don valley

I've heard of many mountain bike trail building efforts within the City of Toronto, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, but this example of railway underpass / bridge building on the Don River is the most interesting one yet.

It consists of a wooden trestle about 15 m long and about 75 cm wide. It extends from one side of the bridge to the other. It is low enough for a biker but I had to duck my head when I walked along it. It is solidly built and creatively uses available space. the bridge is resting on poured concrete pilings that are sitting on rocks that were already there. From some of the comments I've read on the biker forums it took 40 bags of cement to build.

More details over at the Don Watcher blog.

The City has been working with the community to make sustainable trails in the ravines for the last few years. Back when I was working with the city we got trained to swing a adze-like tool called a Pulaski and solid rake-like stamping tool called a Mccloud to move dirt and such. We got to do trail work in the humid summer days making sustainable trails that can withstand a lot more rain and usage by dog walkers and mountain bikers. The city's recent Sustainable Trails Initiative newsletter is below (and if you haven't tried out these trails yet I highly recommend it):

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