Does anyone have any road or gravel route suggestions from KW to Niagara-on-the-Lake? Any tips, such as “roads to avoid” in that general area would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
There isn’t a lot of gravel on the way to Niagara unless you really want to go hunting for it.
Personally I prefer to stay away from the lakeshore and the waterfront trail, it is noisy and unpleasant. Biggest issue is supplies as there aren’t a lot of stores for long stretches. I would stay off hwy 8/main st, Mud Rd and hwy 20 the latter aren’t paticularly unsafe but do have more traffic.
Let me know if you want some gravel or completely avoid it, and then let me know roughly your start and end points are and I can send you a few options. My in-laws live that way so I’ve ridden there a lot.
Rob
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Thanks a lot, Rob! Will avoid the ones you mentioned, and was also going to stay away from hwy 6.
A pure road (no gravel) route would be my preference, but some gravel is ok (I can take my gravel bike instead). The start point is Conestoga College on Homer Watson in Kitchener, and the end point is Ryerson Park in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but anywhere in NOTL works.
Thank you for your help!
Check out the Cannonball 300 route. It includes rail trail from Brantford to Hamilton, then combines roads and trails to the Niagara area.
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If you want all road then the following will work,
Ignore the gravel notification it is gravel. There are stops at roughly 34km, 52km and the next is at 100km.
You could stay further south and not head into Grimsby, but you will end up on st paul’s, it isn’t so bad but is longer and don’t leave your bike visible in downtown st. Catharines. The portion I have through St. Catharines is pretty good, once you cross the bridge it is certainly more pleasurable to get off lakeshore if you are riding at peak tourist season.
I’ve done the Brantford rail trail route, at least a good part of it. It is nice but it is a lot of extra km.
I was going to suggest the same as Steve and use the cannonball 300. I rode it, starting from Elmira and thought it was a good route. Rob’s route looks really nice as well.
Thank you, Steve! The rail trail between Brantford and Hamilton is nice, I did it last year as part of a trail ride from Kitchener to Hamilton through Paris. I agree with Rob though that it would add extra miles on the way to NOTL, and I’m not sure that I’m ready for 200K yet. But the Cannonball route itself is a great suggestion for a bikepacking trip. I’ve wanted to give bikepacking a try, and this seems to be a good route to start with. Thank you for this idea!
This looks like a great route, Rob! I was thinking of coming down east of hwy 8, but your way is so much better, and it avoids Hamilton!! THANK YOU!
Thank you, Joe. Yours and Steve’s suggestions got me thinking of doing the Cannonball 300 as my first multi-day trip. It’s good to know that you did the whole thing and thought that it was a good route.
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Your welcome, I’ve done hwy8 it does cut distance and has a shoulder but generally much better to avoid if you can.
Generally the roads out that way are really quiet or pretty busy, worse part of that route will be the lakeshore once you are over the canal, more so on the weekend.
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