David A Balfour Park Ravine

It was nice and cool this morning, with rain expected around noon so I got out shortly after the sun came up around 7:00 am. Went from Dundas and Parliament to Jane Street and up to St. Clair today instead of Eglinton.
What I didn't realize is that St. Clair west is under heavy construction for miles and miles! Think I would have preferred the hills on Eg to the single lane of traffic on St. Clair.
So after about 40-50 minutes of street riding, I got onto Moore Avenue and thought I had found a new entry to the Moore Park ravine so I carried the bike down these stairs.



But it was the David A Balfour Park ravine, I guess. But was not going to climb back up so... no turning back now. But which way to go? The path that runs east of this creek or west?





This is a trail?! Really.



Decided to walk the bike along this part of the trail that ran beside a fence.




It's good to have a helmet on, you never know what might come across your path.




Continued for a while and ended up south of the Brickworks, circled around and got onto Bayview and then north to the Brickworks farmers market.

Caught up in a Victory Lap

7:30 AM I start an exercise ride. Goodlife Gym opens at 8:00 and I time the ride perfectly. Get there at 8:01 AM breathing hard and ready to do some weight training. At 7:50 I'm done and get back on bike, ready for the usual fifteen minute cool-down ride back home, only to see about 30 or 40 cyclists at the intersection in front of me turning onto the street in the same direction I'm going to be heading.
Of course I'm curious about what's going on, so I catch up to them and ask. They're doing a "victory lap" to celebrate having completed the Niagara Falls Ride To Conquer Cancer earlier this summer. There and back over two days. I ask a few more questions about it because I had been thinking about trying it next year, or at least doing that trip one-way.
And this is my neighbourhood, a part of Gerrard Street I've riding many many times this summer, and I can't let them out-run me in my own hood, so of course my cool-down ride becomes a 'keep up with the kitted-out cyclists on road bikes' ride :)

A great way to start a Sunday.

GoodLife Fitness

First day weight training at Goodlife

Leave home at 6:00 am. Bike hard and arrive in around 10 minutes, pumped and with a bit of sweat.. Hit the weights, took about 40 minutes to go through the routine including a quick warmup. Then got on the machines for about 15 minutes.

Like the same seretonin rush I got when I started biking! Rode home in under 10 minutes and feel supercharged. Slammed down an amazing protein shake – fruit is cheap and plentiful now so I’m keeping stocked up. It was: ½ scoop whey, ½ banana, ½ clementine (I had the other halves for breakfast, with an egg), watermelon, blueberries, tablespoon peanut butter, splash of coffee, water and ice.

Feel great. Energized.

Joining the gym and hitting the weights was the best investment since buying a bike.

Jane and Eglinton

This morning's bike ride was epic.
From Parliament went west along Dundas with the intention of going back to the Humber trail. But when I got to Jane, I wanted to do more street riding so I turned north. There were a few little hills as I continued along until getting to Eglinton. Turned east and...even more hills. East along Eg past Keele, past Bathurst, past Avenue. Turned south on Yonge and then headed over to the old favourite, the Moore Park ravine so went onto that muddy path to the Brickworks then the Lower Don trail and back home. Riding time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Humber Trail

One of the great aspects of having done a 4+ hour ride last weekend is the boost in confidence. So this morning I decided to go across town and check out the Humber Trail and started out at 7:00 AM. I found this map and started at Dundas & Parliament. Didn't follow the map exactly but eventually got out to the Humber Trail.
View from bridge over Humber River. Bike trail can be seen on the right.


It's really nice, a wide paved trail There's a section which includes a bunch of dirt trails too so I rode on those until I was good and disoriented and then got back on the main path.


After being out for a little over an hour, turned around (sort of), got onto Bloor Street and headed east.
Total riding time 1 hour, 50 minutes and don't even feel too tired.

Sunday August 30: Oshawa Ride4Life 88 km charity ride

In the morning I noticed that the back brake was rubbing the rim, and the front wheel was a bit off, causing the tire to rub against one brake pad on each revolution.
And of course being a complete noob I didn’t know how to fix these things. Asked around at the starting area but the repair truck was not there and no one knew where it was. So I got into the queue for the start of the race with my brother and his friend. There were all these people with some really nice bikes, and jerseys and some with full team kits on. My brother and his friend were in t-shirts; I had on my standard wicking microfiber t-shirt under the MEC button-up kayaking shirt with the sleeves rolled up. This combo has served me well on many kayak trips so I see no need to replace them with a $60 single-use biking jersey.
We start off in good spirits and the ‘rolling start’ went on for longer than I had expected but eventually everyone was going along and the 300 or so riders started to spread out along the road.
I had borrowed a pannier from my brother but at the last second decided to go without it. Stuck a bag of trail mix in pocket of shorts, a couple of cliff bars and two small clementines in shirt pocket, and ditched the pannier. They told us there would be rest stations with water, oranges and bananas along the route so I figured I’d be okay. Having been warned about bonking, and having done some 40+ km rides, I had a pretty good idea of how to maintain energy. I find it best to take lots of little sips of water, and small handfuls of trail mix, starting very early in the ride, eg about 20 minutes in. And after about ½ hour the clementines in the shirt pocket were annoyingly banging against my leg, so I ate them while riding no-handed along a level stretch of road.
About an hour and a half in, I saw the repair truck and pulled over. The guy there fixed up my brake problem and wheel alighment really quickly and I was back pedaling within minutes.
At one pont in the ride there was a surreal moment when I rode past a sign in front of a house that read "GO MATT GO". Then another. Then I noticed some smaller words about going for medals. Must have been for Olympic snowboarder Matthew Morison.

A rookie mistake I made was underestimating the difficulty of riding hills over such a long distance. Toronto is pretty much Flatland so the few little hills I’d ridden in town had not given me any problems.
But I was probably too aggressive on the hills in the early part of the ride, because around 60 km my left knee became really painful. I had no Advil, and because I’d blown off the pannier I had no tools. Possibly a hex key to raise the seat a little bit might have eased the pressure and made the knee feel less like there was a hot poker being jabbed into on every push down. I had to take a few breaks and walk up a few of the steeper hills, and did most of the last 20 km peddling with one leg. But there was no way I was not going to finish. Really thought my brother would past me near the end because I was going so slow, but his 15-year old bike held him back and he came in a little after I’d finished.
At the end of the ride, the registration tent had been changed into a massage tent. Free massage after 4 hours on a bike? I’m not one to turn down that offer.

This morning I was out for a ride from around 6:30 to 7:00 am and it was brisk. Around 10C (50F), maybe a bit lower when I got down by the lake. But I thought I was tough enough to put up with the chill, and prepared: a liner for a hat that fits snugly, covers the ears and fits under my helmet. Using rainpaints over bib shorts, and 2 layers of shirts.
So I'm riding along thinking that I should get gloves with full fingers this weekend, and what layers or items I'm going to add if it gets much colder, and pull up to a red light. There's a girl on her bike, commuting to work in shorts and a t-shirt.
"Aren't you freezing?" I asked. "Naw, it's okay as long as you keep moving" she laughed.