105km
What an incredible trail from a surface and logistics point of view. The P’tit Train du Nord which winds through the Laurentians is immaculate in every way. We’ve never had such a great surface – even the 30km gravel section from Saint Jerome had none of the corrugations or sandy sections we’ve come to dread on gravel rail trails. We found absolutely no trash. And every 15km or so an old gare (station) has been converted into a coffee shop or bike rental place. All are quaint and inviting for tired legs.
We started with an hour-long train ride from downtown Montreal to the trail farther north. The biggest adventure of the day was getting the bikes up the stairs onto the double-decker commuter train.
This was one of our colder days on the Trail – possibly because the forecasters got it so wrong with their “19 and sun” but after a short sunny spell in the early morning the weather dished out 11 degrees all day, with blustery wind and squally rain. We needn’t have bothered with the sunscreen.
This is tame cycling though, and a pretty slog is still a slog. 90km of gradual uphill with absolutely no leg breaks was followed by a 10km freezing freewheel. And the prettiness is the trail itself, its tunnel of greenery and the rivers and lakes alongside. This is not a place of grand vistas, making today a bit like cycling’s Grouse Grind (a Vancouver forested “nature’s staircase” up Grouse Mountain) – all uphill and not too much to look at through the trees.
The legs that dragged us into the lovely Auberge 900 in Mont Tremblant must have been the most tired legs of the many cyclists on the trail today; 90% of the bikes were e-bikes and most of them out for a short sight-seeing jaunt. Pretty much all the cyclists are – ahem – our age. Clearly we belong to the e-bike generation. And most of them were going the other way – the downhill one.
This trail is 236km from northern Montreal, north-west to Saint Laurier. It’s popular, probably because of the great amenities and surface (and in winter it’s ski-able), and the micro-breweries, bistros, coffee shops and chocolate factory that break the green tunnel monotony.
There’s no North America feel here. Not a word of English on the history boards, not much spoken. But everyone is friendly and as we gradually head more north the leaves are starting to change, adding some colour to our tunnel vision. And the food … no matter where we eat in Quebec the food is incredible.
The rest of this Trans Canada thing has been west to east for us. But this trip we’re heading west. It’s just the way the logistics worked, and because Gill thought finishing on a 90km freewheel if we had gone the other way would have been frustrating. Hmmm.
Today: 105km
Today’s climb: 578m
Total distance: 4,094km
Trans Canada Epic 