From Terrebonne we switched from the Route Verte 5 to the Route Verte 2 and headed northwest into the Laurentians. The trail is also the ‘P’tit train du nord’ and the Trans Canada trail all on the same path. Since it was a rail trail the gradient was never more than 5% and was a mix of pavement and gravel, all very good to ride on. As we have seen before, the trail was well serviced with toilets, info, and bike fixing stations. Our destination was Saint-Sauveur, about halfway to the more famous Mont Tremblant but we ran out of time to go further.
I have a colleague/friend who lives close by and who had given us great ideas for the ride overall, so we met up with Dan and his charming wife Linda. We spent a great evening at their home in Morin Heights and were treated to a gourmet home cooked meal. These two love being active in the outdoors so we met for a guided ride on a favourite trail two days later. The scenery is truly breathtaking with lakes and trees and hills all around. If we could have been here a week or two later we would have been presented with the famous colour explosion of the season as the leaves change from green to gold, orange, red and burgundy. As it was, the start of this was apparent so we did not miss it entirely.
This is a skiing destination and there are no less than 4 downhill ski areas within 10km of St-Sauveur, as well as an abundance of cross country/mountain biking trails. We even found a cute little ski museum which related the long history of skiing in the area. As is typical for a ski town, our accommodation had a hot tub but also a warm pool and a sauna. One of the things we did not think we would need on this trip was bathing suits so we had to shop and found a $10 suit for Tara in a liquidation place. George made do with one of his two pairs of shorts. Also needed were $2.49 special gloves for the ride back to Montreal as the morning temps were getting low.
The route back was halfway the same way we came up, and then zig zagging our way through Laval and finally to our original B&B in the south side of Montreal. There was more bike racing in store for us as the UCI world championships were happening all week in Montreal, specifically including our street! Traffic was snarled and grumpy but we had no trouble. We got our bike cases back (phew!) and packed the bike up the next morning. That left us just a bit of time for sightseeing, race spectating, and souvenir shopping. An early morning flight meant a short sleep but it was smooth sailing with an Uber on both ends and a fast and smooth flight home to Calgary.
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