Lake of Bays Tour
This destination has been on my cycling bucket-list from the moment I saw one of our LCW cycling club members post it on Strava.
Lake of Bays is within driving distance (approx. 400km from the house) and is located in Muskoka area which happens to be one of my favourite destinations to travel to in Ontario.
So why this destination? Besides it being close enough and in beatifull secenic Muskoka area? Simple, where I live it’s pretty flat generally; very little climbing exists. So an exciting part of this trip for me was the the opportunity to experience a few climbs.
According to RideWithGPS there are 4 climbs of significance and they are as follows.
Climb #1 (11km marker):
- Distance: 16km
- Average Grade: 5.5%
- Maximum Grade 11.0%
- Level: Category 5
Climb #2 (22km marker):
- Distance: 1.4km
- Average Grade: 3.9%
- Maximum Grade: 10.2%
- Level: Category 5
Climb #3 (29km marker):
- Distance: 1.7km
- Average Grade: 4.2%
- Maximum Grade: 10.2%
- Level: Category 4
Climb #4 (71km marker):
- Distance: 1.5km
- Average Grade: 3.7%
- Maximum Grade: 5.8%
- Level: Category 5
Note: the Category Level is up for discussion depending on matrix used but RideWithGPS, MapMyRide and Strava seemed to agree / point them out as a climb.
The total route distance is just shy of 80km with about 1,000m total elevation gain. The route can be easily stretched over 100km if you decide to cycle up to Huntsville, ON area.
We set out early in the morning and felt like we had the roads to ourselves on a Saturday morning. For the most part we enjoyed a wide shoulders of the road. However if I was to do this route again I would try to avoid the following section of dirt road.
Here is a picture that shows what you be facing. Fun for mountain bike or gravel bike but a bit of a disaster for road bikes. Some areas were simply too soft (bike would sink by couple inches) so we walked; while in other areas we slowly cycled through.
Beside that little stretch this route is absolutley amazing and I felt very safe. If I ever get the opportunity to go out there to do this route I would consider the following changes/tweaks:
- Avoid gravel road
- Add on more distance by heading towards Huntsville, ON
- Do the route in reverse order simply due to the last descent! My bike computer recorded a max speed of 70.6km/h!
For this cycling trip I used my Air Miles points to get a little low end action video camera. Below is some footage from our ride … excuse the edit skills and don’t judge the dramatic music selection — it was “free” with the software I used.
In summary: absolutely beautiful Canadian scenery out there in September; lots of great climbs and descent, would do it again without questions.
Also, there are lots of great options where you can stay. For this trip we used an Airbnb rental with a cottage right on a lake; I highly recommend you check out “The Log House circa 1895 in beautiful Muskoka” Airbnb rental.
