Labour Day evening bike ride along Ajax and Pickering shore of Lake Ontario

Since the weath­er start­ed turn­ing warm in May, Lily has expressed inter­est in rid­ing our bikes east from Scar­bor­ough along the Great Lakes Water­front Trail. Her desire esca­lat­ed after splurg­ing on a ped­al-assist e‑bike in ear­ly July. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the south­ern por­tion of Rouge Park, through which the Water­front Trail pass­es and whose bridge it cross­es over Rouge Riv­er, has been closed by Parks Cana­da for con­struc­tion since the tail end of 2025. Parks Cana­da sug­gests the fol­low­ing detour, which is long, mean­der­ing, and not par­tic­u­lar­ly safe for vul­ner­a­ble road users, espe­cial­ly along Kingston Rd.

So we’ve been putting this off for sev­er­al months hop­ing con­struc­tion fin­ish­es ahead of sched­ule (ha!). Than, a cou­ple of days ago, we decid­ed to start the trail on the Pick­er­ing side and ride east. I was secret­ly hop­ing to recre­ate a 70 km ride from last year — my friend and I rode from his place in Scar­bor­ough towards Whit­by Har­bour Light­house and back — but that was wild­ly opti­mistic, even with the short­er dis­tance, since I was pulling Porthos in his dog wag­on.

We start­ed the ride from our park­ing spot on W Shore Blvd at Rotary French­man’s Bay West Park. The water­front trail presents some love­ly views, both nat­ur­al and man­made. One par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing sight was from Mil­le­ni­um Square Pick­er­ing: a scenic board­walk run­ning par­al­lel to a beach full of sun­bathers, back­dropped by the Pick­er­ing Nuclear Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion.

I did­n’t pause for pic­tures on the 22 km ride east the north end of Lyn­de Shores Con­ser­va­tion Area because the light was still harsh. The colours had improved on the return and I man­aged to snap three keep­ers.

Over­all, a good ride.