first day of spring! happy vernal equinox, everyone

but's it;s still cold ,,,,,,,,,, but right back at ya Zippered

it may even s-n-o-w yet even....

NoooOOO!

now that ! was just plain mean

I will. Was out to check out 10tation catering.

Bob for kids, interesting. Might have to take ou up on the offer. Are you doing nights at work.

i'll have to rip it. i'm on nights at work for the time being. until i can find a new job.

So I did some actual cross riding through the don today, starting from Cedarvale park... It was fun!

there's a lot that my brother parks at when he comes to stay with me at ossington/bloor that is (i think) $8 for 24 hours. directly across from the ossington subway station.

it's not right downtown, but way better than paying ****loads at some of the lots.

you can check out https://www.greenp.com/tpa/index.jsp to find a lot near where you are planning to be.

The Distillery District is nice, as well as the obvious CN tower. I'd probably get a TTC day pass (not sure how much they are) and hop on and off the subway and check out a bunch of different places. Also the ROM is cool, but not sure if you have the time to check out a museum.


Also, question about the donut ride: is it legal to ride onto highway 7 from bathurst street? Never done the ride, but I'm looking at a route map someone made online, and it includes briefly riding on highway 7.

Unless there's some roadway weirdness preventing it, Hwy7 is a bike-legal road, it's just the 400-series highways that aren't bike/pedestrian legal, I believe.

Park at a GO train lot and come in on the train. Otherwise, as long as you're in town between 7am and midnight you can park on residential streets for free in most cases.

Aight, thanks--I didn't know that.

The day pass will allow you to use any form of TTC transportation (subway, bus and streetcar). I'm not sure about those three options though--I've never actually needed a day pass. Just walk up to a booth and ask the operator for a day pass. Just make it clear you're by yourself all day (I assume) and they'll tell you which one to get.

Keele is closer than Islington (the subway ride to downtown is probably around half hour, but not sure about that one), and Keele and Bloor is a fine area.

The subway/RT hours of operation on weekdays and Saturdays are approximately 6:00am to 1:30am, and Sunday service approximately 9:00am to 1:30am. Different buses have different hours. There's also an all-night bus along Yonge St. and a streetcar on, I think, Queen St.

Here's a subway map. The TTC website also has some other maps and schedules and such.

Yeah but it's just not bike friendly road at all. A shame ebcause it's in pretty good shape. Eventhough there are tons of lanes it's always full of cars, and worst of all trucks. I use itt sometimes for a little bit. However on a sunday it would be much better, especially with a pack of cyclists.

And by the way, i am bailing out of the ride. Too much school stuff to do for next week.

Ok. I've realized I'd get dropped in 2 seconds flat in the donut ride, so I'm going to try it solo a few times to see how bad it is/build some endurance.

Also, are there any roads in the city that are better for riding/training? Specifically, I'm trying to figure out a way to get from Yonge+Lawrence to High Park (hill repeats )on as many quiet streets as possible.

I want to try the donut at least before the end of the summer though. See if I can last 20 minutes

Go south on Duplex down to around Lytton (the bowling green there is a wonderful rest stop area), go west a bit, then down Rosewell to Edith Dr, take that wee path (you'll have to turn right and into near that city works building/swimming baths place to get to the footpath) that gets you to Eglinton W, then head either down Avenue (can be pretty damn busy) or take Oriole Parkway south until Kilbarry Rd. Go across there to Russell Hill Rd, then zoom south to the Davenport split-off, go under the tracks to Dupont.

I'd do a bit of back-tracking at this point. I'd go across to Lansdowne, then south all the way to Rideau (sidestreet just south of the tracks underpass after Dundas) then take Macdonnel to Fern Ave, then take Fern all the way across Roncesvalles to Sunnyside, up to High Park Blvd, then you'll be at the east entrance to join up onto Spring Hill Rd in High Park, which is a nice hill to get back upto Bloor level.

Other options for that non-backtrack, would be to take Dupont across to whatever (even to Annette/Keele), then go only as far as Bloor and head across Bloor to High Park that way.

I find Dupont can be busy, but I really enjoy riding on there - seems to never be a problem and always seems fairly quick. It's not a side street by any means.

also, pick up a city cycling map with the city bike routes on - a lot of them are focused on quieter/residential streets where bike paths/lanes aren't available - despite a lot of them not inter-connecting, some routes are really quite nice. I use the above north/south method to get up to Yonge north of St. Clair kind of area. I also use Avenue Road in that mix, which can be hairy.

edit: if you're going to Keele, you can cross Bloor and still head down to Parkside/High Park Blvd and get into the east entrance... Or, head right down to the Queensway (you'd have to go east to Sunnyside to actually get onto the Queensway) or just head right to Lakeshore and go west to Colborne Lodge Dr, which is the very bottom of High Park to climb up. I've never ridden up that particular hill, but I've ran it - it's a good climb.

You can do hills in the beaches area. Try Scarborough rd.

A family pass is good for weekends and holidays and covers all the uses you mentioned. A single day pass is good for one person anytime. Both allow for unlimited use during the day. Just tell the ticket collecter you want a day pass, they'll know what you mean. TTC Info here.
Keele has free parking at the subway station on weekends, it should be about 10-15 minutes to Bloor from there.

How were the trails. I went in at Pottery Rd last week and it was unridable still. Way too muddy to ride.

Muddy. Very, very muddy. It's okay, though - I was riding my Shimano-equipped bike.

I should add: after using campy shifters (QS) versus Shimano STI, it's painfully obvious why anyone (but racers, especially) would choose campy. You really need the ability to jump multiple cogs at a time, going both up and down, to adjust for terrain. With that in mind, SS and fixed cross or XC riders are a bunch of hard-ass mother****ers.

solid. thanks for the tips. As soon as I'm back in TO I'm trying this out.

ddac - The distillery is a cool place to check out but not really near much else. I'd also suggest the area around Kensington market. From there you have China Town, Queen West, and the Annex all within a 10 minute walk and all of which are pretty fun areas to walk through.


And for Hill repeats, I've been just waking up quasi early on weekends and riding from the bottom of Yonge Street and going north. It's not traffic free but the cars are alright on Yonge Street mostly and there's a good bunch of hills to tackle.

Or pick a windy day and enjoy the headwind.

Cool, I'll try that out too. Just as soon as this semester is over/ I'm back in the big smoke


True, I especially love going up to St. Claire. Problem is traffic lights are lame, and the road gets horrible north of Eglinton.