Toronto Donut Ride
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The Donut Ride is an informal Toronto road cycling tour run every Saturday and Sunday as well as public holidays. Typical summer numbers range from 100 to 125 riders forming a large pack, and weather permitting the ride continues year-round and often sees a dozen riders even in mid-winter. The ride is known for being fairly fast paced, often reaching the high 40km's low-50s on straightaways. It is also known for being fairly unforgiving, riders who are dropped from the pack are on their own.
[edit] History
The tour was first organized as the local team ride of a bike store in Scarborough in 1976, but later moved to a new starting point more centralized in Toronto. It remained associated with a bike store for some time, and was insured by the Ontario Cycling Association. A serious accident in the 1990s led to the entire group being sued, and since then the ride is completely unofficial. Although the ride often took place four times a week during the summers of the mid-1990s (including an extended 160km run up to the Holland Marsh -- the "Marsh Ride" -- on Wednesdays), it is now primarily a weekend and holiday affair.
[edit] Ride route
The current route starts at 9AM at the corner of Eglinton and Laird, in the parking lot of a former donut shop - hence the ride's name (currently a Great Canadian Bagel). Only a small number of the eventual pack starts at the shop, however, with riders joining all along the route, notably from a church just past the starting point, and from the bridge carrying Lawrence Avenue over Bayview Avenue.
The tempo is easy early on, with riders chatting as the pack heads north and out of the city. The normal route follows Bayview northward to Sheppard Avenue. Just north of Sheppard it turns west onto Spring Garden, then right on Wilfred Ave, and then left on Empress Ave, and then north on Willowdale Ave. It follows Willowdale north to Steeles Ave where it turns west to Yonge St. At Yonge it takes the first left on Crestwood Rd. The ride follows a number of smaller streets before turning onto Bathurst for a short period and then around a ramp onto Highway 7 - a major six-lane highway - where the talking stops as the tempo picks up rather dramatically. The main high-speed portion continues from here across to Langstaff Road, before heading north on Keele st. Here the pack fragments, as the cross wind and rollers on Keele take their toll. Usually riders in the front group sprint for a line which is painted on the road on the outskirts of King City.
Several routes branch off from here, including a shorter 87km route across King Road, a middle distance route along Bloomington Road, and a longer and much more challenging hillier route further north on Keele and back on Dufferin. There are six traditional routes from 83km to 122km. The ride meets up again after turning east to Yonge Street for a stop at Grandma's Oven, a small Polish bakery just south of King Road in Oak Ridges.
After the stop, at around 11:00am, the ride continues eastward around Lake Wilcox on Sunset Beach Road, before turning north on Bayview. At the corner of Bayview and Bloomington Road, the group usually splits -- with riders either continuing north on Bayview, across Vandorf Sideroad and back on Kennedy or turning right on Bloomington and returning on Leslie St./Don Mills Rd. -- depending on the distance individual cyclists wish to ride. The return portion of the ride starts slow, but is followed by a higher speed section culminating in a sprint at 60+ kmh on Leslie just north of Major Mackenzie Dr and a sprint on Kennedy just north of Unionville. The ride slows as it reaches the northern end of the city and the traffic signals once again become a problem. Oddly the ride does not end at the starting point, but a location only a kilometer away to the southwest. Most riders have already split off from the main peloton by this point, though.
[edit] Tips for riders
- Many riders from the north meet at the Petro Canada at Yonge and Crestwood Rd. The ride picks them up about 9:30am.
- In-city speeds are fairly low, but as the pack builds it becomes large enough to essentially ignore traffic signals and settle into a steady mid-30s.
- Once the ride exits the city around Highway 7, the speed quickly picks up into the high 40s.
- The pack normally starts to split up on Keele Street, where a series of rolling hills drops the weaker riders, who form their own packs to continue. It's easier to hang in with the group on the return portion of the ride, which is downhill and frequently has a tailwind -- allowing the peleton to attain speeds of 45-55 kmh.
