Glenn Kubish

At the Winter Bike Congress in Calgary earlier this month, I said, in a kind of convoluted manner that took six minutes and 40 seconds to spit out...I said, in 20 slides, some of which were painful to relive, some nostalgic...I said, in words I tried to get right in the one shot I had in front of some of the very people who I most wanted to say the word to...I said: thanks. Here's my Pecha Kucha called We Winter Together. This was me. Making a heartfelt point about Russia at last year's Pecha Kucha night in Moscow. I fell in with a stellar band of winter bike riders and storytellers that night. It would take me another month to fully appreciate what I'm doing in this picture. I mean, look! I am lifting my left arm. This was a month later. This was my left arm. My shoulder is fractured and dislocated. I fell off my bike. Like Caesar, I did not beware the ice of March. But I was aware of how beautiful the ride was on the decline before the fall! ...

Here’s one thing about riding a bicycle that’s worth being honest about: it takes work. Yes, riding a bicycle is all those other oft-celebrated things, too. It’s relaxing, fun, healthy, it’s sustainable and eco-friendly, nostalgic, convenient and social. Riding a bicycle is economical and efficient and therapeutic. Pedalling a bicycle makes a connection between city and rider not possible in an automobile. Riding a bicycle is exhilarating. Riding a bicycle is freedom. It's also work. The work of riding a bicycle can be hidden under the poetry of riding a bicycle. I will always remember the day a friend at work texted me, after having renewed a lagged friendship with her bike, a message that was music to my ears: I knew immediately what Laurie meant. I felt it in my old bones. A green Mustang two-speed was my first declaration of independence growing on the streets and alleys of northeast Edmonton. That precious bike took me out of the orbit of domestic su...

As we bused back north up Highway 2, the military vehicles streamed south. I was with some ATB Financial colleagues who were finishing up the first leg of a province-wide tour to mark the 75th anniversary of the financial institution born in a disaster of too little water. Now, a disaster of too much.  Heading to Calgary The camouflaged vehicles presented both a welcome and an eerie prospect. Yes, the uniformed men and women were bringing their engineering skill and sandbagging brawn, but the movement of those same vehicles whispered that this was, maybe, a state of nature (and not of the tourism variety) they were heading toward.  Back moving through Edmonton on that Friday afternoon, a scheduled drink at Latitude 53 just ahead of me, the scenes through the bus window were jarring. Not because they were hard to see. They weren't. They were the easy images of friends talking on the steps of the Hotel Macdonald. And of a businessman running to get a waiting cab. A...