Entry tags:
Winter cycling update
I rode to work today. It's -12C dry bulb and -21C with the windchill. It's still definitely doable.
Entry tags:
Winter riding
Winter is definitely with us in Toronto. There's been a tiny amount of snow and temperatures are mostly hovering around freezing. I am still biking to and from work. It's daylight, more or less, when I leave for work and I usually get back before dark so that part isn't too scary. I think I can definitely cope with -5 (it's quite a short journey) but I think -10 would be getting into quite challenging territory. We shall see. I have done 260 Bixi trips since I bought the subscription in April so I think that was $100 well spent.
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Gorgeous Sunday
Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny warm day in Toronto so the lemur and I took the bikes on the GO train to Oshawa and rode down to Lakeview Park and then back along the Waterfront Trail to Rouge Hill with a stop for lunch in Pickering. Map. It's a gorgeous ride with long stretches of trail just a few metres from the shoreline though, inevitably, there are stretches where it deviates a bit around either large extents of marsh or because there is industrial development right up to the lake (most notably the Darlington nuclear power station). I still haven't found the Camp X Memorial which is said to mark the site of the secret camp used to train SOE agents in WW2. It seems to be secret! The ride was just shy of 50km which made for a very tired lemur but it was a really good day.
Not such a great morning
I was out exploring a couple of new bike routes in the east end of the city this morning. Things started off OK. I took the Waterfront Trail to the point where one can turn north onto the UoT Scarborough campus and followed the loop of trails swinging north and back west to end up on Lawrence Avenue. From their a linking route on side streets got me to what looked on the map like a hydro easement trail heading southwest. It was but it was still under construction in places which was rather irritating and made for some tedious detours. Then I got a flat and had to spend about 45 minutes changing a tyre tube. Then I discovered that the next stage of my route was impassable owing to bridge repairs. By this time it was very hot and I was fairly fed up. I could see from the map that I wasn't too far from Kennedy station so I headed there, took the subway to Sherbourne and then coasted home down the Sherbourne bike lane.I guess had I finished my planned route it would have been close to 70km. As it was I did about 45km.
My nose is froze
It's a cold, wet long weekend Sunday in the Tdot. I biked out to the end of the Leslie Street Spit in a steady drizzle and despite being frozen I got a few pictures.
I like the spit. It's a funny place. It's a long spit of land providing shelter to the harbour. There is a long term plan for the area whereby fill from construction sites in the city is dumped there to create artificial wetland habitat so it's a strange mix of rubbish dump and nature reserve. On a day like today when land, lake and sky merge into a birdsong filled greyness it really feels like somewhere like Minsmere but with a great city in the background.
( Pictures )
I like the spit. It's a funny place. It's a long spit of land providing shelter to the harbour. There is a long term plan for the area whereby fill from construction sites in the city is dumped there to create artificial wetland habitat so it's a strange mix of rubbish dump and nature reserve. On a day like today when land, lake and sky merge into a birdsong filled greyness it really feels like somewhere like Minsmere but with a great city in the background.
( Pictures )
Cranking out the clicks
I cycled to Port Credit and back this morning. That's about a 60km round trip. Port credit is SW of here. When I left the ind was NE 11km/hr so not much of a boost. By the time i got back it was 39km/hr gusting to 56km/hr and still NE which is a bugger of a headwind. I was barely making any ground at all when it was gusting. I am tired.
I read the football results. I am also bouncy!
I read the football results. I am also bouncy!