Camillien Houde repaved!

The city is repaving the entire Camillien Houde climb up the east side of Mont Royal.

Yes, the entire thing.

They are digging up the old asphalt (it gets recycled), and laying down new pavement from the bottom to the top, the complete width of the road.

Amazing.

It's not quite finished, but it's already much appreciated by cyclists.

A few Camillien Houde facts:

1. Camillien Houde was mayor of Montreal four times between 1928 to 1954.
2. After his death, Mayor Jean Drapeau named a new road over Mount Royal after Houde, an act many considered ironic, as Houde and many others had long opposed building roads over the city's famous mountain.
3. The road that is now known as Camillien Houde was previously only a streetcar route, there was no street and the canyon on top of the climb was a tunnel originally.
4. The Camillien Houde climb was in the 1976 Montreal Olympic games.
5. More at wikipedia.
   

Enjoy!

piste cyclable + circuit vitalité = total fitness

Some news from Sherbrooke.

Implantation d'un circuit vitalité à Sherbrooke

La ville de Sherbrooke implante actuellement un circuit vitalité aux abords de la piste cyclable sur le boulevard Lionel-Groulx.

Il s'agit d'un circuit d'entraînement qui mise sur l'utilisation du mobilier urbain.

La chef de section loisir et milieu de vie de l'arrondissement Jacques-Cartier, Chantale Carrier, décrit en quoi consiste le projet.

Le circuit devrait être finalisé cet automne et a nécessité un investissement de 25 000$.

Mentionnons que d'autres projets similaires devraient voir le jour éventuellement dans d'autres arrondissements.

original info here.

How others see cyclists

Welcome to Ormstown!

How others see us? Show me the money!

perfect sunny summer bike ride, and then the mega-rain arrived

Montreal from across the St-Laurence river on the Voie Maritime (Seaway) bike path




Almost home, but we dawdled at the biosphere, and got caught in mega rain.


What a beautiful day for a bike ride.

Summer sunshine perfection.

And then came the mega rain orage severe thunderstorm - this rain can't bring us down, but after 30 minutes of standing under a tree and the rain and wind get stronger and fiercer and finally we realized that if we wanted this mega rain to stop, we had to start riding our bike. So we got on the bike, rode through rivers of water, and within 5 minutes the rain stopped. Woohoo!

We went for a ride along the Voie Maritime/Seaway to St-Catherine on the south shore for mid-ride ice cream. The recreoparc at the west end of the Voie Maritime path is making a few improvements. This is one of the most scenic spots in Montreal. This is not just recommended: it's mandatory.

This is a wild riverside bike path with no civilization for miles and miles.



The rain arrived and got worse fast. Much worse. Much, much, much worse.

Update: So the rain took out our bike pretty good. It fucked up the headset bearings, loosened the handlebar tape, and loosened BOTH spd cleats under our shoes. Also the spot we were standing had some recently disposed gum, and that entered our SPDs. Yuck.

We don't mind rain, but the collateral damage is hard to ignore.

Raid Jean d'Avignon this weekend

It's time for the annual East Hereford mountain bike festival:

Raid/Marathon Jean D'Avignon et du FestivAllezY qui seront les 22, 23 et 24 juillet 2011!!

Nous nous donnons un défi à chaque année, celui d'offrir un événement meilleur que l'année précédente!!

La recette que nous utilisons depuis quelques années ressemble à ce qui se faisait avec Jean D'Avignon dans les années 90: le samedi c'est le récréatif et le dimanche on compétitionne. Depuis l'an dernier, nous avons ajouté le vendredi dans le FestivAllezY. Il y a l'incontournable souper du maire du samedi soir, les sapins de Noël un peu partout et voilà, c'est East Hereford!

Depuis 5 ans les pistes de Circuits Frontières viennent mettre du piquant. L'ADSVMQ a travaillé fort et c'est au travers 30 km de sentiers "simple trace" incroyables qu'on s'amuse à East Hereford. Vous n'en reviendrez pas. Nous manquons de mots pour décrire l'expérience. Disons simplement qu'il n'y a rien de comparable à ce qui se passe à East Hereford pendant la fin de semaine du Raid/Marathon Jean D'Avignon. Si vous ne venez pas, vous ne saurez pas.

Les vendredi, samedi c'est le FestivAllezY (remplace la récréative AllezY.net)

Le dimanche c'est trois compétitions:

• Le Jean (environ 31 km, le parcours est à vérifier)
• Le D'Avignon (un peu plus de 50 km)
• Le Jean D'Avignon (un peu plus de 78 km)

Visit the Raid/Marathon Jean d'Avignon website for more information.

This is a great way to get an introduction to this amazing mountain biking destination.

on vacation

Bon voyage!

Bonnes vacances!

VIA Rail's Bike-Train is back for 2011 summer

Via has added baggage cars to more trains so more bikes can be carried to more places.

Where are these places?

• Toronto
• Montréal
• Ottawa
• Québec City
• London
• Windsor
• Jonquière
• Senneterre (this is deep in the northern bush!)
  

It is also possible that bikes can be packed in a box and carried as baggage on other routes, but don't take this as 100% fact.

Read more here (news) and here for the VIA Rail's Bike-Train webpage.

It costs $20 per bike each way, which is pretty reasonable.

Note that this not on all trains/days, so check the VIA website first.

Has anybody done the VIA bike-train thing? Leave a comment please.

Canada Day in the forest - East Hereford mountain bike day

East Hereford village from Panorama trail



We spent the friday canada holiday celebrating that thing that happened in 1867 by playing in the forest. And what better forest to play in that the mountain biking paradise of East Hereford?

We rode, rode, and rode some more for a full day of quality riding, with the following routes making us happy with their usual level of awesomeness.

• Bobine (uphill direction only)
  
• Quartz US&Canada
• uphill on forest road (i.e. the road at the finish of Troll... to...
• 50 Pesos (same start as L'Epicée - which has a new start a few metres from the old one)
• 50 Pesos - again! (this is the funnest trail on the mountain and very lap-able)
• down the forest road and then up a bit to Chainon Manquant's western start
  
• Chainon Manquant funfest
  
• Troll
• exit the Mont hereford area to paved road down to Zen (avoiding Slalom) and the doubletrack north-of-town trails.
  
• Zen northward (first water crossing has stones to walk across, otherwise go fast and stay left!) and cross stream again to get back to the road and continue north to
  
• Rang 9 which we ride uphill to Trials (Rang 9 is VERY uphill, 'ostie)
  
• back into the woods for Trial (clockwise direction) and don't forget to look back - there's some great views up here (The trail Trials has nothing to do with riding trials-style obstacles, it's all zoom-zoom stuff)
• L'Express (This is the start of the final section of today's ride, so it's always a bit sad to know that the day's fun will soon be finished.) Go fast and have fun on this doubletrack.
  
• Panorama - last trail of the day and right near the end you have great views looking down on the village of East Hereford - take a minute and stop and appreciate the view. (Hydro Quebec wants to build mega-power lines through this valley - help protect the Hall river valley!)
  

Total ride time was about 6 hours for this adventure.



Click HERE for Hereford trail info at AllezY's Quebec mtn-bike trail directory.



For an interesting outsider view on the trail network at East Hereford, You can check out this article at Mountain Bike Vermont (MTBVT) website: East Hereford – the best mountain biking in New England…in Quebec.


East Hereford on facebook and twitter

Circuits Frontières (which is the official name for the East Hereford trail network) is on facebook and twitter. We still click HERE for Hereford trail map info at AllezY's excellent Quebec mtn-bike trails online directory. It's really good.

Don't forget to pay the small trail access fee for mountain bike trail access (this funds trail development) at the kiosk beside the behind-the-church mtnbiker parking.

One major improvement to our day's enjoyment was riding on brand new tires. What an improvement over the worn out carcasses we were riding before.