Lily Cheng Community Ride – 2026

Today I participated in Toronto Councillor Lily Cheng‘s third community ride from Avondale Park to Biisaadige Park, a ride of about 25 km.

I was invited to attend to take pictures and blog about the event as I did on Councillor Cheng’s first community ride in September 2024.

The purpose of the ride is to encourage Willowdale residents to try biking, and Bike Share. Bike Share bikes were provided free of charge to anyone who didn’t have a bike or wanted to try Bike Share. The ride began at Avondale Park, near Yonge and the 401. The route wound its way through quiet Willowdale residential neighbourhoods to the Don Mills Trail, and the Don Trail, with a brief stop at Evergreen Brickworks, and a planned finish at Biisaadage Park, a relatively new park in Toronto’s Port Lands. 

I invited my fellow Brampton cycling advocate Cindy, to join me. We considered riding to the beginning of the ride, but would have had to have left Brampton about 6:30 in the morning so we decided to carpool.

I enjoyed a short visit with Jason Thorne, Toronto’s Chief Planner. I first met Jason a few years ago when he invited people to join him on a ride around Hamilton when he was their chief planner. Hamilton was, and Toronto is, fortunate to have him.

Lily gave a brief welcome to the group.

Albert Koehl, is an environmental lawyer, Toronto cycling advocate, and author of Wheeling through Toronto: A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders. He gave the safety briefing.

Peter Low, is instrumental in organizing the ride and led it.

Jesse spoke about North York Cycles. They are a community group started in 2025 for people who want to ride together. They also deliver bike tuneup events and advocate for road safety. Check out their website for the 2026 Ride program.

The group is ready to leave.

Here’s a video of the group leaving Avondale Park. I counted 120 people and three dogs.

This is one of the youngest participants. 

The many crabapple trees we encountered were gorgeous.

We took the sidewalk under the 401. There is no safe Active Transportation crossing of the 401 anywhere near Willowdale. The nearest would be on the Betty Sutherland Trail on the east side of Leslie, but it has been closed for construction on the 401 for a few years, and will remain so for a while yet. 

Then we had to wait quite a while before we could stop the traffic on the highway 401 ramp to get into the calm neighbourhood on the other side.

Community Bikeways provided marshals for the ride. They did a great job of stopping traffic so our large group could stay together.

Here the group is crossing Bayview Avenue.

And here is Councillor Lily Cheng on a Bike Share bike.

Robert Zaichkowski is a Toronto cycling, advocate, and fellow blogger.  He was riding his cargo bike today so he could bring along his sweet dog Mozzie.

We had a short stop in a school driveway for a group picture.

These are the other two dogs that were on the ride along with their owner on his recumbent electric tricycle.

I endorse this message.

We were routed through a plaza to get to the north end of the Don Mills Trail at York Mills Boulevard. We gathered under York Mills until everybody was ready to continue.

Unfortunately, the Don Mills Trail ends just north of The Inn on the Park at Eglinton. One has to use this sketchy trail through a break in the fence. When I was here two years ago, we rode down the sidewalk to get to a traffic light to cross Leslie Street. This time we rode this desire line through to some new condos.

The driveway of the condos is where the traffic light is.

At this point, we had a short ride on Leslie Street. Three years ago, we turned into the driveway for Wilket Creek Park.

Today we turned onto the multiuse path on the north side of Eglinton.

This led to a an excellent new access point to the park. It was lengthy with a switch back, making the grade quite accessible. It’s unfortunate that the Don Mills Trail and this beautiful new ramp don’t connect safely. 

Here’s a video of the group using the access ramp.

This is the new Ontario Line, a 15.6 km rapid transit line which will run from Exhibition Place to the former site of the Ontario Science Center. It will cross the Don Valley via two major bridges. This is the first, a 500 m bridge rising up to 38 m above the valley floor. Here’s a video about it that I was served as I was uploading my videos to YouTube today.

We had a short stop just before going under Overlea Boulevard. There were washrooms and water fountain.

Here is the another very young participant, along with his brother, who rode the whole 25km.

Imagine if all these people had driven cars to the park.

Here we are on a refuge island crossing Pottery Road. You can see the marshals stopping traffic so the whole group can cross safely and stay together.

We filled the protected multi use pathway along Bayview Avenue.

We had a half hour break at the Evergreen Brickworks. I enjoy attending these events in Toronto because it often gives me an opportunity to meet in person people that I have interacted with online. Here I am with Cindy, Brian, who I was meeting in person for the first time, and Janet.

This little guy powered up this hill after riding about 23 km so far, without complaint.

It was an odd day, weatherwise. It was warm when we left Willowdale, but we lost the sun and it felt cool as we rode south. As we got towards the bottom of Bayview Avenue and came along Mill Street the wind increased suddenly and it started raining quite heavily. We sheltered under the Gardner Expressway and the marshals conferred with each other.

We could see one of the Portland bridges, and we’re only about 1 km from our destination Biisaadage Park. However, there’s very little shelter in Bissdaasage Park, so the decision was made to do a U-turn and go into the Distillery District.

Despite the wind and the rain, everyone was still happy. Here I am with Lily.

Lily thanked everyone for attending and gave instructions for either returning the Bike Share bikes or continuing on to Union Station for transit home.

Cindy and I had planned to ride all the way back, but given the weather, we decided to get coffee instead, and invited Janet to join us.

While we had coffee the weather changed again. 

Cindy needed to be back in Brampton about 4 PM so we decided to ride to Union Station and take the subway back. Janet led us down Lower Sherburne where they have raised cycle tracks.

Sugar Beach was very busy with people lounging and taking in a food festival.

And here I am in Union Station. It was only my second time taking my bike on the subway.  The last time was for the Bill 212 rally. 

We got off at the Sheppard stop, and it was only a short ride back to the car.

Thanks to Lily, Peter, and Community Bikeways, for organizing such a fun event and keeping us safe. I look forward to next year.

Here’s a link to the route we rode today on Ride with GPS.

Here’s a link to Robert’s blog post about the ride.

Here’s a link to a playlist of all the videos I took today.

Here’s Janet’s video of the day.