Commute from West end to Bloorview Kids Rehab

For the long scenic route home, you could go down the Don Valley path (I believe you can get on from the east end of Broadway) all the way to the end, then you can head west on the Martin Goodman trail to Strachan and then north on Crawford.

Also if you head east before north, you'll find climbing to Eglinton and Laird easier than up to Poplar plains road. If you took Bloor/Danforth across to Pape (not sure if you are comfortable with this route or not) you could head north on Pape, then over the Leaside bridge (there is a bike lane on the bridge)

Assuming I survive the climb on the way over (I'll give it a try before writing it off and trying alternate routes), I'll try the scenic route home, since I'm leaving early this week - sounds fun! A shame, though, that there aren't more options for getting to the Don Valley Path, and that some of the options dump people out on streets that are not particularly bike friendly.

Try this route:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2123959

There is a pedestrian bridge over the railway tracks in Rosedale. You still have to climb, but it isn't as steep. The block on Yonge is between two trafic lights and if you turn with the lights off Belmont you can be most of the way to Crescent before the traffic on Yonge gets a green light.

There is a way through the Moore Park Ravine for the way home, on a packed dirt trail, but the climb up Milkmen's Rd may be a bit challenging for now.

I wish getting on the Don bikepath was easier and that the map was clearer in this regard.

Connecting Rosedale Valley Road with it would be a great idea. No reason the Bayview Extension couldn't be less of a highway and more of a bike friendly road.

Has anyone tried to bike through there recently?

What a bloody disaster.

Ever since the torrential rains we had i think 3 years ago the Taylor Willcot trail has been a mess. Now it is tought to get through on a mountain bike, road bikes don't even bother as you'll get sand in your shoes and destroy your wheels.

Balls!

I love online maps (nerd that I am). My first thought was that cycling to Bloorview would be completely out of the question, I had no idea there would be so many options. I'm going to try a bunch of them over the fall just for variety and a chance to explore different parts of the city. I didn't actually begin to appreciate Toronto until I started biking through it and discovered all the neat little neighbourhoods that you never get to see from the main roads.

According to the Collins dictionary, I'm still a few months shy of middle age, but I'm willing to stretch the truth a little for a catchy subject line.

TTC to Bloorview Kids Rehab: roughly 1 hour. Middle aged female cyclist: 40 minutes. Yeah, I'm unbearably smug right now. :)

A few notes for anyone who might read this thread at some point looking for a similar route:

I was right to be worried about the hill up to St. Clair. I took Bathurst up because Davenport goes downhill on its way to Poplar Plains and I didn't need to add to the already long hill; I'm not embarassed to admit that I found myself praying for a red light at the tiny side street halfway up the hill. I got lucky. While I sat there waiting for the light to turn green, I wondered if I should get a physical before doing this again.

By the time I got to St. Clair, my legs were rubber, my heart was beating hard, and I'd barely started my ride. But the hill was over, right? Wrong. Someone could have mentionned that it's UP HILL ALL THE WAY!?!? True, it's significantly more subtle after St. Clair. Small comfort.

There are some downhill bits here and there. Bittersweet - downhill on the way there means uphill on the way back. My state of mind was clearly going downhill too.

As I recovered from the hill to St. Clair, I started enjoying the ride more. It's all residential streets, very quiet, very safe.

Did I mention that I beat the TTC by 20 minutes? HA!

The ride back through the Don Valley was AMAZING. It was the payoff for the morning climb. Not only was it beautiful, peaceful, scenic, you name it, it was downhill most of the way. :)

It's like giving birth. While you're going through it, you're thinking I AM NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN. And the second you hold that sweet little baby your mind forgets about all the pain and exhaustion and you think "I want another one!" The hill up was labour, the Don Valley back was my baby.

I got a late start back, so I didn't want to do the whole scenic route. I'd also decided I didn't want the Don Valley to be an occasional pleasure - it HAD to be my weekly route home, so I was going to have to find a way to make it work. This could only mean one thing: Bayview.

It turns out Bayview wasn't as bad as I'd feared. The shoulder is fairly wide, I stuck to the extreme right, and it wasn't a very long stretch. I got off at the Brickworks, and took a small break to check out my map. I ended up wasting time connecting to a trail behind the Brickworks - after a steep hill up, it goes back down and I could have more easily connected with it by staying on Bayview just a bit longer. I took the trail up to Elm - a very steep and washed out hill with not a soul on it. This was the only time in my ride where I thought "Hmmm, probably not the best place for a woman to be by herself". Pushing my bike up the hill was more exhausting than cycling up to St. Clair, and you all know my lack of enthusiasm for the latter.

I managed to take multiple wrong turns trying to find my way out of that one section of Rosedale, thanks to a number of crazy streets that either change direction but not their name, or change their name but not their direction, and a cycling map that is missing multiple street names. Given the miserable experience just getting up the trail to this point, I think it might be a good idea to try the trail heading up to David A Balfur and getting out at Roxborough.

More map gazing as I try to find the best route from East of Yonge to West of Davenport. I eventually make it home in 1hr24min, though I'm pretty sure I could do it in one hour once I've figured out the best route.

I beat the TTC, I beat the TTC, nyah nyah.

It's true that most reasonable distance trips can be faster by bike than TTC even by those of us who are not riding super-fast racers or road bikes and not in near-Olympic form.

A couple of years ago, I was approached by a Toronto Sun (Sun TV) reporter at the car-free event at Dundas Square. During the interview (published a few days later and run on their channel), I mentioned that my wife used only the TTC and that she was on her way to meet me. We had, in fact, been talking at the bus-stop nearest to our place at Doverourt and Dupont when the bus came up behind me on my bike as we talked, so we left at virtually the same time. I don't ride terribly fast and I stop at all red lights, though I admittedly do take some liberties with stop-signs. Still, I managed to arrive in 13 minutes where it took my wife 34 minutes.

The better way is a relative term.

Hell you can beat the ttc even on longer routes like eglington and keele to finch and younge i do this ride every morning at 3 am on my way to meet my ride for work into york region and i still make it there about 15 mins faster then the blue line would get me there and on my way home in rush hour i do it at least an hour faster as eglinton is a parking lot so the better way is only better for those that don't want to cycle

I beat it every day when I go to work downtown. I just didn't expect to beat it by that much on an uphill ride. I'm getting on, you know! I was having fun with it; way to rain on my parade guys! :^)

Every once in a while there is someone who does a "race" between cars, bicycles and the TTC. The rsults are predictable.The TTC always loses, unless the start/end points are directly on a subway route. The cyclist wins, unless the race is to a very suburban destination. Usually it's the Cyclists who wins, then the driver, then the TTC.

Annie, cycling is a great way to get around, and you should be proud to be one who uses a bike to get around. And you should be proud that you're still faster than the TTC. Way to go! You've discovered first hand one of the secrets as to why so many of us enjoy cycling in the city: it's a fast way of getting around town!

I biked to Northern Secondary with my son on Wednesday and he handled the hill up to St. Clair just fine - we went up Christie (I don't know if that makes any difference). I had no problems either - turns out my tires were under-inflated the last time I did it (ooops! I feel like such a newb). So for anyone considering it, please ignore my earlier post - it's really not that bad. I just wish there was a way to get from Christie to Tichester without riding on St. Clair or Bathurst. I'm considering a windy sidestreet alternative that might work, if I don't get lost doing it.

For our return trip, we biked down the Don Valley to Cherry Beach, now joined by dh and 11yo dd (who has less positive things to say about the ride up to Northern). Overall ride was pretty good - not exactly scenic S. of Riverdale, though. And the trail along Cherry Street changes sides of the road on one block. With no lights to cross and cement trucks flying by, this is one piece of the trail that needs some work.

Heading back home, we took the bridge to Riverdale Park (West) and searched for an opening in the fence that would allow us to access Bayview Av. and from there, Rosedale Valley Drive, but no luck. No way I would ride the shoulder along Bayview from Pottery Rd with kids, so we ended up pushing our bikes up the stairs out of Riverdale Park. The stairs are well designed for cyclists pushing bikes and both kids made it up the hill without help or whining (which, after the long ride they'd been on, is really something).

Other rides with kids this week included a trip over the Prince Edward Viaduct - not fun. I've been over the viaduct before on my own, but something about riding with kids really heightened my awareness of the speed of the passing cars. Something also needs to be done about the ramp to the Don Valley - the merge between cars and cyclists was definitely not happening when we were there.

Finally, a shorter ride that took us on Hallam, where my daughter kept drifting into the door zone thanks to the poorly placed sharrows (despite my repeated yelling from behind: "Get out of the door zone!"). Sure enough, a driver opened his door into her path. She was able to veer around it, a move that would have put her into the path of any passing cars had there been any, and had I not been taking the lane right behind her. This has prompted an angry letter from me to the members of the public works committee about the poor design of cycling infrastructure in Toronto. The Toronto Star has an article today claiming this is the year of the bike in Toronto - apparently everyone knows this except the people in charge of bike lanes.

Annie