Abstract: Link quality, transmission rate of wireless links and channel competition among them determine the transmission capacity of multi-rate and multi-hop wireless networks together. This paper first builds a transmission mode and channel competition mode of wireless links, according to IEEE 802.11 DCF basic mode, and then gives the channel competition degree definitions both of wireless link and node, and finally proposes a channel competition aware end-to-end delay routing metric (CCAD) for multi-rate and multi-hop wireless networks. CCAD calculates the delays of wireless link and route, based on the transmission mode of wireless links and the channel competition degree of wireless nodes. As a result, link quality, transmission rate and channel competition are captured and measured together. NS2 simulation results show CCAD outperforms other metrics that have appeared in the literature, such as ETX, ETT and MIC.