Originally Posted by
dvdwmth
Early 50s. 38x700 tires, road tread. Mostly aiming around 80/day. My longest ride ever was 120 but I was crushed. Had to rest the next day. Ive done short tours over a couple days but I was loaded with more than i needed to get a sense of what longer tours would be like. Did 70 today and I was tired but ok now, and i have at least a month more to train. I feel i have an adequate understanding of the training i need to do for a week tour. Been biking my whole life.
I've seen the links in the other posts. They were useful but im looking for some subjective opinions. I'm leaning toward the St lawrence route now, partly because I'm interested in its historical importance. I also prefer civilization over the wilds.
Again, no personal experience of that cata trail, I've done similar rail trails near Montreal where some are well maintained, lots of people, others are rougher and more remote, but I have a fair amount of experience touring in isolated places and am comfortable with varying terrain with 45mm+ tires and taking care of things on my own if need be.
You also said you'd prefer towns etc, so your leaning to the waterfront trail seems like a good choice.
I recall now that a good section of dedicated bike path follows parts of the 1000 Island Parkway. It's a very pretty section, being a bike path is nice.
This starts at Gananoque, 35k from Kingston, don't recall how many klicks the separate path is.
After the "waterfront trail" just follows the old Highway, and for me it was pleasant. Navigation is straightforward, basic map reading skills.
I found the towns along the way to be fun to go through, as you say, historically interesting. Certainly don't recall thinking meth labs ever, but then I was biking in day etc.
The idea to go north somewhere looks reasonable. Probably about 80k up to Ottawa, so you just need to plan the 1st and 2nd night out of Kingston. 3 days to Ottawa looks reasonable.
Look at Google maps for distances between towns and have sufficient water and food for inbetween places.
Sounds like a nice trip, is this a go and return also trip?
Ps, I always recommend a mirror, it just makes for a more relaxing (and safer) ride to easily know what's coming up behind you.
Btw, we stayed in cheap motels Kingston to Montreal, but campgrounds must be around. Really comes down to daily distances.