With the weather forecast for today being very promising, Terry Walsh organized a Program X ride. Keeping in mind that there was a strong wind out of the southwest, he planned a route starting from the West Harbour GO station in Hamilton to Clarkson GO, so that most of the ride would be with a tailwind.
I boarded at Mimico.

Here we are at West Harbour GO.

Terry leads us up Bay St.

The section through the centre of downtown has a protected bidirectional lane.

Starting up the escarpment on the rail trail.

Nice weather. Going up the escarpment it became apparent that most of the group would be at an Urban Roller pace, so I rode ahead.

The route back west on the mountain was along Limeridge. It used to be a continuous street, but after the Linc was built, they cut Limeridge up into sections. Here is the interruption at Upper Gage, with bike and pedestrian through traffic allowed.

Paying my respects at the Brian Woods ghost bike at Upper Wentworth.

One issue with Limeridge for cyclists is that you have to cross some pretty nasty interchanges. Here you see that Jimmy and Carol are crossing with a green light at the crosswalk, but there is no protection or signage on the high speed on ramp in the foreground.

All good.

I took a one block detour to take a picture of the house where I grew up. That tree in the front yard was a sapling when we bought the house. It is roughly the same age as my youngest brother (i.e. a little over 50 years old)

On the Keddy.

On Hunter St. Jimmy commented that the route should be called Tour de Hamilton.

Once we hit York Blvd, I took advantage of the strong tailwind, and went off the front. Just a few more pictures from the rest of the ride.
The route back avoided Lakeshore Drive, and took me through parts of Burlington and Oakville that I had never seen. Here is a trail in Burlington.

Just past Brant St is the start of the Centennial Trail.


This is what passes for a multiuser trail along Rebecca. Oakville, you can do better.

After crossing Winston Churchill, the route takes me on the Nine Creek Trail.

This branch off to the south leaves to a bunch of ramps for jump bikes, similar to the Sunnyside bike park.

It was nice to be on a peaceful trail after the short bit of nasty busy traffic on Winston Churchill.

The official route ended at Clarkson GO, after about 70 km, but I decided I might as well ride all the way home. Here I am almost there.

102 km for the day. I didn’t think that I’d be able to get in another long ride this season. I could count this one as my birthday ride.
Thanks to Terry for organizing, and planning a very interesting route. Thanks also to Jimmy and Carol for company. I hope everyone else had a good time.