As I said I would, I'm posting about the route I took from Ottawa to Toronto. I used my Norco Wolverine with upgraded... everything, so my route was pretty much open to me regardless of terrain. I brought camping stuff, rain stuff, clothes and everything to camp for 4 days.

I left Ottawa via a portion of the Trans-Canada Trail (near Bells Corners) which seems like a nice converted railroad track. It is relatively flat and isolated, surfaced in that cat-litter gravel stuff, so it's 700cc-friendly. I took that to Carleton Place and then turned South on the 15 toward Smiths Falls. I can't really comment too much on the 15 because I got off it and took the side roads that follow along it. The side roads were dirt but seemed to be coated with resin at some point so other than the pot holes, it seemed 700cc-able too.

Once I got to Smiths Falls I found the Cataraqui Trail which is cleverly hidden behind a Tim Hortons (the worker made my iced cap like an iced espresso, dark and strong, blugh). This trail isn't 700 friendly, there are some parts that a narrow tire can handle but there are parts that even my 1.9 26" was carving into really hard, so I lowered the pressure a bit. It looks like a flat jeep trail that goes on through the bushes as far as you can see, rarely used (I saw 1 person on it in like 70k). This trail is relatively flat and very long, making me think that it too used to a be railroad but that was some time ago because everything surrounding it is very close and overgrown. The trail varies from well-maintained and safe to "is this still part of the trail?" At parts, the surrounding foilage is overgrown so much into the path that I couldn't see where my tires were going (and the pot holes were painful). Also, it seems like somebody came through with a sandbox at times and filled in pot holes with beach-grade sand which is not good to hit with a loaded bike because my front wheel kept blading in it (lots of left-right dodging of rocks and pot holes). The trail is isolated, pretty boring and because it rides low, goes through a lot of swampy areas and mosquitoes are found in abundance.

I got off of it North of Kingston and spent my night South of Syndenham in a forest (Hennessy Hammock). Notice how I didn't say "SLEPT South of Syndenham," it was far too hot to even think of sleeping or relaxing, I was looking for a rock to knock myself out with but couldn't find any. The next morning, exhausted, I headed South West along any road possible (my GPS map looks like stairs at this point) until I hit Napanee ("Welcome to Avril Town") and crossed the 401.

I pretty much followed a combination of the 2 and the Waterfront Trail for the rest of the way to Toronto. The travel information guy that pointed it out to me basically said it was a guided route along the roads and highways along the lake, and that's pretty much right. I took a map he gave me and followed it more or less until I noticed a route that wasn't so "smell the roses." The route sometimes makes strange U shapes out of an otherwise straight path for no apparent reason, so I cut those out of my route as I hit them. When I was on the 2, I stayed in the dirt shoulders of highway 2 (it has wide dirt shoulders but almost no paved shoulder for huge portions of it). If you like riding on pavement, I'd avoid this one if you can, it's only a 2-lane highway for most of it I think. The dirt shoulders were mostly ok except for a few kilometers of beach conditions, which caused my only crash of the trip. I was going up a hill on the shoulder of highway 2 (lots of space) and my rear wheel started to spin out in the sand, I quickly lost all foward momentum and couldn't unclip, so into the ditch I went. Hehe, I hate sand. I took the surrounding roads which paralleled the 2 whenever possible. These were far less sandy or travelled but much more hilly through mostly farm country.

The 2 brought me to Brighton where I slept for the second night at a motel on the West side of the town, they charged 60 a night (or around there) for a small "less-decorated" room... it was more than worth it though for AC. I followed the 2/Waterfront Trail the rest of the way. Watch out when you get to Port Hope if you follow the Waterfront Trail through there, it gets all crazy. You go up a huge steep hill that almost nobody could bike (my bike wanted to roll over backward after 20 feet of it) and I got lost and ended up on some golf course on the 9th green. That and the road that the Trail suggests is under heavy construction (read does not exist anymore) and I had to run across the golf course range (after 375 yards with headwind so nobody would hit me other than Mr. Woods) and jump an orange construction fence with my heavy bike to avoid walking on some traintracks. Just a warning: you don't want to get on the tracks anywhere other than railroad crossings, the smaller passenger VIA trains move at like 200kph through the non-populated areas and don't horn except at railroad crossings. If you got the way I did, you'll see what I mean. After that, it was pretty much simple and straightforward to get to TO.

Oh yeah, I met some Oshawa Bicycling Club roadies in Bowmanville who were doing a ride, they invited me to ride with them to Oshawa from there, nice bunch. So I didn't follow the 2 at that part, they had their own bike-friendly route from Bowmanville to Oshawa.

My final route was about 485km and I made in in on the 3rd day. Made 200km the first day. Then 100 on the second day (I had NO sleep because of the heat the night before, so I slept in an AC motel this time). Finally on the third day (well rested this time) I did the last 185km to Etobicoke (far side of TO). I thought the trip would take me 4 days and I had planned on camping the whole time, so I brought all that camping stuff and rain gear, none of it I ever needed though. My trip was nice, but in the middle of that heatwave and not knowing when I'd see another convenience store, I carried lots of water and so lots of extra weight. The humidex was 47 on the first day and it stayed like that. Probably could do it in 2 days if it wasn't so bloody hot and I didn't bring 4 panniers worth of stuff. Maybe next time.

I know this post was long, but if any new tourer wanted to do this trip, they can learn from my mistakes.