Sunday, October 01, 2006

Jay Peak loop ride from Sutton Quebec

The Greatest Ride in the East?

The Hardest ride in the East?

The Hilliest Ride in the East?

The Most fun you can have in 80 km?

Can I walk today?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No!

I finally rode the Jay Peak 5-hill ride from Sutton Quebec. 5200 feet of vertical climbing.

The basic circuit is:

1-Park at Sutton Quebec, go south, turning at first road left south of sutton (chemin brookfall)

2-Take "Chemin Scenic Road."(Hill #1 - 500ft vertical climb and descent) at its end, turn right and stop at to US Customs at East Richford/Rt 105A (the river here is part of the Northen Forest Canoe Route)

3-Take Vt Rt 105E east over the backside of Jay Peak (Hill #2 - 1600 ft vertical climb)

4-At bottom of descent (1200 ft vertical descent), take first side road to village of Jay (services) (side road: sign says Jay Peak Tourist Info)

5-Climb road past the Jay Peak ski area and then conquer a final climb after ski area (Hill # 3 - 1400 ft vertical climb)

6-Descend to Mongomery Centre (services) (1750 foot vertical descent)

7-Go north to Montgomery (services ???), cross the Covered Bridge

8-This road is another great scenic hill, go north to Vt Rt105 (west of Richford) (hill # 4 - 700 ft vertical climb & descent)

Note: this ride skips Richford, but for food supplies, Richford is your last chance before getting back to Sutton)

Note: If you've had enough and are exhausted, take the shortcut home from here: go to Richford and take flats back to Sutton

9-Take 105E to 105A (customs at East Richford) and cross border back to Canada

10-Take "Chemin Scenic Road" back to Sutton, this is the "hard side" of Chemin Scenic road. (Hill #5 - 500 ft vertical climb and descent )


That's it, the beautiful 80 km, 5200 ft of climbing, 5-mountain pass ride around Jay Peak from Sutton Quebec. It's THE cycling testpiece of the East. An amazing road ride. Vicious never ending steep and steeper hills, multiple "camellien houdes" piled one on top of another. And the directions are so simple, I didn't even bring a map with me (really not recommended!)

In other words, Fantastic!

There's tons of amazing scenery, great descents, some perfect roads, some rough roads, some recently repaired roads, some roads in need of repair (hello Quebec!). The best road was the side road between 105W and Jay village, a ribbon of perfect pavement rolliing along slightly downhill, heaven for cyclists. The most scenic road (of many!) was on the hill after the covered bridge in Montgomery. The best descent was Jay Peak to Montgomery Center.

I parked in the public parking behind main street in Sutton, just south of the road to the ski area. Behind the chocolate museum.

I'd been waiting months, years, an entire decade to do this ride again after doing it multiple times in the late 80s and early 90s. I knew it was a tough ride, and the hills delivered: I used up 100% of my reserves on at least three of the climbs! Wooohoo!!

Easier Options: This ride can be done with only two hills, take flats to Richford and ride around Jay Peak without doing Chemin Scenic road or the Montgomery covered bridge backroad (although this one is the jewel of the route). For a harder option (are you nuts?) when you arrive back in Sutton ride the hill up to the Mont Sutton ski area.

For any last minute bike supplies and parts, Velo Brome is on the way to Sutton (between Cowansville and turnoff to Sutton).

This amazing road loop should be done at least once in a lifetime by every cyclist in the east.

5 Comments:

At 8:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Merci! J'y vais demain...

 
At 4:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad you enjoyed your day. I run a B&B in Sutton and have heaps of cyclists who come to do either the Jay circuit or the Sutton Massif circuit and they all seem to love it. If you ever come back I am told that the road from Franlin to Highgate Falls in Vermont is now paved creating another great circuit continuing to Sheldon Junction, Lake Carmi and West Berkshire. let me know if ever you do it.

 
At 10:25 AM, Blogger Dustin said...

great ride, actually the best part for me is right in sutton, chemin maple all the way up to the top then turn left and keep going up to ski hill where all the white condo's are on top and the decent from the top of chemin maple, it is a great fast decent can easily hit 70km plus and the road is perfect smooth nice beautiful, i do this ride every week and if it is cold out if warm up in my car, do this 10 times for over 10,000 feet of vertical climb, that is a nice day and I never get bored doing it, best hill around and the few that you can really go full out fast to the bottom because it is bump and pothole free.

 
At 10:26 AM, Blogger Dustin said...

best ride is chemin maple, up and down and keep doing it.

 
At 10:49 AM, Blogger Dustin said...

top of chemin maple is 750 vertical feet. then another 600 feet to bottom of ski hill. so this is a great place to train by going up and down. I do 300km a week minimum so I love it and drive from brossard every week to do this hill and often go around jay as well, and white face is the best accent with 3500 vertical non stop, but you can't really go that fast down because of the bad road. living in brossard,i do mt royal which is 225 vertical feet and newly paved and mt st bruno in the residential area which is nice and in great shape with 300+ vertical feet if you go up and turn right on corniche road. happy climbing to everyone. practice and you must keep your weight as low as possible to get up these hills quickly, like 15km and hour fast which is my average for most of these hills 13km is slow and 17 is pushing it. i rode with the best cyclits in the world in sep up camillie house at 15 km an hour. good luck. I'm 6 feet 1 inch and weigh 166 lbs with 8 percent body fat.

 

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