Fishleigh Dr to Nursewood Rd

Been sick for the last couple weeks, but did manage to do a couple rides w/ my fiancé - one for 20K and another for 23K, both helping to break her out of her '5K radius from home' comfort zone. Other than that I've been pretty tired lately.

Today, however, I finally got out and got paddling again -- this time from the corner of Glen Everest Rd and Fishleigh Dr to Nursewood Rd and back.

I'd planned to paddle to Woodbine, but the trip west was much choppier and windier than I'd expected, so I only made it to the water filtration plant at Victoria Park Ave and Queen St East. Oh, well, at least I was able to see the CN Tower from there!

After a brisk swim to cool off, I continued west looking for an easy roadway access point, and Nursewood Rd will certainly work for the next leg of my paddling around the lake.

If you're going to try this paddle, I recommend accessing the water from the east side of the path that heads down from the corner of Glen Everest Rd and Fishleigh Dr, as it's smooth until you get to the rocky beach. The west side, as I discovered on the trip back, is muddy, rocky, and difficult to portage by wheel. Either way, the path down from the street is a VERY steep hill -- much steeper and longer than the Galloway Rd access. Portaging, even with wheels, is difficult here.

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The great thing about today's paddle, despite not getting as far as I wanted, is that as of today I've successfully paddled the entire width of Scarborough, about 20K. Admittedly, I haven't done it in one single paddle -- rather, it's been 4 trips of varying length: Rouge Beach -> Galloway Rd -> Bluffer's Park -> Cliffside -> Victoria Park.

Walkin' on water

Took the dogs out for a walk today to a new place -- Cliffside. This was partly to explore a new area w/ the dogs, but mostly because I wanted to scope out the lake approach coming down the hill from Fishleigh Dr & Glen Everest Rd.

It's pretty steep, as this top map (with the path we walked) shows:

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What's fun is that at the far east edge of the map, we apparently walked right off the trail and into the water. This was not the case, as this satellite map shows:

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I suppose I prefer Bikely.com's path mapping tool to Google Maps' My Maps, though Google gives you the option to locate points of interest and businesses on your map, as well as a whole raft of other options:

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New crank & pedals

I'm lovin' my new crank & pedals. Also trying out a helmet-mounted rear-view mirror, which is... difficult to get used to.

Biked over to Ten-Ichi on Sheppard between Markham & McCowan tonight for some AYCE sushi.

Only 8K to get there, and tons of great food. After dinner we drove over to the theatre at 401/Morningside to see HellBoy 2.

Biking home was another 8K, for an average speed of 23 km/h, max 47 km/h. The hill-valley-hell that is Morningside is great on the way down... less fun on the way up, and the road's pretty badly in need of repaving.

Frenchman's Bay @ Dusk

Tonight I drove out to Pickering to pick up my bike and its shiny new crank assembly & pedals. Afterwards, I drove over to Frenchman's Bay, ended up on the east side, got lost briefly in suburbia, and finally found my way to West Shore Blvd and the lake. The east side was much more lively, with a band entertaining people loudly enough I could listen in from a distance from the shore.

An hour and 5.5K later, it was time to head home. The moon -- even at half -- was bright enough to be caught first with a lens flare and then reflected in the bay.

I'll definitely have to do more night paddling -- there's a full moon next week!

26.050K

Friday/Saturday: 20K. With my other half's bike, went to and from my mom's house twice, including taking her out for her first ride of the season.

Sunday I did my usual 6K paddle from Galloway Rd to Bellamy Ravine and back, plus a short swim in the still *very* cold, but refreshing lake at the midpoint.

A broken pedal

Clearly I'm not handy-capable. Sunday I reinstalled the pedals I removed in order to get my bike home from Ottawa, but they didn't want to go on properly, so I ... forced it. While it worked for a 25K ride w/ Paul that day, it seems like that was a bad idea.

4.5K into my ride today with Andrew, my right pedal fell off. I tried to make it work, but there was nothing holding it on, so every revolution it just fell off again. After another few K of one-pedal-action, we gave up and headed back to Lawrence Ave to await a lift home.

On the second attempt we did about another 13K, this time using my fiancé's bike. Aside from the over-zealous seat (it's just too soft and springy!) her bike rides like a dream. Mine is going in for service tomorrow, since it's Canada Day today.

On the plus side, as of today I've done 400K by bike this season and just over 40K by kayak (covering about 18K of lake shore). Woohoo!

Scarborough to Pickering

In my continuing quest to paddle the whole north shore of Lake Ontario, I've now mapped another chunk of the lake: about 7.5K from Rouge Beach Park, the far east side of Scarborough to Frenchman's Bay in Pickering.

Kayak: Rouge Beach Park, Scarborough to Frenchman's Bay, Pickering

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

This also marks the first time I've paddled back to the car and had to use the Yakima rack twice in a day. It certainly makes loading easier than last summer's el-cheapo foam pads, especially since I can now load single-handedly.