Thanksgiving is upon us in Canada and despite being a long weekend there’s always the need to balance extra ride time with visiting family. Rather than sit in a car for 1 hour from North Gower to my sister-in-law’s place in Arnprior, I’ve been riding the route. Killing two birds (travel & workout) with one stone.
I used to stick to Dwyer Hill Road which has a nice paved shoulder from Burritts Rapids up to the Carleton Place exit (Hwy 7) then deal with 100kph drivers buzzing me all the way up to Arnprior. Eventually I decided to investigate alternate routes and discovered Bellamy Road last year which goes up & over the Lanark Highlands from behind Pakenham out to Arnprior.
I’ve been playing with GPSies site lately as it allows me to create routes and upload into my Garmin 200. Here’s a link Auntie’s in Arnprior route.
Riding in the fall is always nice, but as the map shows, I rode predominantly North West which is typically into the prevailing West->East winds in our region. This meant 4.5hours (and brutally slow 24.5kph) of persistent 20-25kph headwinds. It was especially bad during the first 1/2 of the route which is more flat & open.
Almonte is about the 1/2 way point and a good time to refill water & grab some calories.
From this point you enter Lanark Highlands and it’s really nice rolling terrain right through to Arnprior.
There’s even some really nice country homes to admire.
Continuing North West you end up behind Pakenham and pass Fulton’s Pancake House. Amazing color in the trees.
Shortly after Fulton’s you start Bellamy Road. It’s a chipseal/gravel split that’s quite quiet. You really get the feel of crossing up and over the Highlands, even the trees seem to get a little smaller and more sparse.
Eventually you pop out onto a freshly paved chipseal road with a nice little shoulder as you enjoy that hard-earned elevation back down to the Ottawa River.
In future I’ll try veering off of Hwy 20 sooner and take ‘Robertson Line’ or ‘Concession 8 / Mountain View Road’ north to Hwy 2 as it appears to also be repaved with a nice bike-friendly shoulder (which Hwy 20 does NOT have and can be busy).
All in all a terrific 100+km ride despite the non-stop headwind and <10c temps.