Canada is big. The climate, terrain and attitude you would find in British Columbia, the Prairies or the east Coast are different worlds. Imagine visiting Austria and just seeing Retz, Eggenburg and Hornbach... It was kind of like that, but on a larger scale. We stayed in downtown Toronto, Ottawa and Huntsville.
Toronto:
This has become like a stereotypical folklore story for North American cyclists: a bike rider goes to Europe (probably France or Italy). There he/she ends up meeting a local rider or coach with a colorful history. He goes to visit and finds a basement full of bikes, jerseys, spare parts and lots of history. Inevitably, the conversation turns to various stories of great rides, and great races like the Vuelta, The Tour, as well as stories of meeting and training with pro riders. The rider leaves deeply impressed, with a heightened passionate for cycling and the religion around it.
In my case, this was totally backward. I met Tim Porter through my friend and fellow Mid-week Club member Geoff Morgan. He generously offered to lend me a bicycle during my stay in Canada. He has been racing for a number of years, winning and placing in numerous races (including the national championships!). He is friends with Mike Barry, the well-known frame-builder behind Mariposa bicyles and father of Team Columbia professional Michael Barry.
When the dust had settled, I found myself in temporary possession of Kuota with Campagnolo Record - a pretty exotic ride in Canada, where Cervelo has taken root like weeds. I love my Specialized SL2, but it was impossible to bring it, so this was a nice chance to compare it with another bike.
My first ride was 90 minutes in downtown Toronto, along Lakeshore Boulevard and to Thompson Point. As excited as I was to be riding, it brought back some painful memories of when I lived there some years ago...
Too many drivers are relatively inconsiderate and usually in-attentive, the roads have deteriorated in the past years to the point of disgrace and there are hardly any options for riding more than five minutes without having to stop for a traffic light. Leaving the city by bike takes about 90 minutes on busy 4-lane roads. In short, a disaster.
Toronto has, nevertheless, what is known as "The Donut Ride"; an informal meeting of road riders meet at a Donut shop each Saturday and Sunday and gather members as the group rides north out of the city. This is much like the Loewenbrucke Ride in Vienna.
The renowned Mid-Week Cycling Club organises a bi-weekly training criterium series and time trial series (way out in Markham-- are there still any stretches of more than a few kilometers without traffic lights?). Toronto also has some really nice bicycle shops, like La Bicicletta and D'Ornellas' to name two.
I did three rides in Toronto; two of them ended up being hill intervals on a 3.5 minute climb on Bayview Avenue. These were far from enjoyable as I was nearly sideswiped a few times and the heavy traffic was distracting. There is a paved shoulder for some of the climb, but the surface gets so bad that you can barely pedal without slamming into potholes or loose chunks of asphalt.
According to Porter, the number of bicycles on the roads has increased in the past 10 years or so, and this has helped make drivers more accustomed to cyclists.
But even when driving our rental car downtown, it was stressful to watch so many casual cyclists and commuters riding on narrow and pathetically bicycle-unfriendly streets. There may be improvement spearheaded by a strengthening bicycle lobby, but progress is slow. All I can say to cyclists in Toronto is "respect". You have to have a real passion for cycling to live there and ride.
Ottawa:
The next stop on our trip was Ottawa, the nation's capital region. The winters are colder and more brutal in Ottawa, and the city feels like it's one tenth the size of Toronto, but for quality of life, there is no comparison. There is a nice green belt around the city, a large network of dedicated bicycle paths, and best of all, Gatineau Park. A large provincial park (think nature reserve, but with camping, swimming beaches, hiking and even a lookout) to the north of Almer city in the province of Quebec, Gatineau Park features a hilly 20km loop road that you can ride to within 20 minutes of Ottawa. Here you find little traffic and the asphalt is smooth. There is also a neatly trimmed grass shoulder along the road, so you always feel like you are riding through a forested golf course.
I missed a licensed road race in Gatineau Park by a few days, which was sad as I remember racing it as a junior in 1989, but Geoff happened to be in Ottawa for a few days, so we got in a nice ride together on the course. You know, after living in Austria, the climbs were much easier than I remembered! The longest climb on the loop only took seven minutes, and it isn't very steep. I guess what makes the race hard is the never ending up and down. Eventually you just can't go anaerobic anymore - that's when things turn ugly.
But the long standing and deeply respected Ottawa Bicycle Club is still very active. In addition to a number of licensed races during the season, they organise weekly time-trials along a park road and a criterium series on the National Research Council grounds.
On a Tuesday night, I joined one of the criteriums. It alternates each week, once a "B" race for people who are less experienced, then an "A" race the next week for the licensed guys. It was pretty laid-back and informal, but that didn't seem to stop anybody from getting their sprint on. There were a bunch of Senior 1 and 2 riders present, so it was pretty fast, and although you could almost pedal through each of the four corners, you still had to accelerate and go anaerobic a lot to stay with the group. I mostly camped out at the back to get my training in and stay out of people's way, but eventually breakaways and splits in the pack began, so I went to the front and joined in the fun. After lots of attacking and counter attacking, I found myself in a few breakaways, but everything was chased down eventually and I backed off for the last 5 laps(for fear of crashing Tim's bike!).
One particularly fun aspect was that I could understand everything people were yelling and cursing (ie. when somebody swerved, or to the people not working in our breakaway attempt). In Austria, I only catch about 30% of what people are complaining about because of the wind, dialects and lack of oxygen in the brain...
After the race, another really cool thing happened: I ran into Michael Bennet, an old high school buddy from my home town. He now owns Euro Sports (http://www.euro-sports.ca), a bicycle shop in Ottawa, and builds/designs the Prologue bicycle line.
Huntsville:
The next stop was Huntsville. This small town is about 250km north of Toronto. It has been a summer cottage haven for Torontonians for ages, but having grown up there, I know the redneck side as well. Winters growing up were hell - it lies in a snowbelt region, so you can forget about cycling for five months of the year thanks to the Siberian-style winters. In addition, the road surfaces are poor, there aren't many roads to choose from and if you flat during a springtime ride, you ride the rim instead of stopping- you will be eaten alive by clouds of mosquitoes and black flies.
It was fun to ride on some of my old training routes again, now lined with more and more houses as people flatten forest to put up new homes, and it really struck me how the hills are so tiny. After living in Austria, the climbs are nothing. But they are steep - you can forget about Grundlage training - the rises are so steep that you end up wearing out your derailleur or climbing at 20rpm for some time until the hill flattens out. The roads are laid over the rocky terrain, through pine and maple forests, through swampland, and around the hundreds of lakes. I used to say, "when you've seen one tree, you've seen them all", but it is actually much nicer when you aren't used to seeing it.
So that was it - a nice visit, and a bunch of good rides down memory lane. But if you are thinking about where to do your training camp next spring, you might want to look elsewhere. Or at least check first to see if he snow has melted away...