Whether you're a novice rider, an expert, or you've done eighteen Tour de France rides in your lifetime, nothing puts a pin in summer quite like a sudden bike problem. Barrelling along, the wind at your back, you suddenly feel as if you've slowed to a crawl. Then there's the telltale rumble of pavement getting too close to your wheel's rim, poking through quickly-deflating rubber. Or maybe it's the fingernails-on-a-blackboard shriek of failing brakes. Whatever the case, the problem is the same.
Your ride is sick. It needs medicine—good medicine.
Sometimes the best medicine, though, is the knowledge of how to fend for yourself, and there's nowhere better to learn than locally. Luckily, Toronto is a haven for not just a robust, diverse cycling community, but also for the services that support it—many of which offer you the means to help yourself, to learn to fish rather than simply be fed. Toronto is abuzz with community options for cyclists, educational bicycle resources, and the space to learn by doing. If you're looking for know-how, there are so many options in Hogtown you might just run straight into one—although hopefully not literally.
Here are three of the best bets for becoming a well-oiled, streamlined bullet of a human being, all on your own, all locally.
It's occasionally forgotten that there's still a bike union in town, but there is. It simply changed its name. Now known as Cycle Toronto, the former Toronto Cyclists Union is an excellent first point of contact for riders of all walks of life, first-timers or otherwise. Supported by its members, most of whom play a modest yearly fee in exchange for a voice in the organization, Cycle Toronto is a grassroots, community-based group that's interested in one thing: to make local cycling "healthy" and "safe," and for Toronto be a "cycling-friendly city for all."
How it goes about doing so is varied. There are campaigns to introduce bike lanes on Eglinton Avenue; there are outreach materials; there are any number of initiatives to press the need for improved bike safety at Queen's Park and City Hall. But there are also offerings like the Toronto Cyclists Handbook, a free download outlining how to get around the city safely, what your rights are as a cyclist, and what not to do when a car cuts you off. Then there's the Toronto Cycling Map, which shows how to get from one part of town to the other with the least headache, or the route to take that's the most picturesque. It's even supported by initiatives on the Cycle Toronto website like Ride the City, a Google Maps-driven application that will show the Safe, Safest, or most Direct routes from point a to point b throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Because sometimes you just need knowledge, right? Or, more specifically, directions. Especially in a city this size.
There are no eye patches or Jolly Rogers here, but there's a general do-it-yourself spirit that has built up a massive, dedicated following in west Toronto. Bike Pirates, located at 1292 Bloor Street West—just east of Lansdowne—is run entirely by volunteers, and is all about teaching you how to be your own self-sustaining bike shop. It's also about providing a positive, supportive space where, if you've sprung a flat or busted a spoke and you don't necessarily know what you're doing, you can easily find out how.
Bike Pirates offers on-the-spot instruction in bicycle maintenance, a drop-in space where you can work on your own bike, and even the patience and the means to let you build a bicycle from the ground up. As ardent supporters of the local bike community, they're also a repository for donated parts, and supply local charities with bikes whenever a need arises—which, as you can probably guess, is a recurring need. For women and members of Toronto's LGBT community, the space is totally reserved on Sundays between 12 and 6.
But perhaps the greatest treasure about Bike Pirates is the community it creates for those who support it. With a mission to "empower cyclists and make bicycles more accessible," Bike Pirates organizes bike tours of local urban community gardens, holds social events called "Third Friday," and functions as something of a soup kitchen, too. "For the last two years," reads its website, "Pirates has been striving to provide hot, healthy food for the folks in the shop." With a food program that runs on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, Bike Pirates keeps its community running as smoothly as the bikes it helps to fix. "With the right volunteer power," it adds, "we would like to serve food each day we are open."
Nourishing body and mind. Talk about the right mix.
Of all the community-minded resources for cyclists in Toronto, the Community Bicycle Network is probably the most venerable. Registered in 1993 as a non-profit, it was incorporated in 1997, and has more or less changed the way people identify as cyclists in the twenty-one years since its inception. Clean Air Cargo was a Community Bicycle Network initiative; same with BikeShare, a bicycle-lending program that predated even the current Toronto Bike Share. 150 bikes stationed at 16 hubs throughout Toronto was the count of its fleet during the Community Bicycle Network's heyday. Today, it's the offerings that remain unseen that make it one of these top three selections.
Like Bike Pirates, it's got a do-it-yourself mission when it comes to bike repairs. While it also offers more traditional bike repairs, the price is what makes the difference: sixty dollars an hour for mechanical help, vs. $18 per hour for the time required to teach yourself. A bike stand is given to those who come in to learn by doing, as well as a full array of tools—some that can no longer be found, if you've got an older, less common bike.
The Community Bicycle Network also provides a variety of workshops, each focused on different parts of your bike's workings with beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Front end, rear end and drivetrain maintenance are all offered, as well as broader instruction in care, maintenance, and troubleshooting. It's perhaps the oldest, most well-known operation in the city for becoming totally self-sufficient on your steed.
