“Toronto is such a bike-friendly place,” smiles Bruce Abe, co-owner of popular bicycle rental service Wheel Excitement. “There are literally hundreds of kilometres of trails and paths that can take you just about anywhere in the city.”
Operating out of 110-249 Queens Quay West, Wheel Excitement is conveniently situated at the halfway point along popular person-powered path, The Martin Goodman Trail. The establishment opened in 1993 when Abe and a colleague recognized the lack of an outlet where tourists — Torontonian or not — could pick up an eco-friendly, exercise-encouraging machine in order to explore both the obvious and subtler aspects of the GTA.
At that, Abe notes Toronto Island Bicycle Rental, where beach cruisers, tandem and four-seater bikes are for rent at modest fees, and Mount Pleasant Cemetery’s “peacefulness” as examples of both.
However, he admits there is a need for cycle-centric tours of our fair city, despite the ample amount of trails, paths and generally entertaining engagements one may explore when tooling about Toronto on two wheels.
“(Because) it’s so easy to ride the city,” he continues, extolling the virtues of pedal-power as an inexpensive albeit multitudinously beneficial mode of transport, “it really depends on what people want to see. Some of Toronto’s greatest attractions are only a short ride away.”
Top Ten Toronto cycling spots
1. Martin Goodman Trail: Lakefront path spanning Humber River to The Beach
2. Don Valley Trail: 40 kilometres of mountain biking and pavement
3. Humber Trail: 32 kilometres of above
4. Leslie Spit: Beautiful city vista
5. Toronto Islands: Five car-less kilometres of paths
6. High Park:A natural oasis
7. U of T: Historic buildings, mature, tree-lined routes
8. Scarborough Bluffs: Majestic nature
9. Mount Pleasant Cemetery: Humblingly quiet
10 Distillery District: More Toronto history/architecture
