I am going to invite some friends to ride the 48km HamBur Loop (Hamilton - Burlington), taking off from Spencer Keith Park to ride eastbound along waterfront trail, then southbound on Red Hill Trail to Albion Falls, northbound on Escarpment Rail Trail, then pass through Royal Botanical Gardens to return back to Spencer Keith Park.
I wonder if anyone of you who has ridden this route, please share some info with me for my trip planning.
1) what is the road condition on Red Hill Trail? Is it a mixture of concrete and gravel, similar to Humber River Trail? Can I ride with my 32mm tyre road bike? I understand there is a steep climb towards Albion Falls, but it is ok. I will tell my friends to walk the bike up as a worse case situation.
2) Escarpment Rail Trail: I know this is a gravel path. Can I ride with my 32mm tyre road bike?
Hello Ron,
I've done the Ham-Bur loop 92 Km starting from Appleby GO station. It includes the Red Hill Trail. It's not recommended for road bikers. Mostly gravel with washout section. As you get closer to Albion Falls you enter a steep section that you need to walk up. The ride along the escarpment is fantastic with a slight down grade all the way to Hamilton. I do lunch at the Black Forest Inn. Then head out back onto the escarpment along the Chedoke radial trail into Dundas Valley Park (bikes permitted) then the Ham-Camb rail trail to Cootes Paradise Hamilton Harbour past Dundurn Castle ......
I prefer the escarpment rail,trail up & limeridge across to the chedoke radial down to Dundurn Castle & Henri st to Townsend
Escarpment Rail trail ends at Furgeson. To connect to Chedoke take Charlton Ave to Dundurn St S. which ends at the trail head. From Dundurn Castle along York to Valley Inn Rd, cross bridge to Spring Garden, to Royal Botanical Gardens (in part) thru Holy Sepulchre Cemetery exit onto Hendrie to North Shore Blvd West, past LaSalle Park (worth checking out) into downtown Burlington. You could shorten the 92 Km distance by bypassing the Hydro corridor and starting from Burlington or Aldershot GO stns. If you have puncture less tires you should be fine, or you can insert a kevlar strip (Mr. Tuffy). I plan to do this route sometime in the future. Dave Crawford did it with me a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.
Thanks for the info. I got lots of feedback from Terry Walsh. Surprised to see the run down view of east Hamilton when heading up on Ferguson to the Marina. I saw a lot of homeless people camping in the park. Valley Inn Road exit is closed. We ended up riding further up on York to cut back into Plains Road.
The bridge was closed. Please see attached picture.
I followed the instructions from Terry to exit Red Hill Trail to Brampton, Woodward, Melvin, Britannia, Cannon and theno Ferguson southbound to enter the Escarpment Rail Trail. I rode a road bike trying to avoid gravels on the rest of Red Hill Trail.
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