Piste cyclable St-Donat-Ste-Agathe

Red dots: my GUESS where the new off road trail fromSt-Donat to Ste-Agathe)
Blue dots: Road cycling super-road (St-Donat to Tremblant/Parc entrance)
Green dots: P'tit train de Nord - Ste-Agathe to Tremblant section

I just discovered an off-road bike trail from Sainte-Agathe to Saint-Donat. It's 40 km, and that's a 50 mile round trip. Just the thing to get some real endurance in the mountain bike saddle, without having to go on-road. I am checking this out soon.

Here is the news from the town of Saint-Donat website (link):

Nouveau Sentier l'Inter-Vals

Depuis le 24 juin 2005, la nouvelle piste cyclable pour vélo de montagne reliant Saint-Donat à la Gare du P'tit train du nord sur la Route Verte à Sainte-Agathe est ouverte.

Ce nouveau circuit débute dans le stationnement du Parc des pionniers. Il est d'une longueur totale de 38,7 kilomètres. Les 12 premiers kilomètres nous conduiront à la Base de plein air L'Interval et on comptera 24,3 kilomètres rendu à l'église de Sainte-Lucie. Une carte montrant le tracé et les dénivellations devrait être disponible sous peu.

Here's another link to information about this off road bicycle trail. (link)

This is a nice addition to the on-road and bike path trails.

The tourist information office in St-Donat has a hand-copied map of the route.

This is one more reason why you should come and spend your vacation in Quebec.

In other news I visited the amazing cycling road (the locals call it the "chemin cyclist") from Saint-Donat to Lac Superieur (in the Tremblant area it's called chemin de Nordet) which has 32 of the finest kilometers of road cycling in Quebec. A completely new road that opened in 2003, full wide shoulders and several big mountains climbs. This is one of the best roads in the east for the hill-loving cyclist. It is marked on the map in blue dots.

The third trail on the map is the P'tit train de Nord cycling path that goes from St-Jerome to Mont Laurier. I marked the Ste-Agathe to Tremblant section on the map. This is a pay trail, but quie a trail, some parts are nicer than others, and the northern 100 km are paved.. ooohhh yeah! Scenic-wise I like Ste-Adele to Val David.