Author: Milan

Looping Toronto

Yesterday, Albert Koehl from the Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition led about 50 of us on a loop around Toronto, from the central waterfront along the lake to the Humber River, up the Humber to the Finch Hydro Corridor, across the city to the Don, and back along the waterfront:

We did 79 km in 8 hours, and I met lots of nice people. The theme of the ride was ‘filling the gaps’ — calling on the city to remove the awkward parts where we had to leave the bike trails behind for fast roads and, in one case, an active construction site where we had to help each other through fences.

This could be a fantastic season for cycling, and I am looking forward to when the Neon Riders start meeting weekly again.

Seeing botanical possibility

West of Bathurst, St. Clair’s retail strip comes alive, at first without a discernible character — a typical Toronto jumble — to eventually become Corso Italia. The neighbourhood to the north of this stretch has been called ‘the Woods,’ as its streets include Humewood, Pinewood, Wychwood, and Kenwood. Laura Reinsborough, founder of the urban fruit-gleaning organization Not Far From the Tree (NFFTT) and a former resident of this neighbourhood, saw these woods through her ‘fruit goggles’ — her group harvests thousands of pounds of fruit from private urban properties each season. Reinsborough got into the fruit-picking business by accident when she volunteered at the nearby Wychwood Barns farmers’ market and was asked to pick apples from the heritage orchard at nearby Spadina House, near Casa Loma. Back at the market, they were sold with a sign that read ‘This was biked here from 1.3 kilometres away — trying to put to shame the 100-kilometre diet.’

NFFTT’s fruit-picking activities have spread to other neighbourhoods — Reinsborough estimated that there are 1.5 million pounds of ‘edibles’ growing around Toronto that could be harvested. She had a theory that there is such good fruit growing around St. Clair because it’s up on the escarpment, just like the Niagara peninsula and its vineyards.

Micallef, Shawn. Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. Updated Edition. Coach House Press, 2024. p. 182

Watching the snow fall

Winter has fallen decisively across Toronto. Right now it’s longjohns-and-a-toque weather inside my small apartment, with nothing but white to see at any distance outside the windows.

I brought my bike in for an annual tune-up, plus a shifter repair and replacement tires. I don’t expect much biking for several months, but it was good to get it into the shop during their less busy time. I’m getting an upgrade to Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, which the staff say are good for puncture resistance, plus replacing the seat which is gradually eroding away with a more comfortable and better one.

I am looking forward enormously to the return of bicycling season. The city seems so much more open and endowed with possibility when it is possible to get anywhere without worrying about TTC delays or deep snow banks.

Foreward to Stroll

A new, cool style of engaging and enjoying metropolitan realities has recently emerged in Toronto among certain young writers, artists, architects, and persons without portfolio. These people can be recognized by their careful gaze at things most others ignore: places off the tourist map of Toronto’s notable sights, the clutter of sidewalk signage and graffiti, the grain inscribed on the urban surface by the drift of populations and the cuts of fashion.

Their typical tactic is the stroll. The typical product of strolling is knowledge that cannot be acquired merely by studying maps, guidebooks, and statistics. Rather, it is a matter of the body, knowing the city by pacing off its streets and neighbourhoods, recovering the deep, enduring traces of our inhabitation by encountering directly the fabric of buildings and the legends we have built here during the last two centuries. Some of these strollers, including Shawn Micallef, have joined forces to make Spacing magazine. But Shawn has done more than that. He has recorded his strolls in EYE WEEKLY, and these meditations, in turn, have provided the raw material for the present book. The result you have in your hands is a new introduction to Toronto as it reveals itself to the patient walker, and an invitation to walk abroad on our own errands of discovery, uncovering the memories, codes, and messages hidden in the text that is our city.

Foreward from first edition, Toronto, 2010

John Bentley Mays, 1941–2016

Micallef, Shawn. Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. Updated Edition. Coach House Press, 2024. p. 7

Interior, not interpersonal

Thought is an interior experience, not an interpersonal event. Thoughts innocently arise from our instincts for survival, security, and pleasure and are involuntary. They are the personal raw materials of the mind and, as such, are neither good nor bad. However, emotionally immature people judge your thinking to make sure you stay aligned with their beliefs.

…

It’s hard to be clear on your own position if you know your opinion could lead to your being reviled. Because EI parents need to feel like they are right about everything, they make you feel rejected if your thinking doesn’t match theirs. As an adult it’s self-defeating to accept others’ opinions instead of consulting your own mind. But EI parents teach you to do just that: they act like you’re being rebellious or selfish if you don’t consider them first in every step of your thought process. EI parents see free thought as disloyal. For EI parents everything is about how important, respected, and in control they feel. So, what happens if you have your own thoughts and opinions? They see you as disloyal. To the ‘all or nothing’ EIP’s mind, your differing opinion means you couldn’t possibly love or respect them, therefore you may have learned to hide your most honest thoughts from your thin-skinned EI parents.

Gibson, Lindsay C. Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy. New Harbinger Publications, 2019. Chapter 8: “Making Room for Your Own Mind”

Cherry blossom season-starter

Last night, the Neon Riders began their 2025 season with a tour of Toronto’s varied blooming cherry blossoms:

These rides are one of the definite high points of my week. Riding in a large group is a totally different experience from riding in the city alone — as long as you are not at the edges you barely need to worry about cars, which is an inversion of the normal city cycling experience, and the rides are fundamentally social since you are always surrounded by people who you can speak to easily and naturally.

Plus, there are bike dogs: