'Remember, keep your weight back and watch out at the bottom," Doug McCorquodale tells me, balanced on his mountain bike at the edge of a parking lot on Broadview Avenue. In front of us lies a narrow trail down into the Don Valley. The path is escalator-steep and lined with mean-looking trees.
We take off, letting the hill pull us, and my newbie cyclist's mind starts racing. I'm sure he said to watch for rocks and roots on the trail. He said there's a rut in the middle that our tires could catch in.
I bomb down the single-track chute, slender weeds and branches thwapping at my legs and hands. Don't follow too close, hold onto the brakes, don't hit the trees, I remind myself.
The words "watch out at the bottom" flood back to me just as I reach it. I turn hard and hop over a creek, exhilarated and relieved all at once.
The hill is just a warm-up. A couple of hours later, the words I'm wishing I'd remembered are these: "Don't go over anything if you can't see what's on the other side."
Every month or so, Mr. McCorquodale and his volunteer colleagues at the Toronto Bicycling Network do their best to get a few road bikers off the asphalt and into the dirt through their Saturday morning "Nobbie Newbie" clinics. The club offers the $5 intro sessions in Scarborough's Highland Creek and in the Humber and Don Valleys, teaching basic mountain-bike handling, trail etiquette and safety to neophyte off-roaders -- enough skills, with luck, to keep riders from serious harm.
The clinic's most impressive lesson, however, becomes apparent a few minutes after we pull off the pavement, when the trees and the wild seem to envelop us and the sound of urban traffic dulls to white noise. You can still find nature -- serious, beautiful, overgrown nature -- in the heart of Canada's most paved-over city. That, and a serious dose of adrenalin.
Seventeen of us have met at the entrance to Don Valley Brickworks park on this recent Saturday morning. Half the group are women, and few of us fit the extreme-sports demographic; if not for a couple of bookish teenaged boys, our average age probably pushes 40. Our mountain bikes sparkle in the sun; at least half of them look showroom-new.
After running through a list of safety tips and some basic techniques, Mr. McCorquodale, 41, leads us into a warren of easy trails behind the Brickworks factory, guiding us up and around the banks of a former quarry, letting us figure out how to use our gears and brakes and balance our weight on the hill climbs.
When we roll up to a wide, flat path with forest on either side, Mr. McCorquodale pulls a folding saw from his pack. With Marc, his assistant, he cuts deadwood from beside the trail and starts piling logs in the middle of our path. "Oh my God, I'm not even going to look," one of the newbies says. "Please make him stop," another laughs. "He's becoming a beaver."
They keep adding more logs, and after 15 minutes the pile is nearly knee-high. But with Mr. McCorquodale coaching, traversing the pile isn't as hard as it looks. The bookworm boys clear it without trouble, then it's Karen and Jane, two friends who figured riding would be more exciting than tennis, and Winston, a serious road biker who has never tried the trails before.
After my attempt, one of the other newbies even says I look like a natural.
We coast back into the Brickworks parking lot by noon, thirsty, sweaty, mud-splattered, but otherwise unscathed.
"I'm going to ride some more this afternoon," Mr. McCorquodale says, inviting us along. "It'll be a bit harder than the morning ride."
The way he says it, I don't think it can be so bad.
There are fewer riders now: me, Mr. McCorquodale, Marc and three other not-quite-as-nobbie newbies. The ride will take us down a steep descent, Mr. McCorquodale tells us, then under a railway bridge, over several logs, around a long set of banked curves along the Don River, and past a "fun park" where other riders have built dirt jumps in a forest clearing.
The descents feel more natural now as we learn to keep our weight back and ride the brakes. Logs and rocks are easy. When we reach a set of slalom curves we swing through like kids playing crack the whip.
By the fun park, I'm cocky. Stupid, even. Mr. McCorquodale leads the group around the side of the jumps, but I aim for a low mound.
As I approach I hear his voice in my mind repeating one of his safety tips: "Don't go over anything if you can't see what's on the other side." But my front tire is already climbing the lip.
The mound doesn't have a backside. It rises about a metre then drops into a two-metre deep ditch -- a water hazard, horse-jumpers would call it.
I'm aware somehow as I fly over the bars that my head's going to hit before the rest of me. Then the thud.
Mr. McCorquodale is there in seconds. Jane arrives just behind him -- and proceeds to dump her water bottle over the back of my neck (I still haven't figured out why). "I'm just . . . winded," I wheeze.
I sit up, then shake off.
My fingers are moving, and my toes. My sunglasses are broken, my watch is lying in the dirt and I'm sitting on a broken bicycle chain, but it's somebody else's, I'm relieved to discover. A few minutes later I climb back on the bike.
I'm more cautious now. I move slower and get off to walk over the biggest obstacles. The new pace lets me notice things I didn't before: Biking here feels like riding through a canyon walled in with green. Our tires bump along a dirt path so slender you can hardly walk it let alone bicycle; either side is bordered with shoulder-high nettles and weeds and scotch thistles bursting violet at their tops. We cruise through a grove of spindly trees that grow low to the ground; their branches extend like arms and elbows, shirted in creeping vines.
When I stand on my pedals I can just make out the river, a brown slit through the landscape to our right.
You need a bit of skill to bike the Don. But it doesn't have to kill you. Ride slowly enough and it's even peaceful.
For more information about upcoming Nobbie Newbie rides, visit http://www.tbn.on.ca, or call 416-760-4191.
How to get started
Where to go
Antonia Gawel, second-ranked
expert Canadian women's downhill:
Ms. Gawel takes new riders into the city's old Belt Line steam railway path, dropping into the Don Valley just east of Yonge Street at St. Clair Avenue, then pedalling north a couple of blocks through Mount Pleasant Cemetery into Belt Line Linear Park. The 4.5-kilometre ride is as relaxed as they come. With wide double-track, few obstacles and no serious hills, the Belt Line is a great place to get used to a bike, with or without instruction. And if you burn yourself out, you can always take yourself -- and your bike -- home on the subway.
David Wright, organizer, Ontario
University Cup series:
"If you're new to the sport you'd have a great day at Albion Hills," says Mr. Wright. The single- and double-track trails in Albion Hills Conservation Area, near Bolton, offer terrain for all levels of riders, all less than an hour from Toronto. Expect packed sand and rolling hills, plus a lake to jump into when you're done. Check out http://www.canadatrails.ca/mtb/on
albion.html for details.
Doug McCorquodale, instructor,
Toronto Bicycling Network:
He says he'll ride Ravenshoe, a small patch of gentle, curvy trails near Lake Simcoe, any time. The area offers great terrain for mountain-bikers from novice to expert. Ravenshoe is "twisty, turny, up and down," but without any monster hills or hard-to-find routes. Plus the forest floor is clear of undergrowth, so you can see what you're about to ride before you're on top of it. The place can get muddy and buggy though -- bring mosquito sauce. www.canadatrails.ca/mtb/on/ravenshoe.html
What to bring
Gloves, glasses to protect your eyes (preferably clear shields,
available at outdoor stores)
A good riding helmet
Lots of water
A simple mountain bike is fine, but you'll have an easier time if you've got fat, knobbed tires and front
suspension. Bike rentals
Cyclepath (four locations):
416-463-5346
Cycle Solutions, Parliament Street at Carleton Street: 416-972-6948
McBride Cycle, at Dundas Street West and Keele: 416-763-5652