Two good Plessisville-Appalache rides - combined into one!

Looking north, above Ste-Sophie-de-Halifax. Plessisville Church steeple is visible on horizon

We rode twice recently in the Appalachian foothills south of Plessisville. We like this area a lot and have been exploring it for about 5 years.  

The principal attraction is a pair of rods called Chemin Craig and Chemin Gosford.  These were the first two roads built between Quebec City and the USA, opening up Sherbrooke and the Eastern Townships to colonization. These are quiet roads winding through the forests and farms of the region. We like these two roads more than a lot.

The Le Québec en 30 Boucles cycling guidebook is one source we use for new rides in the very big place that is Québec. The routes were selected from readers of VeloMag's readers favorites. So I have a good expectation when I do rides from this guide. But sometimes we like long rides, so we put two plus two together and combined two routes in the guide into one long ride.

We combined:

Circuit #20: Plessisville > Ste-Sophie-d'Halifax > St-Jean-de-Brebeuf > Inverness > St-Pierre-Baptiste > Plessisville

with:

Circuit #22: Thetford Mines (Robertsonville) > St-Jacques-de-Leeds > Kinnear's Mills > Thetford Mines (Robertsonville)

We were very familiar with the roads in circuit 20, but #22 was all-new.  And it conveniently attaches it self quite well our favorite version of Circuit 20, so we had a plan! A good plan too, was the expectation.

Happily we had a perfect day on an excellent ride through some of the best landscape in Quebec.

We did both our start and finish through Ste-Sophie-d'Halifax, because fun.

So our route was:

Plessisville > Ste-Sophie-d-Halifax > Maple-Grove > St-Pierre-Baptist > Kinnear's Mills > Thetford Mines (Robertsonville) > St-Jacques-de-Leeds >Chutes Lysander waterfall > Inverness > St-Ferdinand > Ste-Sophie-d-Halifax> Plessisville


Shorter version?

For a shorter ride do circuit 20 or 22 separately. We like #20 very very much, especially because we add a little aller-retour up to the hill top village of Vianney.

Here is our circuits 20+22 combined ride map Bigs hills, many, many big hills). We rode it counter-clockwise.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/big-plessisville-robertsonville-thetford-ride

Big Plessisville-Robertsonville(Thetford) RideBig Plessisville-Robertsonville(Thetford) Ride

Here is our most recent version of the Circuit 20 area's ride including Vianney and a sidetrip on Chemin Hamilton. We rode it clockwise.

 http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/chemins-craig-et-gosford-plessisville-inverness-st-jacques-de-leeds-vianney-quebec

Chemins Craig et Gosford: Plessisville / Inverness / St-Jacques-de-Leeds / Vianney QuebecChemins Craig et Gosford: Plessisville / Inverness / St-Jacques-de-Leeds / Vianney Quebec

Enjoy!