I hear that . . . I did my usual Friday morning 20 miler on the way to work today, and the surface streets on my usual route are flanked by the Niagara Gorge Shoreline trail. In fact, all but a short section of this entire ride is either on streets with dedicated bike lanes or is flanked by the MUP. I usually ride in the street, but I decided to take the full length of the MUP today . . . never again.

The trail is much closer to the water, and was being battered by the wind (even though it was relatively calm this morning). Also, large sections of this trail haven't been maintained and there are MANY large seams in the pavement, enough to unseat a water bottle from it's cage if you aren't careful. Once I approached downtown, on the section of the MUP I haven't traveled before, the trail was literally strewn with garbage, broken glass, and the pavement was in even worse shape. Not to mention it twists and turns quite a bit and has several overpass crossings which are a total pain in the butt and significantly impede my ability to just get in the drops and hammer down the road.

In contrast, the roads along this route are lightly traveled, are fairly well maintained, and have wide shoulders. I leave early enough for my ride that morning traffic hasn't picked up in this area, and I would just as soon ride in the road when I'm trying to put down miles quickly.