Northern Lanaudiere mega-hill ride

In our preparations for the Raid de Charlevoix mtn bike race next weekend, we decided to ride as many hills as possible last sunday. It was too many hills, but it was a darn fine ride. 2100 metres of climbing in 125 kilometres.

Following the suggestion on the Quebec en 30 Boucles, we did our two favorite hills between St-Jean-de-Matha and Ste-Emilie-de-l'Energie in both our regular direction and in the 30 Boucles (i.e. opposite to our normal) direction.  Well, that added some extra effort!

There's a map of the ride after the photos, in case you are crazy enough to be looking for a hill extravaganza ride.

For shorter rides in this amazing area, we've made several blog posts detailing rides as short as 60 km distance.

One of the smallest houses we seen in a while.

A nice village, which we passed two times on this out-and-back ride

It is getting quite common to see chickens on our country rides

This guy doesn't look like he likes riding hills.

This is either bad or very, very good!

Ok, we admit it, we like going zoom zoom down hills

a message to catholics 

Really old barn foundation

Our kind of dog: any dog who completely ignores bike riders

View from top of Col de Force

An old fashioned renewable-energy form of transportation

We've said it before, and we'll say it again, on this ride you MUST include Rang St-Guillaume at the end of the ride

after 125 hard kilometres we are turning into Salt Creature.

St-Jean-de-Matha from top of the first (which is also the last hill) of the ride.

Some civic pride and history on display in this northern Lanaudiere town

Church steeples are a common sight in rural Quebec.

Back at the giant maple tree in the parking in St-Jean-de-Matha. The Bertrand bike has confessed a fondness for this magnificent tree.

Another chicken spotted on this ride. A very, very strange chicken.

A scenic rest spot on the climb up "Col-de-l'Energie"

mega St-Jean-de-Matha hill rideShare your bike routes @ Bikely.com