On The Prettiest Road in Ontario

I cannot be certain, having never seen Highway 11 (Yonge Street) as it hugs the north shore of Lake Superior but I strongly suspect that the most stunningly, magnificent road in the entire 917,741 square kilometers of land that are the province of Ontario have to be the 7 or 8 kilometers that make up the Forks of the Credit road.

I neglected to take any photos, principally because all I had was my blackberry and I really did not want to spend the time fidgeting with the same damn thing that has cost me hours of sleep this past week, but I can describe things.

First, here is the route that was planned.

Revised_Forks_of_the_Credit

http://www.bikely.com/

Now due to a problem with my GPS (I think I did not transfer the GPX file correctly) we did not exactly follow the route above and found ourselves on Derry road from Mavis to McLaughlin. Derry is not a pleasant road for a cyclist, the speed limit is 70km/h and it is six lanes, three in each direction. So I think some change is necessary. First, if a group ride is going to meet up at Marie Curtis Park, one has to consider the big tarmac barrier between Lake Ontario and, most everything else, the Queen Elizabeth Way. To cross the QEW safely one could use Dixie Road... uhm, not a chance, Cawthra (even worse), Hurontario (oh please!), Back track to Browns Line, use Evans then The West Mall and on to The Queensway... uhm, No!, or I guess stick to Mississauga Road, the only highway interchange that does not scare me.

Of course if we take Mississauga road, we have to backtrack, but whereas I tried to backtrack in stages, first to Credit View, then on to McLaughlin via side roads, I think a more reasonable approach is to backtrack with fewer turns, specifically, take Mississauga Road to Burnhamthrope, then Burnhamthrope west to Creditview, left on Credit View and then right on Rathburn and left on Confederation Parkway. (Or possibly, Mississauga to Burnhamthrope and Burnhamthrope directly to Confederation Parkway, except Burnhamthrope gets busy the further west you go.) One way or an other once on Confederation Parkway just go North as the Parkway becomes McLaughlin Road.

Anyway eventually, Ian, David and I made it to the Tim Hortons out by Hurontario and Mayfield, we were right at the boundry between suburban and rural. I stopped for a while at the Tims where I refilled a water bottle with too much Perpetuem (I must remember in hot and humid weather to use one scoop of Perpetuem, the fact is in the weather we've been having lately, I need a lot more water per calorie.) Maybe I should buy some insulated water bottles, warm perpetuem is postively disgusting.

We (Ian and I, David had to return home) resumed our north bound journey up Mississauga Road, traffic dissipated and was replaced with a steady barrage of rollers. Hill climbs, while short, were steep, a typical hill grade was 10%, some were shallow at only 7 or 8% but some were pretty nasty at 13%. So while not Rattle Snake, that particular region of the Niagara Escarpment had some pretty tough hills to climb.

Eventually we got to The Forks of the Credit, I cannot do that road justice, so I will simply say, tight turns, steep hills and a 180 degree hair pin turn that is all of perhaps 30 feet from the east side of the south bound lane to the west side of the north bound lane, all on a 13% grade! All under a green canopy of old hard wood trees. There is also a lovely little coffee and ice cream shop at Belfountain just south of Bush Street on Mississauga Road.

In short it was a lovely 200km day, and my legs hurt, all in a good way.