Fuck the 400s

By that I mean the 400 series highway. I'm putting together a little catalogue in my brain of the ways to get out of town without taking the main highway, I've got a nice-ish little route along the 7 to the 48 to the 12 that can take me as far as orillia, but at highway 11 I'm kinda stuck. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else had routes they like to take to get out of town that were maybe a bit more scenic than driving thought markham.

Riding in the GTA blows to be sure. I'm right down in Toronto by High Park and it takes 1-2 hours to get anywhere worth riding.

Wish I had some secret routes to share. I'm going to explore the Highlands area this summer - pretty far East of the GTA near Kaladar ON.

You used to be able to go south a lot easier, but nooooo your south border and our south border had to screw up and build a imaginary black market highway so we all suffer border xing nightmares... FML and yours. Got any Cubans for sale?

i don't know how you poor dumb bastards survive amongst millions of other humans :-\ :-[ ;D

Tim said:

Riding in the GTA blows to be sure. I'm right down in Toronto by High Park and it takes 1-2 hours to get anywhere worth riding.

Wish I had some secret routes to share. I'm going to explore the Highlands area this summer - pretty far East of the GTA near Kaladar ON.

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That sounds awesome. I rode from north of sault ste marie to past mattawa last week and I gotta say, the highway 17 is kind of nice. It's cool to be farther north. I want to find a good route to kingston, as a buddy has a place on wolf island and from there it's a ferry ride to upstate new york. I'm at college and bathurst, and I hear you, it's a bitch to get out of town. I'm thinking hwy 2 to the 33 or something, but I imagine all those 'highways' are actually mostly stoplight roads.

I've ridden thru TO, and agree the 400's are crap. But a necessary evil, to get you poor bastards out of town quickly. If you've time to kill, get as far as bowmanville on 401 ( heading east I'm assuming) then a short jog north to highway 9 east. Follow that cross country past the bottom of rice lake , bewdley area, then on to warkworth. From there to stirling, then south to belleville. From Belleville , or optionally Trenton, head for Picton, just east of picton catch the ferry to Hay Bay area, ride thru Bath ( south of napanee ) and on to Amherstview. That should put you next door to Wolfe Island ferry.

Btw, some fantastic riding roads , possibly best in Ontario, in your target area Tim. Be sure to check out the road from Griffin to Calabogie. Several other roads between Kingston and Kaladar area are fantastic as well. I live just west of Kaladar in Tweed ON. , so by all means let me know if you want to find more .

I was looking at a route to get me to gananoque this week, and was thinking the 2, but maybe I'll have to try out hwy 9 instead.

So, I wound up taking the 2 most of the way, which was actually pretty nice once you get out past Oshawa. I learned to embrace the 401 and hate the DVP. Next time I'm going to try the 9 for sure though.