Noonievut

Andrew R Stewart 

What about a lap of Lake Ontario? No drive time at all. Andy

spinnaker

The GAP trail is a good choice. My advice would be to try and get a bus to Buffalo or get a ride. Heck you could even ride your bike there not that awful far. Then rent a car one way from Buffalo (my guess you won't be able to rent one way across a border).

Drive to the Pittsburgh International Airport to drop off the car. From their you can take the Montour Trail right from the airport parking lot. There is camping just west of where the airport spur meets the main trail. The Montour connects to the GAP. Or go in the other direction toward Coraopolis and go through the city. I live just about a mile or so from the trail in Robinson. You would be welcome to stay there for the night if I am around.

Once you hit Cumberland you could take the train or just ride the trail to DC if time allows. From DC you could take a train back to Toronto.
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spinnaker

Did it. Won't do it again. Boring. You don't get to see the lake most of the time. Though it is awfully convenient for the TS. If I lived there I might do it again if I did not want to invest anyhting in travel.

spinnaker

I only did the trail from Buffalo to Rochester. The really only good part of the route was the towns. They are really quaint and is my idea of what a small town should be. But since they are small, it really does not take all that much time to see them. They do have a supported tour that has a historian. That might be interesting.

One highlight of my trip was the crossing at Irondequit Bay, The bridge is kept swung open that time of year to allow boats to enter an leave the bay. I didn't want to go around so I contacted the marina. They sent a boat owner for us to shuttle us across the inlet. We tipped him $20 but it was worth it. Made for an interesting part of the tour.

spinnaker

Vermont is another good choice. Not far for you. And again you can make use of trains to get you back home.

axolotl

Have you biked Le P'tit Train du Nord trail? It's really nice. You could do a loop starting from Ottawa, riding to Mont Laurier, QC, then south on the 200+km trail, then from the southern terminus just north of Montreal back to Ottawa.

The Eastern Townships have some pleasant trails that are part of la Route Verte. It's a pretty region. You could include parts of northern Vermont.

BTW, there is no direct train service to Toronto (or even Buffalo) from either DC or Vermont.

spinnaker

Yes but through NYC which is not a problem if the timing is right. But oh the other thing I just thought of is I think the DC to NYC does not allow bikes. But TS could rent a car or take a bus to something like NYC or a bit more north to avoid the city.

djb

the areas around the eastern townships and into Vermont have a lot of really nice riding. I have really done only paved riding, although Im sure there are tons of gravel road trails in Vermont, I just don't know of them.
Many many years ago I did a trip from Montreal into Vermont, and about 5 years ago I did Montreal to Boston (about 6 days I think) and Vermont really is a pretty place to ride in. Route 100 I think, or 101, goes down vermont a lot and is a nice , not too busy 2 laner, I have fond memories of it.

Anyway, an idea for you. I know you have to always figure out the "where to leave the car" thing, but the driving time is close to your max.
Lake Champlain , where it meets the Can-U.S border, is about an hours drive from Montreal, so that puts it in the ballpark of 6 hours.
Of course, travelling in the states means getting extra heath insurance like blue cross or whatever, but thats doeable and it used to be fairly cheap per day (havent gotten it in years as my wifes work insurance covers this stuff now)

re Ottawa, even though I am from there, I havent done much riding there, although Im sure there are options, including the suggested petit train du nord thing. Ive done the Mont Laurier back to St Gerome part (just north of Montreal), about 200km I think, and its neat. Parts of it had some really rough paved sections (tree roots doing their "pushing up the pavement thing") but its been a while since I did that, 6 years at least, so it may have improved. It is a neat trail and while it can be a bit boring --its a train route, so sometimes just trees and tress and trees--but it is neat that it passes through small towns that have clearly made an effort to attract tourists , so not bad for stores etc. There are some campgrounds along the way, but the time I did it in the fall , where they were didnt really match up with my plans, so I just camped off the trail one night, but it was late in the season and cold, so noone was out and about, so no problem.

a couple of ptit train du nord photos (didnt mean for them to be so big, but there you go....)

axolotl

In addition to the train not taking bikes, it's 16+ hours travel time along with a 3:15 AM departure from DC. Few people would choose to do that, even if you could take a bike on the train.

A one-way car rental from DC to Buffalo, or a Southwest Airlines nonstop flight from BWI (Baltimore-Washington Airport) to Buffalo would both be preferable IMO. I believe that Southwest charges $75 for a bike, at present. (It's possible to get from DC to BWI on public transport with a bike.) There are also nonstop flights from the convenient DCA to YYZ but I don't know if the regional jets take bikes, and you'd have to pay the airline's bike fees plus the high taxes & fees tacked on to international flights.

Steve B.

berner

I also would suggest Vermont. It is scenic, has plenty of hilly terrain or fine riding along the shore of Lake Champlain. You can take a ferry to cross the lake while doing a loop over into New York. I took a look at Vermont's tourist site. There is supposed to be a cycling map for download but that link was broken. I'd check it from time to time. Someone there might be paying attention to the website and fix the link.

fietsbob

Canadian Maritime provinces and PQ? ..

djb

I have a paper copy of this map, have picked it up from tourist spots, and its a very nice map, with coloured "highlighting" on the suggested roads that are nicer for cycling. I assume it gets updated once in a while, mine is from about 5 years ago.
Worth getting in paper or the pdf form to give some ideas of which routes are quieter, I havent looked at it in a while, but I recall it having lots of suggestions.