Hello!
Today's blog posting is primarily aimed at my fellow Sea-to-Sea riders. The route through London, Ontario, follows the river valley multi-use path. I'm quite familiar with this path, but lately I've been looking at it with new eyes, now that I know that it is going to be used by the Sea To Sea tour. I have to say, that I think there are a few confusing places on this path, and areas that really do not have great signage.
So, today I started at the SW edge of London, and biked the entire river valley path from one end to the other, and took several photos along the way. I present this here for the cyclists to have a look at. Hopefully when you get to London, this will now look a little bit more familiar.
(Alternatively, you could just make sure you ride into London with one of the locals. There are over 9 riders from the London area on the tour!)
The Sea To Sea Route through London
We will enter London along Byron Baseline Rd, a nice mostly-downhill ride along a secondary city road. Then a left turn onto North St, and another steeper coast downhill brings you to the main gates of
Springbank Park.
Enter the main gates and pass not one, not two, but THREE streets heading off to the right. Just head toward the river and turn right onto the bike path when there is no where else to go -- the THIRD right, by the way. (The "wrong way" sign is for cars, not cyclists!)
You are now on the
Thames Valley Parkway -- a Multi-Use pathway.
Watch out for pedestrians, joggers, strollers, people with strollers, public works trucks, and most of all... Geese. The Canada Geese yield to no one. There are long smooth stretches, and sections that have blind corners and sharp turns. There are sections where roots have produced bumps in the path, and other areas where it is pretty narrow. But there are NO CARS! Still, I wouldn't recommend racing along it too quickly.
As I mentioned previous, I find that it is not tremendously well signed. A few times you might find puzzling forks in the path.
I think that in almost all instances what will work is this: If in doubt, stick close to the river, and keep heading east.
After a while you will come to your first of many paths under a bridge, such as this.
The river path moves from Springbank park to Greenway park as it heads toward downtown. After Greenway park the path makes an abrupt left turn and tunnels under a rail line
Now, don't panic here, as the path appears to end and dumps you onto a city street. There is a 2 block break in the path due to an older neighbourhood bordering the river which must predate the path. Just do like I suggested and stick close to the river (keep turning left) Oh, and follow the nice signs! (This is one spot where there
are good signs.)
and you'll be back on the path in two blocks. The path starts again right by the London Children's museum. If you really want to take a break and explore, feel free.
Just a little bit more and you will be passing the HMCS Prevost on the right, which is a Navy installation.
And on the opposite side is your first bridge to cross. This is a bike/pedestrian bridge)
This bridge dumps you out at the Fork of the Thames. So named because the river Thames forks here. (Surprise!) The North Thames continues north but DO NOT FOLLOW IT! The main Thames continues East, which is our direction. The river valley multi-use path goes in both directions.
This park is right on the SW corner of downtown. There is a play park, and a spray pad about 50 meters North, if you need to cool down. (and even better: public restrooms). A short detour north would bring you to
First Christian Reformed Church. If you need some work done, there are also 3 or more bike stores within 2-3km of this park.
But let us press on. We need to turn RIGHT to follow the river east, but to do so, you follow a cloverleaf in the path which first goes LEFT ...
... and then proceeds under the bridge and on along the river.
Hang on, I think an aerial shot from google maps would be a help here:
There, I hope that clears things up.
Less than 100 meters down the path, the path goes under a train trestle bridge. The bridge or the trains must shed a lot of dirt, because it is always dirty here. The city has gone so far as to build a roof over the path, but the path is still always partly covered in dirt.
SLOW DOWN.
And the path continues along the river. There are several more bridges that we go under, and at times the path is narrow and winding.
There is one place where the path stops and crosses the street.
The path also crosses the river twice - it first switches to the south side of the river, and then crosses back to the north. In both situations you first hit a sort of cloverleaf, and then merge with the sidewalk to cross the bridge, before continuing onward on the other side of the river.
There are still a few more km of winding path ahead, but there is only one more little trick to watch out for. Near the end of the path, but not quite, the path appears to abruptly stop at a road. If you turn right, you see an old bridge. DO NOT TAKE THE BRIDGE.
Rather, you jog right about 5-10 meters and the path continues.
Here is an aerial shot from google maps.
And that is about all. The path comes to an end beside a "off leash dog park". If you cycle up the hill you'll be at Hamilton Rd.
Turn right, cycle a few kilometers and then left on Braesyde to end the day at the
London District Christian Secondary School.-----
Things to keep in mind:
You can view the route for this day
online at mapmyrideAlso the
satellite photo on maps.google.ca was recently updated and is very high resolution, so you can also go there to scrutinize the path through the river valley.