Bike for Brain Health 2022 | Toronto | Cycling the DVP & Gardiner Expressway

I've lived in Toronto essentially my whole life & have driven on the Gardiner Expressway/Don Valley Parkway thousands of times but this year I experienced it from a completely different perspective.

The annual Bike for Brain Health ride is put on by Mattamy Homes with hopes of raising proceeds to defeat dementia through brain health research at Baycrest, a problem that affects over 500,000 Canadians currently.

This event offers thousands of cyclists the chance to participate in either a 25, 50 or 75km loop that traverses them from Exhibition Place, through Downtown along the Gardiner Expressway and up the Don Valley Parkway without any cars present.

I chose to do the 75km loop which circles you back up the Don Valley Parkway at Bayview to York Mills before heading back down and into the city before looping out to South Kingsway.

Overall the event was extremely well run with numerous rest stops available throughout the course that had porta-potties, snacks, water, bike mechanics for repairs & medical teams on hand in case of any injuries.

The start time is quite early with the course opening at 6am, however you are able to enter the event up until 9am.

Only thing to keep in mind here is that you do need to be off of the road by 1pm so make sure that you allot yourself enough time to finish your route.

It was a bit surreal looking around and seeing this road that I had driven on countless times from a completely different angle & you quickly come to realize how beautiful this section of Toronto is!

Even when you're crawling along in traffic, you don't get to really look around and appreciate the amount of lush nature that surrounds the highway on all sides but with this event you have the chance to slow down and appreciate it.

Ride Recap

• Total distance = 78km
• Total time = 2 hours 47 minutes
• Average speed = 28kmph
• Elevation = 503 meters

Overall the route isn't that difficult as most of the elevation is fairly separated so you have numerous chances to rest/recover, however if you choose to do it at a faster pace like I did, it will quickly become a challenging ride!

This is definitely going to be a yearly event for me to attend as it was such a cool experience that I'd love to share with family and friends for years to come :)

If you have any questions about the route, event or anything else, feel free to leave it in the comments section below!

Rylie C.