I think it goes back to when I was twelve or so, and we drove through Ontario.  On our way north on the QEW, I watched the hillside in the distance – the Niagara Escarpment.  It’s one of the neatest topographical features I’ve seen, stretching across southern Ontario, just pretty much one long steep hill rock formation.  At its base lies Hamilton, so driving into the city from the south over the escarpment is very neat.  You’re eye level with the tallest buildings and then you work your way down to lake level and into the city.  Hamilton reminds me a lot of Pittsburgh, both in character, topography and the apparently drunken city planners who laid out streets while under the influence. (Well, Hamilton isn’t that bad, but get over to Dundas area and you can get lost easily!)

So biking the escarpment is a nice diversion from my usual flat trails. There are three good trails I’ve done that climb it in different spots, the Niagara River trail, Welland Canal trail and the Hamilton-Brantford Trail. Since I’ve done the first two more recently, last night I made my annual pilgrimage to Canada, stayed overnight just outside Hamilton in order to bike the Hamilton-Brantford Trail this morning.  The trail is roughly 40 miles from Hamilton to Brantford and back. Because I haven’t found a Canadian counterpart to the unparalleled Traillink, I’ve mapped the trail out pretty accurately below on Google Maps, while it was fresh in my mind.

The trail itself is mostly crushed limestone, although it does contract to muddy dirt tracks in a couple of spots. The trail was in pretty good shape today though, so I can not complain about the conditions. Starting at the Ewen Rd. access point, which was a little tricky for me to find, the first seven miles or so are up, up, up the escarpment. I had to stay on a middle/low gear for most of it, and it took me a good hour to climb, but it was never hard enough that one would consider getting off and walking your bike up. Once you climb the escarpment, there are a lot of good straightaways through the rolling farmland of Brant. Not much in the way of amenities that I could see, not even vending. There’s a tricky bit when it goes underneath the 403 – brake with care and watch for bikers coming the other way. Also, the wooden bridge a little under a mile later is very rough!

The trail itself ends in Brantford, but it connects up with the Gordon Glaves trail, which in turn connects up to the S.C. Johnson trail and Cambridge-Paris trail, allowing you to pretty much bike on dedicated path from Hamilton to Cambridge. I’ve done nearly all the sections, so I might review a couple more upcoming posts. The short review is the Hamilton-Brantford section and Cambridge-Paris sections are the best, the middle is not as pretty and in some spots downright hard to manuever. The S.C. Johnson trail also broke my bike last year, on the ill-fated trip that also almost did in my car, so I’m a little biased against it. (It also reminds me of Windex…)

Anyway, as far as diversions for me for my overnight stay, I was pretty lame and ate at Boston Pizza (yuck), Timmies (of course), and Harvey’s (weak poutine is still better than no poutine.) Timmies was a unique experience as I went to one that was immediately to the right of, well, another Tim Hortons in a gas station. There were literally two marked lanes in the parking lot for drive-thru, one that went to the left (gas station), the other to the right (real Timmies). Also, there is an Ikea in Burlington, so I stopped and got gifties for wife and young’un.