The Ride | Biking from Toronto to Niagara Falls in 1 day

It all started with one random text message in August.

Being a fairly novice road cyclist myself, I asked my best friend Pepper to join me on the ride as he has completed a solo bike packing trip from Toronto to Halifax several years ago.

We decided to do the ride on September 19th as the weather would still be decent enough to complete the trip.

This gave me exactly one month to train up for one of the craziest journeys of my life.

I had actually set out to do this same trip on my OneWheel last year but that was sadly unsuccessful.

Initially I had borrowed my mom’s boyfriends road bike to train on but the week prior to the ride, I lucked out and was able to purchase a brand new #Trek Emonda ALR 5 which ended up being a phenomenal decision.Pepper arrived in the afternoon & we hung out and caught up as he lives in Ottawa.

That night we packed up all of our snacks, first aid kit and essential gear like our pumps, spare tubes for our tires, water bottles & tools in the case we had a mechanical issue.

We woke up at 6am as we wanted to hit the road by 7am to avoid any crowding on the bike trails we’d be using for majority of the trip.

We geared up & headed out to what was an extremely chilly morning that neither of us were all that well clothed for.

Initially I thought I was shivering from the cold but I realized that I was actually quite nervous about setting off on this long, challenging journey.

One of the best parts about the route we chose is the first 15km was all dedicated bike trail in addition to us being able to use Lake Shore Blvd since it was closed for the ActiveTO campaign.

As we hit the Humber Bridge, we looked back at the downtown skyline just in time for the sun to rise behind the buildings.

It put us both in an awesome mood as we were excited for what else we’d see throughout the trip.I won’t bore you with our exact route but if you want to check it out, I’ve linked to the Strava map in the description here.

The route we had plotted out has us taking a break every 25-30km, with our first stop being at the Starbucks in Port Credit.

Stop #1 - Port Credit

I’ll talk you a bit through our bike setups. As I mentioned earlier, I am riding a Trek Emonda ALR 5 which is a super light road bike that’s meant for climbing.

This being the first road bike I have ever owned, I don’t have too much to compare it to but it’s amazing to ride.

To hold my belongings, I had one top bag for my cell phone, camera & wallet, my seat bag with C02 pump, spare tubes & tools as well as a small frame bag that held my 1L Camelbak bladder.

I was also running a front & rear light, especially earlier on in the morning when it was still a bit darker.

Pepper was riding his beautiful red Masi road bike that he typically uses to commute to work.

He had dual water bottles fitted along with a small frame bag with our sunscreen, cable lock & other small items + a rear bag for his extra tubes/etc.

At this point we were pretty freaking cold as we had dressed for warmer temperatures but it was only 4 degrees celsius out as we were directly beside Lake Ontario.

After our coffee & quick snack, we headed back out onto the road in hope that moving faster would generate body heat for us on the way to our next stop in Oakville - Bronte.

The nice part about this portion of the ride is that there are quite a few road cyclists in the Oakville area so the roads kept in pretty good condition & the cars give way.

Stop #2 - Bronte - Oakville

After our stop at Tim Hortons in Bronte, we headed towards Burlington where we had to take a little detour to find a high-pressure pump as Pepper’s tire was a bit lower than he anticipated.

Stop #3 - Burlington

Burlington is a beautiful little town with a gorgeous bike/walking path directly along Lake Ontario.

We obviously had to stop & take obligatory Instagram photos.

There is an awesome bike trail that follows along the lake & over the bridge going towards Grimsby which was super nice to cruise along as there weren’t too many people out on the path yet.

A unique part about following the edge of Lake Ontario away from Toronto is slowly seeing the CN Tower & skyline fade into the distance.

We were initially supposed to stop off at a restaurant for lunch but as we arrived there earlier than expected, they still hadn’t opened so we decided to push on to our next stop.

Stop #4 - Port Dalhousie

We got some pretty average bar food for lunch but despite being so hungry, I was actually finding it hard to get food down at this point in the trip. Luckily I had some energy gels which kept me replenished & were easy to digest.

After leaving the scenic little town of Port Dalhousie, we were on our way to Niagara-on-the-Lake which is known for it’s vast amount of wineries & vineyards.

Stop #5 - Niagara-on-the-Lake

The ride from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Niagara Falls is gorgeous & does have a dedicated bike lane if you want to do the trip yourself sometime!

For majority of our ride there wasn’t really any elevation gain until we hit Queenston Heights Park where the Brock’s Monument is located.

Pepper’s experience with longer rides kicked in at this point as he surged up the hill ahead of me as I shifted into a lower gear to drag my ailing body along.

As we made our way through the centre of town, the crowds of people started to get larger.

We rounded the corner and there it was. Niagara Falls.

That feeling of accomplishing such a difficult challenge still makes me smile to this day & has inspired to me to want to do a lot more cycling trips in the future!

After ride summary

So yeah, this ride was really physically demanding, especially for someone with minimal endurance riding experience 😅.

The total stats were 165.35km, 481 meters of elevation climbed, moving time of 7 hours & 6 minutes, an average speed of 23.3km/h & just under 3000 calories burned.

Our total elapsed time was just under 10.5 hours which isn’t all that bad considering the distance.

I weighed myself when I got home and I had lost roughly 5lbs from the ride.

Fortunately my body recovered pretty quickly from the trip thanks to a ton of ice baths, massages & stretching.

This trip has truly made me fall in love with endurance cycling & I can’t wait to complete a bunch of awesome rides in 2021!

Have any questions about the route, our gear, recovery or anything else, feel free to leave it in the comments section below.

Rylie C.