Originally Posted by
roosmachine
My experience with Hwy7 is very limited, but I do know its one of the major routes in the area and would be one that I would typically avoid. I would think that it would be rather busy and annoying, that being said I've never ridden on that section of 7.
If i were planning a ride to Ottawa, I would probably stick to hwy2 to Brighton, Hwy 33 to Kingston and a bit beyond and find some nice country roads to take north to Ottawa. It would add some kms to your route, probably breaking the 400km mark depending on where both ends of the ride were. I've done the route to Kingston several times (both day and night) and used Hwy15 tp Smith Falls, and some country roads to get to Ottawa in 2005.
The Ontario Randonneurs have a route to Ottawa on their website, they typically take less travelled roads and do add a few kms to get the return trip up to 1000km (both ways).
http://www.randonneursontario.ca/rou...nto%201000.pdf
Andrew
Thanks for the reply. I checked in on the Eastern Canada regional forum and they said the same thing about Hwy 7. My friends family lives in Prescott which is just East of Brockville, so I have decided to take the Waterfront trail most of the way. This will provide a good bail out spot if I don't feel like riding at night. There is a really good Toronto to Montreal route posted here:
http://www.bikerally.org/route.html
This route looks pretty close to what you have described above. I am planning to leave from a friends just outside of Oshawa and it is just under 300k to Prescott. Looks like I can take country roads directly north from Prescott and get right into Ottawa. Your distances are just about right, as the whole route should be about 390 km.