Hey, Nice Lid!

I drink a fair bit of coffee. I do not attempt to buy, carry or consume coffee while I'm commuting on my bike like some do. Nonetheless, I frequently buy coffee from Tim Horton's, Starbucks, etc. when I'm in the car, and Mrs. Rantwick and I are more likely to go buy take-out coffee than to brew a pot at home. How lame is that?

Anyway, here in London Ontario, McDonald's has been giving away free coffee again. I suppose the only way they can combat the popular notion that their coffee sucks is to give some of the new stuff away. I had a free cup on Saturday morning, and that ridiculously iconic restaurant chain has really pulled out all the stops this time.

The coffee was fine, better than any I've had from McDonald's before. It was as scorchingly hot as the last cup I had from there about 5 years ago. Does anybody know if the old lady suing McDonald's for serving hot coffee story is true or urban legend? I guess I could snopes it up, but I'm too lazy. I believe it though... everybody expects coffee to be hot, but not leave-it-alone-for-half-an-hour-if-you-want-to-keep-your-tongue hot. I'm not complaining; the stuff was good once it was down to a drinkable temperature.

What really struck me about the free coffee was not the coffee, but the lid. I am very interested in coffee lid design. Remember the days before plastic lids with sippy holes, or the perforations to create them? The first time I saw somebody manually create a sippy hole in a plastic coffee lid while riding in a work truck, it was a revelation. These days, of course, most plastic coffee lids offer this option, but the McDonald's lid brought even more to the table. Bear with me now, because without a review of the other offerings, this post would just be short and boring. As any of my more regular readers can attest, long and boring is more my thing.

First up, THE dominant Canadian coffee and donut chain, Tim Horton's:

Sippy hole perforation, works well most of the time, but sometimes I need to rip the tab right off because it won't stay locked down. Branding on lid.

Now, the US-based competition, Starbucks:

Starbucks doesn't bother with custom-branded lids, or perforations and tabs. They just assume that if you're using a lid, you want a sippy hole. In terms of pure function, this is my favourite lid. Aesthetically, though, they look kind of nasty when coffee dries on the lid after you use it. I washed this one off before photographing it. Dark brown like the other lids would be better.

The long-established chain Country Style Donuts:

I don't know who designed their lid first, but as you can see, Country Style's is almost identical to Tim Horton's. The sippy hole tab, however, stays down better.


OK, so what about this free coffee from McDonald's? Its lid was something else entirely:

Leave it to McDonald's to design a lid that reaches deep into your mind with hypnotic voodoo eyes on a face straight out of some deep and ancient ancestral memory, with a sippy hole tab/nose that stays down better than any I've ever used before.


Sorry, all you other coffee lid contenders. Only the McDonald's lid makes a face, and only a face can be crowned with some dinosaur head!

This reminds me of an ewok. I'll bet McDonald's knew that some dude with a blog would put hair on a picture of their coffee lid, and they didn't want to miss the opportunity to cash in on some of the most pervasive pop-culture imagery ever. Man, talk about market research...

In case that last theory got you wondering, yes, I did go to a bunch of coffee places to get comparison lids after seeing the freebie lid from McDonald's and conceiving of this post and yes, I bought and drank a large coffee from every one. YeeeeeHaaaaa! See you again after the inevitable crash.

Am I Jittery? No, not at all!... now stop vibrating like that, you freaks!

R A N T W I C K

PS - A reader sent me a lid pic from a growing Ontario coffee chain, Coffee Culture. As tempting as it is, no face, no dinosaur head; here it is:

You know what? I will add a picture of any and all coffee lids (except repeats) that anyone cares to email me or link via comment. This post could become a coffee lid dictionary!

A Place For All of Your Awkward Family Moments

Feeling some family tension this Holiday Season? Estranged daughter? Desperate Dad? There's a place that can help.

Is there some really big demographic that I don't know about that will be inspired to go get a Festive Special after seeing this? It creeps me out, and I just don't get it.

What do you think? Am I just being weird, or is the commercial the weird one?

Wishing you comic relief cranberry sauce for all your awkward moments,

R A N T W I C K

I've Got a Question

image source: torontoist.com

I recently read a post on ibiketo.ca that spoke of some new promises to crack down on people who park in bike lanes. I've got nothing against bike lanes where they are practical, but I don't think it is as simple as painting some lines and saying "don't stop or park here". When you put bike lanes all over the place, you effectively make all curb sides a no stopping zone, so here's my question: where are cars supposed to pull over for a second? Where the alternatives to parking in the lane are limited, the temptation to use them for quick stops will be very hard for most to resist.

It is easy for people who never drive to answer "I don't care where they stop, so long as it is not in my bike lane". Should people who need to make a delivery or run into a shop in a downtown core go find a full-blown parking spot and pay for it? It simply isn't practical, and the lengths people might go to in order to stay out of heavily policed bike lanes could cause different kinds of traffic snarls that are just as bad for everybody.

How would us cyclists like it if we were only allowed to lock our bikes to designated racks because they were getting in the way of pedestrians? No poles, no sign posts, nothing like that. It would greatly reduce the wonderful flexibility of our vehicles. Would that be cool with everyone? Cars are inflexible to begin with, and not being allowed to pull over for short periods makes them even more so.

Regulars on this blog know that I ride my bike to work and back every single day. I am not "pro car" by any means. Cars and trucks, however, aren't going away any time soon, and making it harder for people to move around and conduct their business just doesn't make sense to me. In an ideal world there would be way fewer cars, more transit and cycling and walking, lower speeds and increased civility. Even when we get there, however, vehicles are going to need someplace to pull over once in a while.

In a great many areas of most cities, there will often be an alternative to blocking a bike lane, and where alternatives exist, drivers should be penalized for being lazy or selfish by blocking the lane. In areas like Toronto's downtown core, however, I just don't see any value in it or, frankly, the bike lanes themselves. Downtown traffic is slow. Cyclists don't need bike lane protection in downtown cores (or anywhere else, for that matter, but that's another, bigger, issue). They can find greater safety riding in and among traffic, especially if they avoid messenger style riding and behave like the cars, or more accurately, behave like cars driven by law abiding, civil drivers.

That's it, I've got to pull over and mellow out.

R A N T W I C K