My ACL Tear and Recovery
Mountain Biking in the Don Valley
It is one of Toronto’s worst-kept secrets, and it also one of its best surprises: there is amazing single-track mountain bike riding in downtown Toronto. The network of Don Valley mountain biking trails stretches from downtown out to almost Scarborough, and the trails are technical, generally well-maintained and quite busy. It is absolutely amazing to wake up, head downtown, thrash around on a 10k trail a couple of times and then head home via subway (if you’re lazy like me). It almost makes up for the fact there’s no decent riding to be had in Ontario.
I’ve been thinking about biking a lot lately because it’s one of the few things I can do post-surgery for a while. I’m already on the stationary bike for about 10 minutes at a time, and expect to be ready for some vigorous biking in a month or two. At this point, I can fully extend my leg, and walk with virtually no limp; the problem now is the leg is so weak-assed it needs a whole lotta biking and weights. But between physio and my condo’s gym (hooray for maintenance fees!) I’m hoping to get it built back up pretty quickly.
Anyway, about the Don. If you live in Toronto and own a mountain bike, you owe it to yourself to check it out. But because it’s free, you also have to be mindful of staying on trails, respecting wildlife and not leaving garbage behind. It’s an awesome gem that could be taken away at any minute.
Discussion
5 comments for “Mountain Biking in the Don Valley”
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hardwood hills in barrie has some of the best mtb’ing you will ever see, check it out.
Oh yeah. Been to Hardwood many times, I love it!
[...] see if the conditions warranted a trip in. Apparently, things are still quite damp and snowy in the Don Valley, so I guess I’ll be sticking to [...]
[...] advanced. I’ve been up there myself a few times to mountain bike, but since discovering the Don Valley Trails I haven’t really headed [...]
[...] the net result of this is I’m probably done with the Don. The Don Valley mountain biking trails are already almost borderline inaccessible where I live now; [...]