Biking in Ottawa: See The City On Two Wheels

Let's talk about biking in Ottawa!

​Maria from Escape Bike Tours and Rentals chats with us about her Ottawa bike tours and seeing a new side of the city.

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I'm so excited to bring you this interview with my fellow Ottawa resident and travel lover Maria, founder of Escape Bicycle Tours and Rentals.

As many of you know, I'm an anti-adventurist. And sometimes I even get a bit nervous about bike tours, though years of experience have taught me that once I get going, I love them. In case you need a little extra encouragement like me or you just want to see all the incredible opportunities that exist for biking in Ottawa, this special interview is for you!

What makes Ottawa a great city to explore on bike?

Biking in Ottawa often means crossing a bridge to take in the view from the other side.

Maria says....

Name any of Ottawa’s landmarks or your favorite spot in the city and I will take you there safely on bike!

Ottawa has the perfect mix of nature and urban atmosphere. Ottawa is not only a very flat city, which makes it easy to cycle around, the city has also been investing in cycling infrastructure for the last 10 years. In fact, Ottawa is becoming one of the leading cycling cities in Canada.

Several new bridges have been built to improve connectivity, new bike paths have been developed, the city has adopted special cycling signals in different parts of the city and is implementing several intersections in the Dutch style, i.e. with cyclists away from motorized traffic. Combined with the NCC pathways and the Gatineau Park, the region offers hundreds of kilometers of safe cycling away from traffic. Through biking in Ottawa, it is entirely possible to see many of the important sites such as Parliament Hill, the Museum of History, the War Museum, the Ottawa River, the Rideau Canal and Rideau Hall without ever having to share the road with traffic.

These investments pay off: Ottawa sees cycling tourism from as far as Germany, the Netherlands and even someone from Uruguay. Our company has seen the increased demand that this year, we have launched and will offer Ottawa’s first ever multi-day bike tour packages for cycling tourism.

For someone who is used to doing an Ottawa bus tour, what can they see on a bike ride that they might not notice while driving?

Biking in Ottawa means seeing things from an entirely new perspective!

I think this is very hard to compare. What we see is that a bus drops you off at a restaurant or museum, then picks you up and drops you off at Rideau Hall for 30 minutes. When you cycle, you actually experience the city, you smell the water, the trees and - even the cows, just outside downtown at the Experimental Farm. You interact with locals, you feel the sun, you hear the birds.

It is a totally different experience. I mean, how exciting is it to cycle across the Alexandra Bridge to another province and back, with views of Parliament Hill or the Museum of History with the sound of the gulls above you? How much fun is it to roll downhill along the locks towards the Ottawa River? You don't do that in a bus. When biking you get to places where a bus doesn't go. Even if you notice some similar things on a bus tour, you cannot stop and look further or take that popular Instagram shot but you totally can and will on a bike tour!

What are your tour participants most excited about? Is there one attraction or stop that they always rave about after you're done?

​People love to roll along the Rideau Canal. Most Canadians have never experienced cycling along a World Heritage Site, let alone in the nation's capital. It is a very special experience. Dow's Lake in summer is always a hit, as is the Arboretum. Biking on the scenic Alexandria bridge is remarkable as well. But in general people are really excited about the fact that you can cycle to so many places without ever having to share the road with cars. That is probably what everyone, from Mexico to Germany, loves the most. For so many people, being able to cycle worry-free is utopia, and they find it here in Ottawa. The majority are pleasantly surprised by the safe and scenic cycling network we have and that means we have lots of opportunities for raising awareness about one of our greatest assets/treasures.

When locals come on a tour, what do they think? Are there any sights that even they didn't know were in their own backyard?

I bet most people in and around Ottawa have no idea where this is!

Many locals grew up with a car culture. They often mention that they had no idea there was such incredible cycling infrastructure. It is understandable. If you see Ottawa from a car, you probably drive via arterials such as Bronson, Riverside, March, Innes you name it. You will never see cyclists on those roads so you think they aren't there. But residents on bicycles use other routes and so locals are not aware of the cycling infrastructure.

​Did you know that the Ottawa River Pathway sees, in normal years, way over 3,000 bike rides a day? Laurier bike lane is not far behind and the routes along the canal average 2,000 a day, up to 4,000 sometimes. Those are huge numbers for Canada. I believe there are about 12,000 cycling commuters, that is not including all the retirees or tourists who bike around in the summer. Generally, locals are most surprised about how the pathways and attractions connect via safe routes. They often don’t know about safe routes that connect neighbourhoods and love that they learn about them in our tours not to mention that they always tell us how much they came to the tour thinking they knew Ottawa well and are leaving feeling that they learnt and discovered a lot more!

The idea of a bike tour can intimidate some people. Just how fast will I be going? How many cars will I have to fight? If someone is a bit of an anti-adventurist (like me!) what words of reassurance can you offer them?

Based on our bike map app data, we go about 12 km/h. To put that in context, that is twice the speed of walking. It doesn't even take into account the time we are not moving because we stop to share stories or take a couple of pictures. In some neighbourhoods such as Lowertown and New Edinburgh we probably go 8-9 km per hour while we are admiring the old homes. Did you know that the average speed of cyclists world wide is about 16 km/h?

The vast majority of cyclists just do their thing: they shop, they go to friends, to the dentist, to have a blood test. You don't have to be an adventurist to bike. Perhaps our image of cycling in North America is blurred by the industry’s bias towards racing and imbalanced advertisement of racing bikes. This image is even more blurred by the news. If one cyclist is hit it is news, if 12,000 residents (including bike commuters) leave home and arrive safely, it is not news. In fact, motorbike riders are now considered more vulnerable than non-motorized cyclists, based on the stats. If you pick your routes, cycling is just as safe as walking.

Ottawa has a vast network of cycling infrastructure that is mostly connected now. There are gaps but you can often use residential streets to connect. (Note: take a look a the maps that our talented guide Hans created not too long ago: Ottawa Cycling Maps | Hans on the Bike | plot your own route)

How did you get into biking and what motivated you to start a tour company.

I always loved cycling. In fact I learned cycling on a Persian rug  in my parents living room (it didn't fly away, unfortunately). I loved cycling but at some point in my life (around the age of  11-12), I was reprimanded for cycling: "You are a woman now, get off that bike". There are many other reasons why I wasn't happy in Iran: the way women are treated and viewed in Iran was a constant source of frustration, anger and sadness in me. I felt I was not treated as a human but an object to be ruled by men. To get a taste of another life, I decided to apply at a university in Canada and it was Carleton where I ended up doing my PhD. 
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Escape Bike Tours was the product of me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life: I enjoyed outdoors, I don't really like to work in an office 9-5 and I felt cycling is something we all do as kids and somehow forget about it when we are getting older, marry, have kids etc. The nature, the bike infrastructure, and the peace here in Ottawa gave me the tools to set up this business and judging by our hundreds of 5 star reviews, it was a good choice.

You can learn about my journey here.

COVID-19 had sent everyone's business plan into a tailspin. What are you doing differently as a result? What's next for you in 2021 and even beyond?

One of the best part of biking is being able to stop and grab photos.

When COVID hit, we were just getting ready for the season. Our business is interacting with people, really. It is not like a book store where you can order a book online instead. We did use our extra time to create some videos, revamp our websites to be even more user friendly and informative, became more active on social media and our website.

We also developed a series of new day and multi-day tours that people can do on their own or guided. We developed a long-term bike lease plan and rent-to-own bike programs for locals and started offering electric scooter rentals. We have some other surprises coming up. But the bottom line is that we take people to places and you can't really replace that. I mean it is not that we are going to bike around with cameras on our helmets showing people a virtual tour on Facebook. 

The part of the business we love most, other than taxes :-), is the interaction with the people and sharing great moments together: seeing them slowly getting confident on the bike, their surprise about our phenomenal cycling network, the joy they get out of seeing the views of Gatineau Park across the Ottawa river and stories we tell about early Ottawa. At one point a guest told us: "I always hated history, but the way you guys bring stories to life is so much fun". That is, we realize, what you do it for; unwinding from our daily hectic pace, sharing the joy of biking in nature, celebrating our freedom to explore and connect with our Canadian heritage, magnificent nature, history, and culture on our bicycles!

I am curious; are you still intimidated by the idea of joining one of our bike tours? :)

(Vanessa's note: YES!)

All about Maria...

Maria Rasouli is the founder and operator of Escape Bicycle Tours and Rentals in Ottawa. She moved to Canada in 2002 to complete her PhD. After several years of teaching in a university business school and management consulting, in 2015 she decided to pursue her passion for biking, an activity that she could not do as a woman in her home country of Iran. 

​Maria started her company with only a website and with over 90 bikes in 2020, she has grown it to a thriving business. Her company offers daily and multi-day guided and self-guided bike tours and rentals as well as e-scooter rentals in the Ottawa-Gatineau region and is rated the #1 outdoor activity in Ottawa on TripAdvisor. Maria and her company have won several city and tourism industry awards and have been featured in The New York Times travel section, the Guardian, CBC radio, and TV.

Ottawa Bike Rentals and Information

Escape Tours and Rentals (that's Maria's company!) is our top pick for Ottawa bike rentals. They have options starting at just $9 an hour for adults and $8 for children, plus they have bikes for tandem riding, e-bikes, and mountain bikes. All rentals include helmets, locks, and a map. You reserve online and then visit their downtown location at 79 Sparks St for pick up.

They also have a walk-up bike rental stand at Dow's Lake, where rentals start at $12 an hour.

Ottawa Bike Repair Shops

Joe Mamma Cycles (767 Bank St) is a comprehensive, centrally located Ottawa bike shop that also does tune ups and bike repairs. I used to live just down the street from their old location and brought my trusty ol' university bike in for a tune up when I first moved to the city.

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