'77 Track 7

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Cycling: Around the World (Well, Toronto)

Almost a year now since the last post. That's a little longer than I meant to leave things idle.

I've actually been working on something I intend to post, but it's not quite ready yet. One of the things I wanted for it was a GPS track of the (approximate) boundaries of Toronto -- so, yesterday, I biked the border, as best I could.

You can't actually bike the exact border. Sure, the north edge is easy -- 40km straight of Steeles -- but you can't ride through the Rouge River valley, and taking the paths along Etobicoke Creek is hindered by a couple of missing bridges. But I did the best approximation I could.

For extra fun, I decided to try live-tweeting the ride, and I've collected the tweets below, with some extra comments.

The photos are all taken using my iPhone, which presented a few problems: the iPhone camera has a fixed, wide-angle lens, so there isn't a lot of flexibility in composition; and the Sun was bright enough that, most of the time, the only things I could make out on the screen were silhouettes.

Note that some tweets didn't send properly at the time I composed them, and I ended up re-submitting them when I went to write the next tweet -- so the time stamps can't always be trusted!

7:47 AM : Trying an experiment today: gonna tweet my bike ride. But first: silly cat photo!

I needed to try the TwitterFon app to see how you posted photos with it, and Mouse provided a perfect subject.

8:10 AM: Ok, ready to go. First stop: Cherry Beach!

The Streetmachine Gte, sporting a new chain & cassette thanks to the wear and tear of 5000km of riding having worn the teeth of the old one.

8:26 AM: At Cherry Beach. Now for an hour of running with the pups.

Often when doing long rides on weekends, I bike down to Cherry Beach and meet L there with the dogs. We do our usual morning dog-walk, then she takes the dogs home and I continue on my way.

As I was leaving Cherry Beach, I started getting "network failure" messages, and my tweets didn't get through. The problem continued for a while.

10:44 AM: Twitter problems... Testing...
10:46 AM: Ok, seems to be working. Getting food at Kingston & Eglinton. Here's the new Unwin bridge:

Finally, after a couple of hours, things were working again. I had taken a photo of the new Unwin bridge, which had only recently re-opened, so I forwarded it once I had the network back.

11:17 AM: Looking out at Darlington as I approach Highland Creek. 1/3 done

There's not that much to see between the Beaches and Highland Creek, but once you're approaching the creek, you get a good view of the Darlington power plant. Unfortunately, the wide-angle lens on the iPhone reduces tht part of the view to a tiny fraction in the middle.

11:20 AM: This bridge over Highland Creek is fairly new. Before, I'd have to turn north here.

My usual Scarborough path is out to Highland Creek, then up along the creek in a big semi-circle that curves back through Colonel Danforth Park towards the Scarboro Golf & Country Club. This bridge went in fairly recently -- last summer, I think -- and this is only the second time I've ridden across it

11:33 AM: The Rouge River pedestrian bridge.

Not far past the Highland Creek bridge is this bridge over the Rouge River. The city's building a bike trail all the way here, but for now you have to cross the GO tracks at Rouge Hill (there's a level crossing) and take Lawrence Ave E to get here.

11:43 AM: I've never biked in Durham before...

I'd only ever gone as far east as the Rouge Hill GO station before. Next time I'm out this way, I'll continue along the Waterfront Trail to Darlington. I'm going up through Pickering because you can't bike through the Rouge River park (so far as I know).

12:24 AM: Petticoat Creek:

Around here, the hills started getting annoying. Not that you can tell in this wide angle shot.

12:31 AM: Hard to climb on a recumbent:

This doesn't really show the steepnes of the climb very well. Recumbents are great for long rides, but for climbing hills you have to rely entirely on your gearing -- you can't stand on the pedals to use your weight.

12:37 AM: Finally! Steeles. 40km to the next turn.

I'd never been out this far on Steeles. It was more rural than I'd anticipated -- though I have no idea why I should have expected anything else.

12:44 AM: A reminder of how far east I am:

This sign is pointing south to the Zoo. I don't think I've ever been inside Toronto north of the Zoo before.

12:49 AM: Moo.

Wildlife! Sorta.

1:01 PM: 52km - Time for a breather and a drink.

I spotted a pharmacy and grabbed some water.

1:32 PM: Pacific Mall - the heart of Little Hong Kong.

Good green tea ice cream there.

1:49 PM: Almost half way. Lunch break!

Traditionally, when on long rides, I do a McDonald's breakfast and a Wendy's lunch. Not sure why.

2:28 PM: Gah! Nettles!

I zipped through these plants, and it was only as I hit them that I realized they were stinging nettles.

2:38 PM: Long climb ahead:

Again, the wide-angle really downplays the climb.

2:51 PM: Yonge St - Halfway done Steeles:

The city boundary along Steeles runs 40km in a straight line. I think that's the longest I've ever actually ridden in a straight line...

3:11 PM: I'll have to check this place out some other time:

This connects in to G Ross Lord Park, which I've ridden in before.

3:21 PM: York University:

It's in behind the trees somewhere. I've been here a few times on my bike, usually when riding Black Creek's paths.

Around this time, I was starting to worry that there might be a storm coming. Wouldn't be the first time I'd've been caught in a downpour on Steeles.

3:36 PM: Across from Radioworld, my fav GPS store. Time for a drink.

Radioworld is a great GPS store, though my current Garmin Oregon 300 comes from Mountain Equipment Co-op.

4:22 PM: Here we are - The west end of Steeles. It's downhill from here!

Looking back the way I came. Not quite as rural as the other end.

4:30 PM: Abandoned road & Hindu temple:

Indian Line Road is falling into disrepair. No cars are allowed at this point. It provides a back way into Indian Line Campground on Claireville Lake, next to Wild Water Kingdom. The somewhat incongruous temple in the distance is the new BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, which opened in 2007.

4:33 PM: On the Claireville Dam:

A quiet view of Claireville Lake, with the campground off to the left. I exited the park through the campground, with lots of kids yelling "Cool bike!" as I rode past.

4:45 PM: Hmm... I didn't know about this:

Another set of trails to explore!

5:15 PM: YYZ:

Not just an instrumental by Rush, it's also an airport!

Not that you can see much of anything in the photo -- I just figured that, since this is the closest I've ever biked to the airport, I should get a shot.

5:24 PM: 100km - Yay! 30km left - 1.5-2 hours.

At this point, I've exceeded my original time estimates for the ride. These estimates also will not hold, for a few reasons.

6:19 PM: Hmm... Can't get down Etobicoke Creek yet...

The city border runs down Carlingview, past the airport to Eglinton. It then follows Eglinton to Etobicoke Creek, and runs down the creek to the lakeshore. I thought I might be able to head down this street, Rakely Court, and find a trail along the creek, but no luck.

The image is oddly skewed because the iPhone's camera uses a scaning method for pulling the image off the sensor chip, and I moved the camera while it was doign this. It's an interesting effect, but not at all what I was after.

It turns out, after later investigation with Google Maps, that there is a path at the creek, but I missed it this time around. I may do the Humber-Eglinton-Etobicoke Creek loop to fill that in later. The big problem is that, as near as I can tell from Google Maps, the bridges are out on that path:

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6:20 PM: Hey, I'm not the only one!

Usually, when I do the Etobicoke Creek-to-lakeshore path, I join the creek at the south end of Centennial Park and follow that to Dundas. At that point the path stops, and I take The West Mall down to this Tim Hortons, grab a drink, and rejoin the creek with the new path. This is the first time I've stopped anywhere (except the Urbane Cyclist) and seen another recumbent parked outside!

6:33 PM: Nice talk with the owner of the Bacchetta.

We chatted about over-seat stearing vs. under-seat, long-wheel-base vs. short-wheel-base, and sundry other recumbent topics. The rider's husband joked that, whenever he rides his plain green bike along behind his wife's Bacchetta, he might as well be invisible.

6:52 PM: Finally! Back at the lake. Revised time estimate: 45-60 mins

The talk with the other recumbent owner delayed me an extra 15 mins, but this is the home stretch now!

7:26 PM: First sight of downtown on the home stretch:

This is somewhere around 5th Street in Etobicoke. Once again, the wide angle on the camera kinda minimizes the effect.

7:27 PM: Humber bridge:

It was shortly after this that I started realizing that I'd mis-remembered when Caribana was...

7:34 PM: Busy down here:

Sure, it started a couple of weeks ago...

7:37 PM: Very busy:

But the parade was today!

8:16 PM: Almost there...

I backtracked to Parkside and worked my way back north to Dundas, then College. This was tweeted from College & Bay.

8:24 PM: There... All done!

And home.

Final tally: 141km, 12h30 including dog park, two meals, and other stops. And I really should have remembered that it was Carribana...

Here is the overall route:

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Cycling: Hamilton And Back

A couple of weekends ago I managed my longest bike ride ever: Toronto to Hamilton and back!

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(Note: the maps in this post are all interactive Google Maps, so you can zoom in and scroll around to see the fine details of the routes, or switch to satellite mode to see what buildings I passed.)

I'd been planning this ride for a while. My longest ride to date had been 115km. This was going to be at least 50% longer than that, so I had to be prepared. The first step was picking Hamilton as a destination -- the route is along the lake front, so there aren't too many hills to tire me out. After that, the question was whether to go the longer way, around the west side of Burlington Bay (past tye Royal Botanical Gardens), or to go along the beaches under the Burlington Skyway, on the east side of the bay? I decided to do both -- one on the way in, and the other on the way back.

I arranged with a friend who lives in Hamilton to drop by between noon and 1:00 for lunch, so I could catch my breath for the return trip. I wasn't sure, even as I set out, wether I wanted to do the western route going in (it's hilly, so I might have been too tired after biking that far) or save it for going back after I'd had something to eat. I decided to make up my mind when I got to Burlington.

The route I took is based on the Waterfront Trail, which runs (on and off) from Kingston to Niagara Falls. It's uninterupted from the Beaches in Toronto to Stoney Creek in Hamilton, though it alternates between dedicated off-road multi-use trails and simply using Lakeshore Boulevard -- between Port Credit and Burlington, it's almost entirely on Lakeshore.

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The first leg (above) was very familiar to me -- I'd done the Toronto-to-Port Credit ride several times. I stopped in Etobicoke for breakfast (I learned my lesson about eating early in a long ride a couple of years ago, when I conked out after 55km without a breakfast, still 20km from home).

From Etobicoke, the trail runs along Lakeshore for a while, then cuts down to the water to alternate between parks and neighbourhood streets all the way to Port Credit.

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On the west side of Port Credit the trail goes into a large park. At the entrance to the park, I encountered this sign (first flag on the map):

Further along is Jack Darling Memorial Park, where I saw a couple looking intently at something in the grass (second flag). As I got closer, I realized it was a hawk which had caught a starling. Unfortunately, the hawk took off before I could get the camera out. Instead, I took a photo back at downtown Toronto

The Jack Darling path leads into Rattray Marsh, but the trail turns to sand as you enter, so I decided to go around, though the neighbourhood. This involved the first noticable climb of the ride, though nothing major.

The the next while, the path was pretty straightforward -- long stretches of Lakeshore Boulevard, with the occasional dips over to the water in the parks around town centres.

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When I got to Burlington, I was still feeling reasonably fresh, so I decided to take the hilly route around the east side of Burlington Bay. The route continued much as it had, though I got a little mixed up in my directions at one point (first flag) and ended up on a steep, sandy path that I couldn't quite force the bike up.

By this point, I was getting a little tight on time -- I promised my friend I'd be at his place for lunch around noon -- so I decided to forgo the route through the Royal Botanical Garden, and head straight downs Sping Gardens Road to get to York Boulevard.

The first part of this was easy -- a downhill run to Valley Inn Road, where I took this photo of the York Boulevard bridge, which runs over the channel between Cootes Paradise (the innermost part of the bay) and Burlington Bay.

The problem was, I had to get back up to cross over that bridge... A 25 metre climb in a run of 300 metres, after having just ridden over 80km from Toronto. Needless to say, I didn't quite make it all the way up, and had to finish the climb on foot.

Once up there, and across the bridge, I stopped to photograph the Burlington Skyway -- the route I'd take going back.

Then came the biggest problem of all -- to get back to the Waterfront Trail, I had to get my bike back down 25 metres, and the only route was a set of stairs (second flag). Thoughtfully, they'd included a bike groove, but my recumbent bike doesn't work well in those.

Fortunately, a friendly jogger helped me carry the bike down the eight-or-so flights.

The bridge, as seen from the top of the stairs.

The stairs, seen from the bottom. You can't make out the first three flights, which run from the monolith to the top of the flights you can see.

The bridge, as seen from the bottom of the stairs.

From there, it was a short ride along the Waterfront Trail to where I could get onto Hamilton streets, and then another 15 minutes or so to my friend's place. So far, I'd ridden about 95km.

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After a nice barbequed lunch, I was on my way again. The return route was about 85km, and without the hills that the trip down had ended with, so I was feeling optimistic. The route started but cutting east across town to Stoney Creek, where I could hook back up with the Waterfront Trail.

Unfortunately, just as I got to Stoney Creek, the city was hit by one of these miserable summer downpours that has been plaguing the area this summer. I had to hole up in a Mac's Milk for 15 minutes or so, until the rain had passed (first flag).

The Waterfront Trail under the Burlington Skyway runs along the east side of the land below the bridge. Bicycles and pedestrians can cross at the lift bridge (second flag), but apart from that the ride is extremely flat and easy.

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Once back in Burlington, I was retracing the route I'd taken on the way down. I did make some changes, though: I skipped a few of the smaller detours from Lakeshore Boulevard to the waterfront, and instead of going around Rattray Marsh, I went through.

The trail was pretty good, but at one point, turning a corner, I had the most serious spill I've ever had on my recumbent bike. The limestone path, wet from the downpour, had turned to soft clay on the corner, and my rear wheel slide sideways, taking the entire bike out from under me and dumping me on my tailbone in the mud (flag).

This was more surprising than anything -- it's very hard to get thrown from a recumbent bike. My worst spill ever on a recumbent was far less dangerous than even a mild spill on a standard bike, since it's almost impossible for me to fall head first. Still, it was uncomfortable, and wet. The bike also suffered some minor damage: the bell was totalled, the steering was knocked out of alignment (not by much, only a couple of degrees, but noticable), and the seat was soaked. It was still quite ridable, though, so I was back up and on my way in a few minutes.

I had to walk the bike for the last part of the marsh trail, because it has stairs and ended in that sandy section that had discouraged me from entering the marsh on the way down.

Not long after that, I arrived in Port Credit, and decided to stop for a bite of pizza.

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The last leg of the ride was uneventful, though by this time I was starting to wear down. It was almost 12 hours since I'd left the house, and I still had 30km to go.

When I got back across the Humber River, the last complication appeared -- Caribana. On my trip out, I'd passed by the parade route long before festivities were to start, but now the western beaches were packed with celebrants who'd stuck around after the parade ended. The Waterfront Trail was far too busy to ride, so I cut up to the Queensway and rode the rest of the way home on King Street (which was packed solid from Roncesvalles to about Spadina). Finally, around 8pm, I got home. I'd been out for roughly 13 hours, of which 10 were spent on the bike. L & I went out for dinner as my muscles complained about having to be used for walking instead of cycling, and I had a very good night's sleep.
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Cobalt: Agility Fun Run

We've had Cobalt in Agility classes for quite a while now. She can handle all the obstacles, but she doesn't have a lot of drive when she goes around the courses. We've been suspecting she's kind of bored with the whole thing, so we've moved her from Agility into Rally Obedience (which starts in September) to see if she likes that better.

However, Lane White, the Agility trainer, announced at the end of the last course that he was having an Agility Fun Run. A Fun Run is a run on a standard outdoor course that doesn't count towards any ranking -- it's great experience for the dogs, because an outdoor course is very different from an indoor class, even if the gear is the same.

Lane runs Daytripper Dog Training from his place on Lake Skugog. He and his partner, Teddy Green, have a full-sized Agility area set up in the field beside their house.

When we arrived, the place was being circled by a turkey vulture, which wasn't very encouraging, but things went quite well. The vulture was no doubt disappointed.

Cobalt's first run was hopeless -- she was much more interested in sniffing around the field than running the obstacles. But Lane assured us that that's typical of a dog's first time on an outdoor course.. In fact, Cobalt was running the course pretty well by her third run, and Lane told us that some dogs can take six months to get their act together, so we were pleased.

Lori took Cobalt on the runs while I managed Denim and took photos. Managing Denim proved to be a little tricky. At first, I just had her on a flexy leash while I walked around to shoot the dogs running the course. She was fine with that, until Cobalt went up -- then she went squirrelly, barking her head off. I ended up putting her in the travel crate we had for her, where she continued to bark and whine while I shot stuff.

Unfortunately, she managed to chew through the mesh in the crate, and had her head out by the time anyone noticed. So much for that crate!

For the rest of the run, I kept her on a short lead, and kept her back from the fences while photographing -- though that limited my options for angles.