Maira and Scott suggested biking along the Humber river trail, which stretches north-southish all the way up to Steeles. I’d never been along the north part of the trail, and it sounded like a great way to spend the Sunday afternoon. They originally wanted to meet up at 12. It was 11:30 by the time I left. It would’ve taken me too much time to get there through public transit, so I arranged to bike up and meet them at some point along the trail.

The Humber trail is an easy ride with the occasional hill. The only tough parts are that you sometimes need to find the trail again. I got a little lost along the way, but GPS and other people helped me get back on track.

My friends were running quite late, so I ended up leisurely pedaling all the way to the beginning of the Humber trail near Kipling and Steeles. I had my Kindle with me, so I passed the time reading. After we met up, we took the trail south. We overshot Bloor and circled back, emerging at Royal York and Bloor. We headed our separate ways at Bloor, and I made it back home by 4:30pm.

I covered 50km, finished two bottles of water (and wished I’d brought a third), and snacked on one granola bar. When I got home, I had a refreshing shower, then read two books and took a short nap.

So. Biking a long way. I think it’s the longest and farthest I’ve biked semi-continuously. I wasn’t winded afterwards, just a tad wobbly, and W- and I still got plenty of things done the rest of the day. I think it’s more like plugging away at this exercise thing, like perhaps you might on a stationary bike, except that the scenery changes, there’s the occasional breeze, and you really should put on sunblock (which I did). It’s not hard. It’s just being present and keeping your legs moving, and maybe not getting run over by cars on the stretches between the proper trails.

I think it’s amazing being able to bike on a small paved trail clearly in much use – we saw lots of pedestrians and other cyclists – far away from the sights and sounds of the city, yet in the heart of it, and never too far away from help or the rest of the world. There are many other things I can do in five hours, sure, but this is pretty good too.

2011-07-03 Sun 20:25