Northern Lanaudiere Hat Trick

There are at least 15 great things on this ride

An 80 km ride with 3500 ft of uphill, so a nice not-too-long ride that has some gravitational variety.


Horses used to power our transportation system

In winter horse-drawn vehicles got through deep snow, when cars trucks and buses couldn't cope. My mother has exciting stories about snowstorms and the winter sleigh-bus. The regular bus didn't go on her road because it wasn't plowed in winter. The downside was no heaters in a sleigh-bus. But we digress.



Scenic rest stop at top of Rang Ste-Catherine between St-Jean-de-Matha and Ste-Emilie-de-l'Energie (#1 on the map)

This is a GREAT rest stop, and it happens to be right at the top of the fun 3-stage climb on Rang Ste-Catherine. There is also a nice lake-side rest stop in the village of Ste-Emilie (at the tourist info building (#11 on the map).


L'Assomption river at the Ste-Beatrix entrance to the Parc des chutes regional park. (#6 on the map) The walkway is inside the park.

We never get tired of parking the car in St-Jean-de-Matha and riding the hills of northern Lanaudiere. It's pure pleasure to be able to enjoy this area, and we come back again and again and again to ride this circuit, sometimes the ride is a bit longer, sometimes it is a shorter version, but always we find ourselves having a great time.

Here is the link for the map of the ride on the Bikely bike-ride-map website.

The ride is a hat trick because we visited all three entrances to the Parc Regional des Chutes (waterfalls) (#16 on the map). The park is now open to 8 pm every day (summer hours).

The ride has a couple of short steep downhills where you can safely test your ability to sprint to a maximum velocity. Ours was 79.9 km/h. This is 22.1944444 meters per second. 80.0 km/h is 22.2 meters per second. That is a difference of 3 centimeters per second, or 0.12%. We will try harder next time.


What, not 80.0? 79.9 is so disappointing. #13 on the map.