Toronto kicked off Bike Month this year (May 26 to June 26) with the 25th anniversary of the Toronto Bike to Work Day Group Commute and pancake breakfast at Nathan Phillips Square, organized by Cycle Toronto. The month-long event will involve various bike tours, races, tournaments and more as the two-wheeled chariots hit city streets en masse.

Other unique events include perennial favourite the Tour de Dufflet (May 27 to June 30), a cycling adventure to all three Dufflet cafés in one day with a sweet offered at each one.

Also this spring, Toronto author and cyclist Christine Bruce has published a great new cycling book, This Road Continues One Block North.

She started a unique research method back in 2011: When she saw an interesting bicycle on the streets of Toronto, she would leave a card seeking further information and letting the owner know her appreciation. She conducted over a hundred interviews across the GTA — 60 of which were published in her book.

“I interviewed a woman in North York about her night rides and a young man from Thornhill who used to ride into Liberty Village to work every day,” says Bruce cheerfully. “Also, a woman in Scarborough logs how many kilometers she’s put on her bike — she has circumnavigated the globe once already.”

In addition, the City of Toronto has produced its own free cycling app. The new app provides cyclists with route information, average speed and distance as well as greenhouse gas offsets.

The app tracks the cyclist’s movement to provide the city with data that will be used to formulate its cycling plan.

That’s a win-win.