As per the city website, this is a 9km, 1hr easy ride that goes between Corktown Park and Mountain Brow Blvd, sort of across from the Albion Falls viewing platform.
From the city website:
Connection points
Downtown: Corktown Park at Ferguson Ave./ Young St.
East Mountain: Mountain Brow Blvd./ Limeridge Rd./ Arbour Rd.
Route design
Easy: Paved trail, gradual slope
Take care crossing Wentworth St.
City transit access
Downtown: many HSR Routes
East Mountain: Route 21, Route 22 nearby
Inter-city transit access
Downtown: Hamilton GO Centre (GO Transit, Coach Canada, Greyhound)
Our Ride:
Ridden by: Rebecca
Rebecca is “too cool” for social media so here’s Ron, her dog.
Rebecca pretends to be in law school, but we all know she's a New Hope lifer. She has been a programs coordinator and mechanic for 6 years.. or 60. We've lost count at this point. Rebecca likes riding gravel bikes, mountain bikes and climbing big rocks.
Our name for the route: The Escarpment Rail Fail
This route is 8.3km each way. It can be made a "loop" if you continue on Mountain Brow Blvd for about 100m to the Rail trail access. This isn't so much a loop as just riding back the way you came while avoiding the stress of getting passed by cars going 70 in a 30 zone. This route so far has the most minor climbing at 95m of elevation when done Corktown to Albion. It took Rebecca about 30 minutes.
Is it easy?:
This route would be genuinely easy with 10/10 for leisure, commuting and accessibility if it stayed on the rail trail the entire way to Albion Falls. The rail-trail portion of the route is excellent for families and beginner cyclists. Starting from downtown, it is predominantly an uphill ride. Still, the slope is relatively gradual. Going slowly and taking breaks at one of the numerous lookout spots will make it enjoyable for all skill levels. It is one of Rebecca’s favourite sections of city biking. Additionally, the Rail Trail also often acts as a nicer way to commute between downtown and the east mountain by bike. The city website says to take care crossing Wentworth street; this is now easier with the new pedestrian crossing they installed last year but do take care as cars coming down the mountain still regularly run that red light.
A very nice ride up the escarpment.
One of the main things impacting whether this is an "easy" route is the routing choice made to take Mountain Brow Blvd rather than the Rail Trail to get to Albion itself. As an experienced downtown cyclist, even Rebecca felt her stress levels rising as cars close passed her, going well over the posted speed limit. Mountain Brow Blvd has only a partially paved shoulder for bikes and pedestrians to share. If cyclists decide to take the lane, their curvy and narrow shape with speeding cars tends to harsh the mellow obtained on the Rail Trail. Rebeca felt it would be unsafe to take kids or beginner cyclists onto that portion of Mountain Brow Blvd, especially if it was a busy waterfall time like evenings or weekends.
Was it well marked and easy to find/stay on?
That’s the end. Its literally a small sign in the middle of a road.
If starting at Corktown park, the beginning is straightforward to find. The turn off the rail trail onto a side path that leads you to Mohawk at Mountain Brown isn't marked, but it's also the only major turn, so it's easy enough to figure out looking at the map. The end of the route and the beginning at Albion are just small green bike signs on the shoulder that say "start" and "end," so if you aren't looking for them, you might miss them.
How was the infrastructure?
“Paved”
Calling the rail trail a paved trail is somewhat generous as the path requires serious maintenance in several spots. It's still a reasonably comfortable ride with a hybrid or a bike with larger tires, though. The infrastructure for anything but cars on Mountain Brow Blvd is entirely missing. The shoulder is inconsistently paved and also has pedestrians in it. At the same time, the lanes for traffic are incredibly narrow and winding, with a solid yellow line dividing the lanes for the majority of the road. The speed is lowered from 50-30 over that stretch. Still, cars were aggressively overtaking Rebecca, who was averaging 25km/h on that stretch of the ride. For infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance, Rebecca scored this ride a 4/10. The Rail Trail likely needs to be switched to gravel since most of the pavement is torn up and parts are splitting and sliding down the escarpment.
OK but no shade I love this crossing light.
Additionally, if cyclists are going to be routed on to Mountain Brow Blvd, it needs infrastructure to ensure the road can be shared safely between cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. Everyone in the shop agreed that they would never take that road to get to Albion Falls. The four points were primarily given for the pedestrian crossing light installed across Wentworth street. Still, there does need to be a red light camera installed there since cars run it frequently.
Overall takeaways and recommendations:
Draw how you felt at the end of this ride, Rebecca.
One of the primary takeaways of this route is that the Rail Trail is a treasure of cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure in the city. The ride is picturesque in every season. This is unfortunately dampened by the nightmare that is riding on Mountain Brow Blvd, especially when the Rail Trail continues along beside it to the same destination. This route had the feeling that it had never actually been ridden before it was posted.
Invest in putting better pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure on Mountain Brow Blvd. It is a beautiful road to ride on, but if you are not keeping up with traffic going 60-80km/h, it is a somewhat stressful experience. Or simply keep the route on the Rail Trail the whole time.
Spruce up the Rail Trail. She deserves it. But by spruce up we mean probably switch it to just gravel like the Chedoke Radial Trail since that seems to be the better medium for surviving on the escarpment.