Return trip to Voie Celtique/Celtique Way and the Route decouverte des chemins Craig et Gosford

At top of Rectory Hill near Lyster, the first hill of the ride.

You get to zoom down this hill at the end of the ride.


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Rest stop at Bernierville beside the church and overlooking the boat launch.



Perfect asphalt.

Every cyclists dream... here it is!



Scenery...



And more scenery.



Chutes Lysander (waterfalls) is an excellent diversion after the first hour of riding.




Lysander falls from the road. This is a free public park.



Lyster train station on the Route Verte Bois Francs path.We parked here and rode south and southwest of Lyster.



Last weeks ride in the new area of Chemins Craig and Gosford was so good, we went back right away. Was it all a dream, or were the great conditions just some sort of hallucination or delusion. Happily, they were factual!

We modified last week's ride a bit. We cut out the ROute Verte ride btween Princeville and Lyster. In fact, we drove and parked in Lyster. This is an excellent starting point. There's a few km of rolling flats before you ride up Rectory Hill, a hill that informs you that this will be a hills ride. It also informs you that this is a history ride, as you pass the St-Stephens cemetery and the just-burned-down church across the road. The history on this ride tends to be of the original settlers in this area. Scotland, Ireland and England were the source of these people, and they all had different religions, so there are tiny villages with several different churches and cemeteries. There are also many cemeteries without churches, all alone in fields and forests.

We shortened last week's 150 km to a more enjyable 110 km. We cut out the flats, and added some hills to the northeast. This includes Lysander Falls, Leeds, and Kinnear's Mills, by backroads.

Leeds is where the Chemin Craig part starts, and it continues south to St-Ferdinand.

From Kinnear's Mills we climbed up to the belvedere (lookout) at the top of the hill between it and St-Jean-de-Brebeuf. The 17% descent to St-Jean-de-Brebeuf was on the brakes this time, we held the speed at 70 km/h with no pedaling at all. Then craig road continues through great countryside southeast until Bernierville/St-Ferdinand where it joins Gosford road. (Gosford is in the west side of the Becancour river, Craig is on the east side).

Last week we continued south on this road, but today we turned north, through St-Ferdinand, and continue on Godford road through Inverness until our turnoff at Rang 11 to descent Rectory hill and return to Lyster.

St-Ferdinand has a great rest stop at an elevated deck overlooking their boat launch on the lake.

One thing we noticed about this ride is that is was a pretty hard ride. It had 1200 metres of climbing. That is 8.7 Camelien Houde Mont Royal climbs - so the popular advice to "ride cam houde ten times to train for the big hills" seems to be true. We wish we'd followed that advice! Instead we take micro breaks during the climbs. This helps maintain the body's ability to provide energy to the legs. We hate it when we go into overload and cramp city. So we stop and enjoy he scenery, for a minute and get back on the bike and ride up and up and up!

This ride could be done in shorter versions. There are four or five connections between Gosford and Craig roads to create shorter routes for those people who prefer a bit less distance.

This is a ride with many good things, scenery, nature, history, interesting terrain, good roads, quiet roads, small villages only, 90% back roads, big climbs and descents, and no boring flats.

The best thing about this ride? Once again, this is a ride with every good thing a ride can have! We recommend you put this ride on your to do list. And do it soon.

A map is here at bikely.