Pedal power. A lone cyclist winds her way over the Erindale Park bridge during the second annual Tour de Mississauga. This year's event highlights off-road trails and on-road cycling routes in the northwest part of the city. File photo courtesy of Mississauga News

There have been cyclists on all styles of bikes in past Tours which even included road racing and fixed-gear bikes. Truth be told, there were even more cyclists with those styles of bicycles that didn’t participate because our signature route followed packed limestone trails that they considered “unsavory”  for their narrow high-pressure tires. As a road racer myself, I had the luxury of also owning a mountain bike which I chose to ride. The signature route has always been a real eye-opening experience for me who normally spends all my cycling on the roads. It let me see a new and beautiful side to the city of Mississauga that I never had seen before. However, MCAC wants to give the more seasoned cyclists in the city a new challenge. This new challenge also presented me with challenges.

As one of the key designers of the new Challenge Road Ride, we reconciled the following guidelines in order to hold true to the spirit of the Tour de Mississauga:

1. The route should stay within Mississauga city limits. The Tour sets out to showcase new and existing bike infrastructures in Mississauga. Another secondary reason to this may be for insurance requirements for the Tour. I knew a sizable portion of Challenge Road Ride participants may spend much of their cycling time out in the Halton region. I had to avoid the temptation of sending cyclists out that way to some of my favourite rural roads while still keeping the epic ride interesting and non-disruptive.
2. The 3rd annual 2010 route should focus on the north-west quadrant of Mississauga. 100km inside just one quarter of any city is going to tie the hands of the planner. We were able to centre the ride on the NW quadrant with leeway to extend the Challenge Ride outside the quadrant.  This balance of form and function made it quite easy to get a good ride put together.
3. Long rides should allow cyclists to “open up” without unnecessary stops. This  would normally be tough if I wasn’t always out on a search for streets that let me turn up the speed when training for an upcoming event. I often don’t have time to cycle far from home so knowing from experience the  safer non-disruptive corridors was helpful. We also tried to pick streets that had all-way stops instead of traffic lights so wait times aren’t long at intersections. Streets with long right-of-ways were also preferred. Roads that may be quite busy on weekdays were chosen if their Sunday morning traffic loads proved to be light. This gives the cyclist more confidence on the road to use the space they need for safer cycling.
4. The Challenge Road Ride must be only on roads. With Mississauga’s expanding cycling network, this was much easier today than it would have been even 3 years ago. Much of the Challenge Road Ride touches on bike lanes or signed bike routes. With the Mississauga Cycling Master Plan coming close to completion, we are expecting the cycling network to even more rapidly gain connectivity.
5. The route should be fun and informative. The Challenge Road Road touches on interesting sites, scenery, and villages within the city. Even if you’ve taken the road a hundred times before in a car, taking it once on a bike will surely reveal new features and a better understanding of getting around an area. Perhaps a fitness cyclist who just takes a single route in and out of the city on their bike may now realize that there are other cycling opportunities in Mississauga. After the Tour, they may be encouraged to ride their bicycle to work, community centre, stores, or gym instead of driving after seeing new ways of getting around.

Riding a metric century is certainly a challenge. Creating a metric century route within a city is almost as challenging. Mississauga’s cycling network is coming of age. The fact that viable long routes can be created all within city limits is a testimony to that.

Mississauga is cycling!

Click here to view the Opinion Column by Gil Penalosa in the March 18, 2009 Mississauga News : ‘Get us out of the car.’  EXCERPT: Walkable and bike-able communities are more than just about building sidewalks and painting lines on roads. It’s about creating a vibrant city with healthy communities where residents live happier, enjoying great public spaces.