Cycling in Canada

mcvw

Hi,

I'll find out in the next fortnight whether I'll be off to Toronto for 6months with work, and if so I'll need to decide whether to take my bike with me, or buy/rent one whilst I'm out there.

I'll also have to find some decent routes (I'll be staying around King St, as I'll be working at Bank Of Montreal).

Does anybody on here have experience/knowledge/advice of the area?

Thank you,


Mike

thegreatdivide

I lived in Toronto for 5 years. It's a fantastic city. I lived on Queen St (West) off the Danforth (East) and Bloor & Bathurst (North) and it was pretty easy to ride about the place using the back streets, but the main arteries like Yonge St, Queen Street, Bloor St and King St are full on, although if you're coming from a place like London it's probably nothing.

Toronto has done some serious work to promote cycling though http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/conte ... d60f89RCRD

When I was there I was mostly using a MTB so never experienced road cycling but it's pretty flat in that part of Canada. Some of the South to North roads are long 2% drags but nothing taxing.

donboogie

Commuting is fine, for about 7 months a year. People may disagree but it's pretty hard to do decent road cycling if you live downtown Toronto. Waterfront path tends to be pretty busy. You'll need to get out of the city on the weekend to find the more scenic, less busy roads. Burlington/Oakville/Milton are popular spots.

And it is generally flat. This is one of the steeper climbs around. 1.2km with an average gradient of 9%. You would probably need to drive to Collingwood for anything more intense. http://www.strava.com/segments/rattlesn ... imb-614499

I came across the blog a long time ago and followed his 'Oakville-Action-Oakville' route. It was great. http://twoseriousbikes.blogspot.ca/2009 ... acton.html

mcvw

Thanks for the comments guy - much appreciated

From google maps I figured that the surrounding area looked pretty flat - which being honest didn't make me feel any more enthusiastic about going (even though as you say it's a great city).

I'll take a look at the links and see if I can cheer myself up... My preference would be to stay on-road so I may have to hire a car and drive out to the more interesting 'roadie' parts

Cheers,


Mike

Norsman

When you get to Toronto you may be interested in cycling on the Waterfront Trail. I assume it is pretty busy in the downtown area but once you get out a little farther it is quite nice. I used the eastern part past Oshawa as part of a cross Canada ride and really liked it. The route is part trail, part quiet roads and generally speaking was easy riding. The trail portions occasionally got a bit bumpy or were on the non-water side of the road. When that happened I just rode on the quiet highways with no problems. It may even be possible to ride out from the city and catch a train back but that I am not sure of. Check out this link. http://www.waterfronttrail.org/

martino53

Weekends in Vancouver might be worth thinking of

tourdriving

You can find some info here on Canada https://tourdriving.wordpress.com/canada/ also bike hire in
Toronto go Down the site find Photo of bike look after Ontario province

lostboysaint

martino53 wrote:

Weekends in Vancouver might be worth thinking of

You do realise that that's a bit like saying "a weekend in the Canary Islands/Rhodes" to a UK resident don't you?

jibberjim

Riding out from Milton in the west was okay, got to the escarpment pretty quickly and that was nice enough for a bit of riding, would probably get boring quickly.

Cottage country is only a couple of hours north and was nice to cycle around I thought.

mcvw

Thanks again guys

I must admit, I'm not a fan of 'purpose made trails' or 'cycle ways', and I'm more for the climb that DonBoogie highlighted.

Just need to wait for my company to say if & when I'm off - and whether to take my bike or hire one out there

thegreatdivide

Cycling or not it's still one of the best cities in the world IMO and you'll have a superb six months, especially if it's over spring summer and autumn.

Frankzip

I'd like to go for Canada cycling holiday, someone tell me best places?

mcvw

Have looked at some road bike rental options for Toronto - and it looks like it would be better value for me to get a bike box and take my bike & some basic kit with me.

Any thoughts/tips on taking a bike overseas?

lostboysaint

Frankzip wrote:

I'd like to go for Canada cycling holiday, someone tell me best places?

Too many to mention.

Calgary is a great place to base yourself - brilliant city, on the edge of the Rockies, easy access to the lower Eastern Rockies and fantastic parks such as Kananaskis. Get further into the Rockies and it's just awesome, on and off road.

Kelowna and the Okanagan Valley is epic. Start at Sycamous or Salmon Arm and work your way down!

Kimberly and Nelson are fabulous, more trees that the "northern" Rockies, shorter steeper climbs, incredibly laid back (especially Nelson

And then there's the whole Whistler thing towards the West Coast, although some of the best touring would be Vancouver Island or some of the many thousands of islands.

The word "epic" is thrown about quite a lot but in terms of places to visit and tour Canada really does take some beating in the "epic" stakes.