Don Valley Trail Riding
August 23rd, 2008 | by Daniel |This morning some friends from work and I checked out the Don Valley mountain bike trail (for the adventurous, this is where the trailhead starts). I actually didn’t even know that there was a trail there and I was really surprised with how fun it was. There are a few trails that start from the location above, including both double- and single-track. We took the “challenging” trail indicated by the red line on the map located conveniently at the trailhead.
It was a bit of a rough start for all of us, the trail is incredibly narrow at the beginning with lots of brush getting in your face, and some pretty monstrous inclines. After the initial shock things smoothed out a bit for us but the ride was definitely more difficult than the trails I remember riding when I was younger. There were some awesome winding downhill sections and a couple of small jumps that were fun and not too intimidating. Unfortunately, Eric’s tire popped towards the end of the trails so he had to walk the rest and catch a bus from Bayview. The red trail is listed at about 5.7km but I clocked closer to 4km - I’m assuming this is because the greater distance includes all of the shortcuts and forks in the trail, etc.
Mike, Ben and I decided to ride the easy double-track trail back to the other end of Bayview, and I wanted to go to Duke’s downtown to check out some clipless pedals. Going down Bayview to Queen and then across to Spadina was a pretty quick route. At Duke’s, Ben decided to get himself a bike computer like mine, excepted he opted for the wired model and saved about $30. I bought myself some Shimano clipless pedals for $60 and a great pair of Specialized MTB shoes for $199. Randall helped me out with everything and even gave me a small discount on all the stuff, which I thought was great.
I always figured my first real upgrade to my Rock Hopper would be some clipless pedals, but I really thought I’d have some trouble getting used to clipping in and (especially) clipping out of them. I was really expecting to wipe out a few times before getting the hang of it but these pedals are great. They’re a basic double-sided pedal and getting in and out of them is really a breeze. My ride back home was pretty cool, I was easily going about 5-6km/h faster than what I was used to on the regular pedals and I’m sure it’s still going to take me some time before I can really take advantage of the increased efficiency.
My right foot was getting a bit sore on the way up, not sure if it was the shoe itself or just the “locked-in” feeling that was causing it, but I’m hoping that it’ll go away as I break in the shoes and get used to the new pedals.
