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Emily and Tammy bike to work

I hadn’t owned a bike since my teens. I was too scared to face my fears. 

By EMILY GILES

I’ve always wanted to be a cyclist. But I’ll admit it, I’ve been scared. 

I had a really bad car accident when I was in my 20s and ever since have played it really safe around anything to do with cars and traffic. 

Although, as a conservationist, I’ve always applauded the cycling community for its contribution to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, I haven’t owned a bike since I was a teenager. I’ve been too intimidated by Toronto traffic to face my fears.

But last summer my colleague Tammy Thorne proposed the perfect opportunity to give bike-riding a chance: test riding a brand new Brodie bike and blogging about my experience as a new cyclist in the city for Dandyhorse magazine. 

Even better, Tammy, who lives around the corner from me, offered to show me her biking route, teach me the rules of the road and safely bike to work with me every day until I felt comfortable. I liked the idea but still wasn’t 100 per cent convinced.

Shortly after Tammy’s proposal, I got a visit from my grandpa, who lives in Calgary. I told him and his old pal Andy about it over dinner one evening, and they agreed that I should absolutely go for it. Both Andy and Grandpa are avid cyclists and believe bicycling is the secret to staying young – both mentally and physically. 

Andy grew up in Toronto and shared some amazing stories about what it was like to bike here in the 1930s, when there weren’t many traffic lights. Sent to England during WWII, he continued to enjoy biking all over a new country.

In fact, Andy recently got the green light from his doctor to get back on his bike after suffering a mild stroke. He loves riding at the velodrome in London, Ontario, and says he can’t wait to get back at it. Did I mention that Andy is 95?

After chatting with these two, I was sold. If that isn’t inspiration to get off your butt and get active, then I don’t know what is.

First Tammy and I reviewed the route on a map. We start in the Annex and have to travel north to Mount Pleasant and Eglinton. I was disappointed (though not surprised) that there aren’t too many bike paths along the way. But I was happy to learn that many cyclists travel this route, and that a bike path runs along the uphill section on Poplar Plains.

I felt comfortable and safe right away on my new Brodie bike. Tammy was a great guide and made me feel like I didn’t have to rush or do anything I wasn’t comfortable with on the road.

We tested out our route to work on a low-traffic Saturday afternoon when we weren’t on a timeline so I’d know what I was doing during the busy Monday morning commute. We took our time and stopped along the way so I could ask questions, and even checked out the books in the Little Free Library in Oriole Park.

The test ride was calm and stress-free and much easier than I’d anticipated. I felt ready to face the Monday morning traffic.

We left a little bit after 9 am to avoid some of the rush-hour traffic. It was fantastic. The best part was arriving at my office and being greeted by all my colleagues, who were super-stoked that I was now part of the biking community. 

I work for an environmental NGO, so our office probably has more cyclists than most. We’re already planning a few group trips so I can try some new routes around the city.

I love how energized and happy I feel throughout the day after biking in. Though not a morning person, I feel much better equipped to handle the mornings now. 

Our IT guy, Mark, always rides his bike no matter the season or weather, and I’ve yet to see him in a bad mood. Now I know why. It really makes a difference to your day. Seeing lots of green space along the way and avoiding the TTC crowds sure doesn’t hurt either.

Biking offers a great new perspective on the city. I’ve lived in Toronto for about a decade now, and cycling has taken me on new streets and through neighbourhoods I’ve never previously explored. 

I had two minor run-ins with motorists during my first few weeks on the road. Once I was honked and yelled at by a driver of a Mustang (I’m not sure why – I was stopped and turning right at a red light and was using my hand signals), and the other time I was cut off by a BMW convertible at a four-way stop when I had the right of way. But for the most part, cars have given me my space and been respectful.

I’m really happy that I stepped out of my comfort zone and gave cycling a try. I feel great and love coming home to my favourite cold and well-deserved beer after a hot (although admittedly all downhill) cycle home.


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A mishmash of bike lanes leaves cyclists without any reprieve.

By TAMMY THORNE

I enjoy encouraging new cycle commuters everyplace I work – and pretty much everyplace I go. I started doing it years ago when I worked at U of T and lived in Parkdale.

Along with a half-dozen other bike commuters, I used to participate in something called Bike Friday. We would post our commute routes online and invite local cyclists to meet up on Friday mornings to bike together into the core. We were lucky to have Alternative Grounds donate free coffee and muffins to fuel up our small group. Our MP at the time, Peggy Nash, even showed up and joined the ride for a spot on MTV once.

Last summer I started commuting to work with my newest convert to cycling, my co-worker Emily Giles.

Emily was new to cycling at the time, but her overall observations about commuting on two wheels were bang on pretty much from the get-go – in particular, about the dangerous state of some intersections. 

She’s right. Intersections are where most car-bike collisions happen in this town. But there are other obstacles, too, many of which we encounter on our ride to work.

Emily and I both live on a blue-signed route in the Annex, one of Toronto’s most bike-friendly wards, yet it is littered with potholes and tar snakes of various degrees of viciousness.

We are forced to ride Dupont for a short bit before we hit Poplar Plains. The un-signalled intersection at St. George and Dupont is a total trap for cyclists, and the curb lane is more akin to the skills section of a dirt bike track than a city street. The holes and debris in the gutter along this very crowded and fast-moving street certainly add to the thrills as we try to make eye contact with every driver trying to turn left onto Dupont from St. George and those trying to turn south from Dupont onto St. George. 

And as we all know, not all drivers are created equal. Like, for example, the woman checking her phone while waiting to make the left turn there. Her distraction gave us an in to turn, but it was also a scary moment, since people who text and drive often hit the gas pedal before they actually look up from their phone to check their mirror. 

Then we head up Poplar Plains, Toronto’s first-ever bike lane, and into a leafier part of town. The lane is lovely, but the hill is not if you’re on a single-speed bike (which actually has two speeds: sitting and standing). But even standing, I would rarely make it to the top and would usually walk the bike for the last stretch. 

I’m fond of saying, “There’s no shame in walking.” At some points in this commute the hills are less steep, but the incline is long and arduous, so to those of you deterred by hills, I can confidently say the key to a happy ride is more gears.

Once we make it up the hill, we hit St. Clair. Oh St. Clair, what a poke in the eye to cyclists you are.

When the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way was built, there was clearly not one single thought given to cyclists. The street is narrow and fast-moving and makes zero concessions to those on bikes it’s a major connector route with no infrastructure for bicycles.

Perhaps most insulting is the sign on the ground ordering us to Walk Your Wheels along a small section of sidewalk adjacent to a new condo development site to get to the light that crosses near Dunvegan at the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. Walking adds time to our overall commute and robs us of any momentum we might have built.

The intersection at the top of Dunvegan where we turn east on Kilbarry is also tricky. Motorists are often distracted and in a hurry (it seems to be out of fashion to use your turn indicator), and we really take our time at this five-way stop. We indicate our direction, stay in the middle of the lane and attempt to make eye contact with drivers. 

Even though this is a signed route for cyclists, tolerance for bikes still seems low in this neck of the woods of giant homes (many of which appear uninhabited), landscape workers and nannies walking designer dogs.

Once past Oriole Parkway, though, we’re in the home stretch. We cut through the cute Oriole Park, where cyclists are told to use the west-side path. Not sure what that’s all about. 

We then head east and up Duplex and across Yonge to Soudan (since Eglinton is out of commission until the beautiful big bike lanes are installed with the new crosstown LRT). The intersection at Soudan is unpleasant for the uninitiated.

Probably the most terrifying experience for Emily and me (new and veteran cyclists would agree) was being behind a big dump truck dripping hot, gravel-filled cement that slowly chugged along as we neared the office one day. A small pickup truck with contractors following behind us was beeping like mad trying to get the dump truck to stop and pull over. I, too, was yelling: “Oh my god! Watch out, Emily!” 

Luckily we didn’t get burned, and the truck eventually pulled over. There were bits of hardened cement along that stretch of Soudan as a result. A shame, really, since that is one of the few smooth streets in our entire commute.

We need the city to provide a minimum grid of bike lanes that are protected from vehicular traffic on major roads and connect to bike boulevards and quieter side streets. Right now we must navigate a mishmash of bumpy blue-signed routes and bike lanes that abruptly end, leaving new cyclists like Emily in the middle of traffic without any reprieve. We can do better, Toronto!

Tammy Thorne is editor-in-chief of dandyhorse magazine. A version of this story appears at dandyhorsemagazine.com.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

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