Yesterday was 20 degrees celcius (not those piddly little Foreignheit degrees) colder than Wednesday with a headwind gusting to 35 knots, the rain started as soon as I got my feet on the pedals and stopped soon after I gave in and put on my rain jacket, a bolt shook loose and I almost lost my headlight, and I slightly sprained my ankle. All in all, still the funnest day on the bike since June, or maybe even since last winter.

This time of year you have to get out and enjoy the bad weather when you can- they’re predicting it’ll be back up to 30C next week.

If my reader is still here after the hiatus and wonders why all the header images are fall pictures, it’s because that’s when I do the most riding.

Nothing much to report for the summer
apart from the G20 civil rights debacle- too hot and too smoggy so it was mostly just getting around riding.

As often as not we get a last bit of snow at the beginning of April, but this year it’s been almost summery, so on Friday I rode up to the electricity farm way out in the suburbs. I figured the waterfront and downtown would have been nightmarishly crowded on a nice Eostre weekend — and I was right since apparently there were fistfights to get on the Toronto Island ferry, which is still on its winter schedule — plus it’s still cool near the lake, because the water’s still ice cold.

It’s a pretty poor excuse for a ride, but it’s usually quiet when the beach and downtown are crowded and it goes through some interesting industrial areas along the power line right of way.

It’s a pretty poor excuse for a photo, too, because spring sucks for taking pictures. Everything looks like it’s spent 3 months under a dirty snowbank even if it hasn’t. Here’s one of the bike path in greener times:

This isn’t a proper pond and it’s barely a proper puddle but the ducks don’t seem to mind. It’s actually been a really dry spring, after a dry winter with no snowpack to melt, so the trails are probably good for mountain biking already.

Groundhog didn’t see his shadow!

This week I finally conceded defeat to spring, put away my XC skis, and swapped the studded tire and snow boot friendly BMX pedals on my ‘cross bike for SPDs and mud tires (the skis got used twice, the ice tire once). It was actually a fairly good winter for regular street riding, which makes a change from two years in a row of snowmageddon, but I had my heart set on blizzards and ice so I spent most of February on the internets looking at snow pr0n from south of the Mason-Dixon line. I’ve decided that I better stop and get outside while my jeans still fit even if it is nice and sunny.

We did have a couple of wintry days though:

A spin on the ice with the Hearn power plant in the background (fear not, the ice here was pretty thick and the water is really shallow).

Ice shoes and thick socks- after almost getting frostbite with my SPDs the week before

Important winter components

The way out to the lighthouse

The lighthouse (there were a couple of guys on fixies up there – real ones, not tarck bikes – but I haven’t seen a Dutch bike all winter)

Rust squid

Used once.

Cormorant beach

Toronto across the ice

Frost inside my jacket, where the reflective stripes wouldn’t let it breathe.

It was -10°C with a bitter wind, but it didn’t feel too bad on the way out with the wind behind me. I even saw one other biker out by the lighthouse, on a tarck bike no less. There was a river of ice floating out into the great unknown, but we haven’t had any big easterly winds yet when it’s been cold, and that’s when we get the big waves and the interesting ice formations of shore ice. As always between November and March I could hear the old squaw ducks out on the water (they come from the subarctic, and overwinter here).

I aso thought I’d check out the state of the ice on the outer harbour. It looked rideable near shore (and even if it’s not, where I go it’s mostly over shoal water that’s barely deep enough to float a canoe) but I didn’t have studded tires and the soles of my bike shoes are lethally slippery so all I could do was look at it.

SPD shoes are just too damn cold for winter, even at a size too big with 2 pairs of socks. They’re all right when it’s wet or slushy but at -10°C weather all the heat just drains out the cleat. I was starting to get a tiny bit of phalangular frostbite so I went home, the next day I went looking at BMX pedals so I can ride in my snow boots.

I finally got my country road bike out on some real country roads, and picked up a bit of real country mud. Ride report to follow, eventually, maybe.

One of the projects I gave myself this summer and only half completed was to explore the Toronto waterfront more thoroughly. I know the city lakeshore really well, but not the suburbs, and this part of the Scarborough lakeshore I’d only seen from the train. I accidentally found something else I’ve been searching for: the elusive pleasant bike route out of town to the east, through the dark and dragon-haunted concrete forest of suburban Scarborough. You can see the route on a map here if you want.

I wanted to avoid main streets, but Kingston Road isn’t too bad at the west end so I went direct. Turning south at Ravine Drive, there’s a steep trail down to the lake I explored last fall. If you really wanted to you could turn down, portage along the beach, then get on the gravel access road that goes to the Guild Inn:

But this time I took the streets.

A dirt side path through an empty lot, leading past a factory to the train tracks, is impossible for me to resist. But this one was a trap, and when I stopped to take pictures I put my foot down in poison ivy (to which I’m still, apparently, resistant).

East Point has an interesting little mini beach with mini cliffs. There’s a paved bike path heading east at the end of the pavement on Beechgrove, but being ignorant of it I rode all the way up to Lawrence and back down the bike path in Highland Creek park.

Planning the route on Google Earth I was hoping for a dirt footpath to the rail bridge at the mouth of the river, so I could get across, but the city’s been busy:

They’re still working on the eastern end of the path but you can cross the train tracks and get on Lawrence, which takes you right into Rouge Beach park. The river is the city limits and the bridge leads to Pickering, where the Waterfront Trail apparently continues.

This list of dirt road races on the Flickr Back Road Bike group got me all jealous that none of them were local, then I found out about the Toronto Paris-Roubaix Challenge. It’s really tempting but I’ll proably decline…  with my leaden winter legs, just the mud slog to the lighthouse got me all tired out on the weekend.

Two things I noticed on Saturday:

1) A lot of other cyclocross bikes out there on my ride to the lighthouse.  This supports my hypothesis that if fixies are the new rollerblades,  cyclocross is the new fixed gear  (which would make offroad fixed gear the new roller derby).

2) While riding my ‘cross bike, I get to feel undeservedly smug about everyone else on the road…  even the dude on the Jake the Snake who passed me and would have dropped me spectacularly,  except he turned right to stay on pavement while I kept going straight into the mud.  I feel almost as smug as I did on my fixed gear back in the ’90s, before the fixter fad got ridiculous.