fun in the don

Last weekend the Boy and I decided that (another) break from racing was on order. I normally consider it pretty much sacrilege to skip a cross race, but the season is so much bigger than it when I first started racing, that I now find it pretty easy to burn out if you don't take a breather every now and then.

Instead, we spent two days in the Don on our cross bikes.

The first day had the best weather, and we wanted to make a bit of a date out of it, so we brought the BOB trailer and a bunch of extra gear for a picnic. We went up on the road to the top of Mandelbrot, one of the trails on the upper west side, and then did some riding and bushwhacking along a section of trail called Beaver Flats, which the Boy has been trying to clear before winter. On one hike-a-bike section, we looked down into the river and saw a large deer crossing to the other side (that blurry blog in the photo, just behind the stick that was apparently my focal point). A few muddy prints on the trail confirmed that he'd been there just a few minutes before.

Beaver Flats connects to PA just past a small stream crossing. We followed PA back out to the road, and then ran into Tara and Wayne as we backtracked to where we'd seen the deer come across, which happened to be at this little picnic spot right next to the river. We saw a couple of people try to come through Beaver Flats from our picnic site, and could see riders up on the ridge, too. It was sunny and dry, and it was great to see so many people out on trail.

After some cookies and hot tea, courtesy of the awesomest camp stove ever, we came down the Ridge trail. Even when he's towing a trailer full of stuff, I still can't keep up with the Boy on those trails!

Sunday was looking a bit more wet and dreary, but we decided to head out and see how the trails were, regardless. We took a different route north, still sticking to the road to the most part. I'm attaching a map for this one because I get so lost trying to explain it all.

Basically, we went up through Sunnybrook park, down a trail we call "Bobsled run" (if you saw it iced over in winter, you'd understand). We climbed out of the park onto Leslie, and crossed to Overland on our way through the streets to the rainbow tunnel. The rainbow tunnel leads to a trail that follows the east Don south again towards Taylor Creek, and despite the misty rain most of the day, the trails were surprisingly rideable. We had ridden a large chunk of this route in the summer with the gang from True North, and I am happy to say that despite being on my cross bike, I think I rode about the same percentage as I did on my mountain bike. It was still pretty challenging for me, and at one point (when we were still far from home) I could feel myself getting cranky. I managed to talk myself out of it, reasoning that it was a long enough ride home as it was - it really wouldn't be any more fun or go any faster if I were in a bad mood, too! And the rest of the ride was great - we had another tea and cookie break (this time using a thermos, as we were travelling much lighter), discovered a new little stretch of single track which we will be riding this weekend, and stopped for a nice warm coffee on the way home.