Seriously late in departing Toronto on Saturday, not realizing that the QEW to St. Catherines was just as bad as Hwy 400 to cottage country - who knew? Anyway, this caused a slight adjustment to the plan.
I would have to say that the Welland canal trail is very good for road riding - although mostly flat, it's consistently beside the water ( i.e. a view), good asphalt, quite wide, relatively untrafficked. We went from Port Weller to Port Robinson, took a tiny predestrian-only ferry (a pontoon boat) across the canal, down to Niagara Falls. This was the stretch that didn't work so well - the first part was fine (down Chippewa Creek), but Oakwood to Mcleod and to the falls was a mistake. The roads are in poor shape, and the cars either distracted or erratic. Lyons Creek to Chippewa and then across on the Niagara Parkway would have been a better option, though further. If you are in shape (unlike us), then going straight across to Fort Erie seems like a good option - making the full Circle is 140 km.
Once past the Falls themselves, the Parkway is a solidly good ride - separated bike trail with great scenery. One major exception - near the Brock Monument at Queenston you descend the escarpment. The bike trail doesn't do this in a straight line - it cuts through some park access roads, winds a bit, etc. If you want to just fly, use the road. Otherwise, there's an moderate risk of an accident on the bike trail once >40km/h with pedestrians (read - kids).
The trail from Queenston to Niagara on the Lake is mostly good - a little confusing in parts (it seemed to vanish at the Butterfly Conservatory), but still scenic, with the Niagara River and multi-million dollar mansions right besides you. We cut up towards Hillebrand on 3rd Line because we were running exceedingly late for the jazz festival instead of proceeding into NotL. LP bonked somewhere here - mostly because we hadn't really eaten anything since we started - my bad. The original plan had called for us to start earlier and have a picnic by this point in the afternoon. There a quite a few fruit stalls (not to mention dozens of vinyards) to use from a picnicing pov. i.e. Kurtz Orchards near NotL. From the jazzfest, we went to port weller to find the car. In biking terms, 75 km or so in 3.5 hours. We added time by stopping at the falls for some pictures, at one of the locks to watch how it worked, etc.
Thoughts:
- I'd definitely do it again.
- Going Friday night is a better idea in many ways.
- You can plan for stops, views, wines, food, plus culture at night
- Peller Estates has a great restaurant, beautiful patio, great service
- Cabernet Franc may grow well on niagara peninsula, but I don't actually like it much, except in its icewine form which is not nearly as clowing as typical icewines as a result of the added tannins from the grape skins
- it's interesting to mix up the big commercial wineries (Hillebrand, Peller, Vineland estates) with the boutiques (Strewn, Malivoire) and micro's (Lailey). They all grow a tonne more varietals than the lcbo carries.
- People seriously plan for the hillebrand jazz fest - picnic tables, food, umbrellas, etc. it's like the shakespeare in the park crowd
http://www.regional.niagara.on.ca/exploring/wcpt/looklike.aspx
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