A flat rail trail along the Lake Erie shore, and a hill loop through Pelham's villages. Two different rides on the quiet side of Niagara.
Created in partnership with Niagara's South Coast. All routes, opinions, and recommendations are our own.
Route 1 of 2
Port Colborne to Fort Erie and back on an old rail bed. Flat, mostly paved, and the longer of the two by a distance.
Distance
58 km
Elevation
110 m
Ride time
2–3 hr
Difficulty
Easy
Stops on the Friendship Trail
6 of 6 showing
0 km · Port Colborne
160 Sugarloaf Street, on Sugarloaf Harbour, and where we left the car. Washrooms, picnic pavilions, a bandshell, and a public bike repair stand by the spray pad. The Marble Slab counter next to it runs in season, and that is where the post-ride ice cream came from.
Open in Maps →1 km and 58 km · West Street
A scratch bakery doing fruit and savoury pies, soups, sandwiches and coffee. Mon to Sat 8:30–5, Sun 9–4. It sits 900 m from the park, so it works at either end of the ride. Historic West Street fronts the Welland Canal at the 1929 Clarence Street lift bridge, and there are more places to eat along it.
Open in Maps →17.5 km · Ridgeway
250 Ridge Road North, a short pull off the trail. They mill organic Ontario grain on site for their own baking, and the coffee is roasted by Black Sheep in Welland. Tue to Sat 8–3, closed Sunday and Monday.
Open in Maps →17.5 km · Ridgeway
209 Ridge Road North, in a converted church the brewery calls The Sanctuary. Craft beer, a smokehouse kitchen and live music. Closed Monday and Tuesday; Wed to Thu 12–9, Fri to Sat 12–10, Sun 12–4.
Open in Maps →27 km · Fort Erie
The natural turnaround, right on the trail. Sand, a paved shoreline promenade, and the concrete ruins of the Erie Beach Amusement Park out in the shallows. Benches, and Buffalo across the water.
Open in Maps →to 29 km · Fort Erie
We rode a couple of kilometres past the beach for the head of the Niagara River and a longer look at Buffalo. Old Fort Erie is at 350 Lakeshore Road, a reconstructed War of 1812 fort run by Niagara Parks, open May to October with an admission fee.
Open in Maps →Route 2 of 2
Two of Pelham's published routes joined into one. Quiet back roads with proper climbing, the Comfort Maple, and a drop through Short Hills Provincial Park.
Distance
34 km
Elevation
273 m
Ride time
1–2 hr
Difficulty
Moderate
Stops on the Short Hills loop
6 of 6 showing
0 km · 1780 Cream Street
Where we left the car. A small municipal park with two ball diamonds on the quiet north side of town, with room to park and a portable toilet on site.
Open in Maps →0.9 km · Metler Road
636 Metler Road, barely out of the parking lot. Canada's oldest sugar maple, estimated in 1975 at 400 to 500 years old, about 24 m tall with a six-metre trunk. The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority looks after the small roadside site, open sunrise to sunset and free to visit.
Open in Maps →9.8 km · Effingham Street
2519 Effingham Street, a working sugar bush right on the route. The Maple Sweet Shop is open daily 10–5 year-round; sugar bush treks run March and April, and tours and tastings run May to October.
Open in Maps →11 km · Short Hills
The prettiest stretch of the loop. It drops into the Twelve Mile Creek valley with the water running beside the road and the trees closing in overhead. The surface is rough in places, so take it steady on the way down. If you would rather avoid it altogether, take Holland to Hollow to Hansler to Metler to Effingham and rejoin the route.
Open in Maps →~23 km · Ridgeville
302 Canboro Road, Unit 1A. Bread baked from organic wheat, daily soups, sandwiches, and locally roasted fair-trade coffee, with seating inside and out. Mon to Sat 9–4, Sun 11–4.
Open in Maps →whole route
This ride is the Town's own Short Hills Loop (15.4 km) and Villages Loop (16 km) joined together. Pelham publishes two more: the Berkhout Trail Riverfront Loop, and a set of connecting routes with bike lanes on Haist and Pelham Streets that tie into the Greater Niagara Circle Route.
Pelham's cycling routes →About these rides
Niagara's South Coast is the four municipalities that make up the Lake Erie side of the region: Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Pelham. It's the side of Niagara that isn't the falls. Beaches, canal towns, farmland, and more climbing than you would expect once you turn inland. These two routes sit on either side of that split.
The Friendship Trail runs about 24 km from Port Colborne to Fort Erie on an old rail bed, which is why it's flat. It's mostly paved, and it forms the southern leg of the 140 km Greater Niagara Circle Route. We started at H.H. Knoll Lakeview Park in Port Colborne and rode it out and back for 58 km. Ridgeway comes at 17.5 km, around 60% of the way out, and is a good place to stop, with a bakery and a brewery within a block of each other. At the far end, Waverly Beach Park in Fort Erie has sand, a paved shoreline promenade, and the concrete remains of the Erie Beach Amusement Park, a resort that pulled day-trippers across from Buffalo by steamer a century ago. The dock they landed at is still in the water, and Buffalo is still on the far shore.
Pelham is half an hour north, and it is really five villages: Effingham, Fenwick, Fonthill, North Pelham and Ridgeville. They sit around one big hill that rises about 75 m above the farmland below it. The hill is where the climbing comes from, and it shelters the ground around it well enough that the whole area is orchards and vineyards. Pelham publishes its own cycling routes, and we linked two of them, the Short Hills Loop and the Villages Loop, into one 34 km ride from North Pelham Park. It passes the Comfort Maple in the first kilometre and drops through Short Hills Provincial Park, 660 hectares of ravine and old forest on the edge of the escarpment. The back half is the village half: quiet roads into Ridgeville and Fenwick, roadside stands, and a bakery worth timing the ride around.
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