To Hamilton for Greg’s Ride – Day 1

Today we rode our bikes to Hamilton for the 14th Annual Greg’s Ride. David and Dayle, Wayne and I are staying two nights in Dundas, where the ride begins. Barry rode with us to Burlington then back to Brampton.

From their website: “In 2006, OPP Sergeant Greg Stobbart was killed while cycling on Tremaine Road in Milton. After Greg’s death, his wife Eleanor McMahon founded the Share the Road Cycling Coalition in his memory to advocate for safer roads for all Ontarians. At Greg’s Ride: Ontario’s Ride for Safer Cycling, we ride in Greg’s Memory, celebrating how far cycling has come in over 10 years and striving to making Ontario the safest place in Canada to ride a bike. ”

It was a perfect day for a ride, unusually warm, but not too much so, for the equinox. We had some head and cross winds, but they weren’t really noticeable.

We were very excited to check out the brand new cross ride on Kennedy Road, south of Steeles, which will help Etobicoke Creek Trail users get across safely to the extension that goes under the 410/407 and Tomken Road. I have written about that section of the trail here. The pictures in that post were taken before the trail was paved. It is paved now and lovely to ride.

We took our first break at Starbucks in Port Credit, a place popular with road cyclists. We saw an astonishing number of road cyclists on Lakeshore Road between Stavebank where we joined it and Appleby Line where we left it.

I do enjoy the Mordor-like quality of oil refineries. This one is in south Mississauga.

I planned our route on Ride with GPS and was pleasantly surprised to find it knew about this road closure in Oakville and routed us around it.

We left Lakeshore Road at Appleby Line to go to the Centennial Trail, a lovely trail that runs through Oakville to the Burlington border.

The trail has excellent road crossings, with curb depressions, and wayfaring signs at every road.

North Shore Boulevard is a lovely tree-lined, rolling, residential street in Burlington. There is a park at about the halfway point that has great views across Burlington Bay to the industrial part of Hamilton

This tree lined street is near the botanical gardens in Hamilton.

This bridge took us across the Desjardins shipping channel and runs above the 403 and rail tracks. There is a set of stairs on the left hand side just past the large concrete pillar in this image that takes you down to the waterfront trail.

This is a jersey wall separated bi-directional cycle track on King Street over the 403 in Hamilton.

Here we are entering Dundas.

This is the AirBnB where we are staying. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but is quite lovely on the inside. I’m happy to be staying in one place for two nights.

We decided to walk to dinner at The Thirsty Cactus and found one of the Share the Ride route signs.

Dundas is part of Hamilton, but feels like a little town of its own. There are lots of nice shops and restaurants. It is much bigger than Brampton’s downtown at Four Corners.

Look who we found at The Thirst Cactus! Five more BikeBrampton people!

Wayne and I needed more food after dinner so he availed himself of the local ice cream shop and I got chocolate bars and a milkshake at Shoppers Drug Mart. What’s the point in cycling 90 km if you can’t eat everything you want?

We have stored the bikes safely inside and are winding down for the night.