I don’t consider myself to be much of a cyclist. However, I do tend to use my bicycle as my primary means of locomotion, and I’ve done so in Vancouver, the Bay Area, and now in Toronto (and the suburbs thereof), so I guess I have a smidge more experience than most.
My initial observations about being a cyclist in downtown Toronto, in comparison to other places? In Vancouver and the Bay Area, the infrastructure for cyclists was pretty good. It was the drivers you had to look out for. (This may have been my inexperience as well, but I don’t think it was entirely so.) Vancouver, in particular, was somewhat harrowing: I was hit from behind by a car while I was _stopped_ at a red light. The driver subsequently drove off while I screamed at him through a red haze and hurled rocks at his rear windshield. It was pretty awesome.
In Toronto, I personally have found the drivers to be good about cyclists. Sure, you get your occasional road-rager, and the cabbies treat you no differently than a similar volume of air, but by-and-large folks are pretty respectful. Even the infrastructure is decent — there are lots of side streets for you to take, and bike parking is especially easy to find. The city supplied bike-parking poles that you find everywhere are far superior to your average bike rack.
The hard part about cycling in Toronto, in my opinion, is the quality of the streets themselves. Many of them are cracked, completely uneven, sometimes even unfinished (the other day I almost hit a partially-removed island coming over the Bloor viaduct) and frequently contain “potholes” with diameters and depths that must be measured in feet and fathoms, not inches.
Then there are the streetcar rails. I find these to be a huge pain, although I’m getting better at it. Still, whenever I go over a rail cloverleaf on my roadie, I can feel my brain trying to unravel the seemingly Moebian geometry of the whole mess as I clip over it at a cautious 10kph. Even if you don’t get your front tire caught, the rails are quite slippery in wet weather.
Cyclists themselves seem to be a bit more clueless in this city, as well. I frequently find people riding _against_ traffic (even in the bike lane), which invariably triggers my filthy-pirate-mouth reflex. And I see many folks with iPods stuck in their heads while they pedal along, especially if they’re cycling on the sidewalk (*veinpop*). And what’s with all the bell dinging? Whenever I’ve cycled in other places, if a cyclist was going to pass you, she’d just call out something like “on your left”. If I hear a bell ding, how am I supposed to distinguish if it’s a bicycle, a streetcar, or some kid with a new toy that miraculously does not require batteries?
Rereading that, it only seems to _border_ on ranting, so I’ll leave it as-is. However, I think this is a good place to stop. The gist of what I’m trying to say is that, despite my rash of negativity there at the end, I don’t think Toronto is really as bad of a city for cyclists as I’ve heard many people claim. I’m pretty happy with it so far! Smoother roads, railless streetcars, and smarter cyclists would make me happier, and I think that at least some of these things are being worked on already (check out Metronauts), which is cool by me.