I’m guessing you, like the majority of the worlds population live in a city. The problem with cities are too numerous to go into here, but the main one is they really aren’t that much fun to ride a bike around. Or at least not in my experience so far.

After being woken literally at the crack of dawn on a Sunday to the dulcet tones of my neighbor figuring it’s the right time to mow his lawn, I was literally at a loose end. It doesn’t help that it’s the hottest weekend of the year so far with the humidity contributing to an energy sapping 39 celcius yesterday and today promising more of the same but with thunderstorms mixed in. I was planning on riding today but the threat of rain put me off, especially after only just getting my leathers dry. However, there are some odd-jobs that needed doing and now I have the panniers affixed to the Tiger, I decided to take her out for an early morning jaunt before heading to the hardware store.

Like most people, I don’t usually get out on the roads that early, at least very often. If you do, you’ve been keeping a little secret all to yourself, haven’t you and I stumbled across it this morning: Cities are completely transformed at that time of day. With no traffic to hold you up you can make some good progress around a city and what’s more, those turns and straightaways can be taken at your pace and not that of the old lady talking on her cellphone ten cars ahead of you. Maybe it was luck, but lights seemed to turn green for me as I approached. Even the cop I sped past waved cheerily. Ordinarily, doing 20km/h over the limit is a sure way to get a ticket in this town, but with a clear road and a not too aggressive posture, I guess it just wasn’t the paperwork to him.

This leads me to the Urban GP. It’s not a race but a term I’ve seen used for places in cities that challenge a rider. A place to put the knee down, open the throttle or practice counter-steering. In short, fun with no one else around and that is key. It’s all about the timing and it seems to be that earlier is better. My route is here and it took me just over an hour at 8:45am. I dare say that had I started earlier it would have taken a little less time but I do know that during the day it would have been at least double that.

Here’s looking forward to next weekend and seeing what else I can find in downtown TO.

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