If you need a reminder that there is a higher order watching over us (NOT our profane version of moneyless fusion of people under Big Brother), put yourself in danger. I mean to the edge of things. That alone should be enough – if you survive. But if you are blessed with unexpected rescue, bringing you back from the edge, that is even better. I had two such moments in this, my latest ambitious attempt to extend the bounds of Toronto cycle pleasure to the edge of the world. I.e., what’s doable by bike ALONE (OK, public transit too), but sans the killer car. You’ll have to read to find my epiphanies, but they were/are truly divine. No other explanation.

The trip had a rocky start. Up at 5am to Union Station for the 6:05am train to Oshawa. I took a chance on the ‘no bikes’ in rush hour. When the gate was announced, I suddenly realized my Presto card was at home in the drawer! Living downtown and with my trusty bike, I rarely use public transit, which is slower and unpleasant (make it free and more enjoyable, please). And of course left my baseball cap for some lucky fellow. Oh well, a 20-minute (uphill) ride home, sweaty, retrieved IT, watered the plants, got another cap, and made a note for neighbor Marty to feed the sparrows Saturday too, just in case. Now the 7:05am train and hope that the conductor (they are rarely seen anyway) would not be surly.

I loaded my bike and on to Oshawa, the only alarm being a violent shouting match between young lovers from the upper deck, and the bus to Peterborough. But first a tongue-lashing from the surly, fat woman driver, who refused to let me load the bike up front on the bike rack, as I have a carried (firmly attached). The only other time I’ve been hassled was by a short, fat Indian immigrant driver. I dutifully, with difficulty, managed to insert it in the luggage hold. She harrumphed and lectured me: Just so you know, you are responsible for any damage.

And what a dreary ride, with stops at strange tiny ‘park and ride’, occasionally ‘kills and ride’, asphalt parking lots in the middle of nowhere (what possible use could they be?). One person actually got off at one. I wanted to grab her arm and ask her ‘what for?’ No wonder the driver was such a … (choose your own epithet). Her life was driving back and forth from one bleak spot to another with stops at senseless parking lots.

Finally Peterborough. But where was the river? I could have used the sun, but my ordeal drained my self-confidence. Almost everyone not in a car is Asian or African, even in Peterborough. I figured they wouldn’t know and asked a young white pierced-ear guy at the stop. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he replied hostilely. The next person I asked (black) assured me I was headed in the right direction. The Otonabbee and bike trail. The Otonabee (‘the bubbling and boiling water of the rapids beat like a heart’) flows into Rice Lake as part of the Trent-Severn canal system, connecting Lake Huron to Lake Ontario, which arguably held Canada together. Lake Erie and the Niagara Falls were a bummer for commerce (and defense). Trent University operates its own hydroelectric plant on the river. So thank you Odoonabii-ziibi (in Ojibwe).

Things were finally looking up. But bike trails have a habit of abruptly stopping with detours poorly marked so I continued my interaction with locals, which is one of the joys of biking (other than angry young men). I had the directions courtesy of Google Maps (don’t be fooled, at least for bikes, they are only rough guides) which had nothing in common with the young couple’s directions. Maybe Google’s purpose is to put bikers in touch with locals? Their advice got me on the rail trail to Hastings. A man, a plan, a canal, Hastings!

As I said, the trip started badly. Worse yet, the trouble had begun the day before, when (multi-tasking) I managed to leave my library DVDs at the foodbank, remembering only at bedtime. So when at 10am, halfway to Hastings, I decided to phone PWA and ask. Yes, Nat found them and would leave them at the front desk. A good sign.

The rail trail is nice, safe, occasionally scenic, but 40km of the straight and narrow was enough. Now Hastings bridge and south to Lake Ontario. A tiny sign said ‘bridge closed’ yet the trail continued. I kept biking to the cool wooden swing bridge, but when I got on it, it was indeed closed,. I could easily have biked over the edge, a good 80-foot drop. A nice European cycle-nerd laughed as he biked towards it ‘I like to dangle my feet over the edge’. So on to the ‘heart’ of Hastings, to the mundane Bridge Street bridge.

I continued now with trepidation, as the next 50km was on the main highway 45, and not an inch of bike path. Re road bike ‘paths’, there are many versions: white line only (lethal), white line with 12 inches of path (bearable) and 3 feet of path (exquisite but rare). Thankfully, the traffic wasn’t too bad.

After 3 hours of hell (walking up steep hills with my 10-ton loaded bike) and many breathers, I realized I was setting myself up for sunstroke (or heart failure). A kindly senior stopped and checked that I was OK and gave me some water. That was a boon. Someone cared!

Mostly nothing to lean my bike on during my many breathers. There is the road, the gravel shoulder, ditch. But in a delirium, facing the ditch, I suddenly saw beauty. Not always, but often a floral arrangement, more beautiful than the tight-assed formal gardens that wear you out looking at them. I could stare at God’s floral arrangements and find peace. I can see them now as I write. And later when sitting in grass, weeds, bushes, an elegant daddy-longlegs deftly dancing through all the obstacles on long impossibly delicate legs.

I kept slogging, hoping to get to Alderville, where the next scenic bit should be. But I doubt now that I would have made it. Resting, another car stopped and out stepped Archangel Gabriel, né Tim, a huge smile on a blond, sunburnt face, about 30, happy to load my bike in his hatchback and take me to highway 18. A back-to-the-lander, no-tilling farmer, though he grew up in Toronto. When we stopped at the turn-off I bought ice cream cones to treat him, but he politely declined as ‘full........

© Eurasia Review