Northern Lanaudiere hill-paradise ride

Chemin Belle Montagne lives up to its name.


Smooth roads welcome you to this ride




This ride covers the heart of northern Lanaudiere, This is region is one of our favorite Quebec destinations for road biking. (Map link here)


The ride's elevation profile - only two long hills but lots of nice up and down riding


Some horses not amused at the bike machine thing


Louis Cyr welcoming us back to St-Jean-de-Matha


View looking down on L'Assomption river from road bridge outside Parc Regional des Chutes (waterfalls) at the Ste-Beatrix entrance


Riviere Blanche (at the bridge to Belle Montagne)


A few steep hills today


The top-of-hill lookout between St-Jean-de-Matha and Ste-Emilie (about one hour from the start of the ride)

We went to one of our all-time favorite hilly riding destinations today, starting at St-Jean-de-Matha and passing Lac Berthier, Ste-Emilie-de-L'Energie, chemin de Belle Montagne to Ste-Beatrix and back to St Jean with a end-of-ride side trip to Rang St-Guillaume and back to the start.

The ride is a modest 90km distance, but lots of hills make up for any idea you have that you won't get your legs all used up.

There are lots of possibilities and shortcuts to make this a shorter ride if you want (or need).

Our usual plan is to do a few spring rides here, this'll tune the legs sufficiently so we are ready for any paved-road hill in the east.

Today's conditions were completely perfect (temperature, sun, clothing, wind, bugs, traffic, and most of the roads). Average speed was 23.5 km/h, distance was about 90 km, and there were 1000 metres of hilltastic ups and downs.

Bikely map link here.