporters say their exclusion is tantamount to gender discrimination.

“I think VANOC and the COC, Sport Canada and the government of Canada — everyone — believes in equality in this country and we’re promoting that,” said Brent Morrice, the chair of Ski Jumping Canada.

The female ski jumpers who are in this fight to compete are teens, all 16 and 17 years old:

Jan Willis, the mother of Canadian Ski Jumper Katie Willis, said she and the athletes are heartened by the support they’ve received for their cause from government, sporting officials, and the Canadian public.

“They’re all heading off (Saturday) for six weeks in Europe for competitions and I know that’s really given them a lot of support and energy to really show that they deserve to be in the Olympics.”

Interestingly enough, Katie Willis has already found fame in the arena of ski jumping. She’s in the history books as not only the youngest athlete, but also the first Canadian woman to win a gold medal at an international ski jumping event. She was only 14 when she finished on top against the world’s best athletes, many nearly a decade older than her, at a summer Continental Cup event in Klingenthal, Germany.

“I thought maybe I would find out how it felt to fly.”

Um, doesn’t she sound like a prime candidate to compete for Canada?

From AOL Fanhouse Via Racialicious:

There’s a bit of a controversy going on at the Australian Open after a TV camera lingered on Venus Williams’ behind and the Australian tennis coach Roger Rasheed, who was working as an announcer for an Aussie TV station, commented on it.

Racialicious sums it up by noting “the comments on this page are even more priceless: ‘if she doesnt want to be objectified, then she should not dress like a ho’”

In a past life, before Amélie, I passionately hated the movies. For a while I thought it was a sign of ADD: I couldn’t sit still for a 2-hour film without chipping the concrete floor with my impatiently tapping toe. More recently I’ve realized my aversion to movies was one of the many bruises I suffered at the hands of the stifling jockocracy in which I was raised. The road to recovery is long. Even last weekend, when the opening credits of a wonderful, low-budget, gardening documentary came up, I had a flashback of helicopter blades, machine gun fire, plastic cleavage and fart jokes.

When I was growing up, going to the movies was in the same category as watching the guys play sports - it was the only thing to do. It was also an activity where my girl friends and I were expected to be passive, but still flirty, spectators. Sure, it was more fun than hanging out alone, but it was far from fulfillment and far from fair.

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