trails

Brian Betsworth sent me a heads-up of a new cycling organization in town. The Toronto Off Road Bicycling Association (TORBA) was founded just under a year ago with the aim to benefit off road riders by taking care of Toronto's many unofficial dirt trails, and to engage with authorities to help legitimize cycling off road. As Brian explains,

"Mountain biking" is nothing new to Toronto, nor are sweet trails; but it's only lately that the topic has become an issue to land managers and conservationists; and a source of concern and debate for riders and builders. Many people believe the forests are public space, free to all, and so building sweet trail and riding wherever and however they feel is the way to go; to the authorities trying to manage those spaces, it's their land, their responsibility, and the issues become all about liability, environmental impact, and sustainability. Oh, and recreation. So TORBA has waded into that river of debate, and aims to build bridges, and shift perceptions, while maintaining, preserving, and creating new off road cycling opportunities in Toronto.

TORBA and Umbra will host a launch event at Umbra's Concept Store, 165 John Street, on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008, from 7 pm till 11 pm.

The City of Toronto Official Plan envisions a city where active transportation helps to relieve congestion and improve air quality. Yet, right now less than 2 per cent of the City of Toronto Transportation budget is dedicated to walking and cycling infrastructure.

Now is your opportunity to let the city know that it needs to treat cycling as a serious form of transportation.

Tomorrow, Thursday March 6th, the City of Toronto's budget committee will meet to wrap up the 2008 Operating Budget. The Operating Budget pays for the staff that runs programs and services. For several years now cycling activists have been trying to get increases in this area without success. Although we welcome the 2008 capital budget increase in transportation services from $3.0 million to $5.5 million for cycling infrastructure (needed to install the substantial increased amount of 50 km of on-street bike lanes scheduled for this year) it is now time to ask that the cycling safety, education and promotion programs also receive a similar much-needed boost.

Martin Koob of biketoronto.ca has posted a succinct summary here. It includes an outline of the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation's (TCAT) bike-related recommendations.

They asked council to:

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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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Last Friday, my partner Wendy and I rode down to Port Dalhousie/St. Catharines and stayed overnight at a nice B&B.

The next morning we pedalled down most of the fabulous Welland Canal trails (45k from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, a fully paved recreational trail, highly recommended) and returned to Toronto on the Bike Train via Niagara Falls. (More Photos)

Bike Train organizer Justin LaFontaine, has done an excellent job getting this pilot project off the ground. All 56 spots of the inaugural run were sold out. Congrats!

So, how is it? It's a breeze. Getting your bike on and off the train was easy. Mind you Justin and his assistant have to do some heavy lifting since there are no baggage handlers at the Niagara Falls Station. But they are very careful and friendly.

"Time to put up, or ...", Justin tells me. And I think he's right. But with a bit of help from many of us who enjoy bike touring in the we can make sure VIA will sees the obvious benefits of a long overdue bike/train alliance.

If only I will age quite as gracefully. At about kilometre 60 into the 100 km "Amazing Toronto Bike Tour" an older gentleman on his Canadian Tire road bike tells me that only last year he was hospital-bound with a broken hip from a cycling accident. And now he's biking 100 km in one day. Amazing.

Last Sunday I hosted the second 100 km ride, the "Amazing Toronto Bike Tour" (photos). We had about 25 people of various levels of ability. I was surprised that most of the participants were willing to tackle the daunting 100 km, and quite a few either biked the 100 km, or biked a lot more than what they were normally used to.

I commute a lot by bike but rarely do I bike that much in one day. It was a good way to work off some winter fat since it's so hard to take long bike rides in the frigid weather. I'm just lucky that I started commuting to Mississauga so I had some training coming into the ride.