Day 4. Up to Mont Tremblant Resort

8/21/23. LaBelle to Saints Agathe de Monts

Stats: 51 mi. AIS: 5:26. 9.3 mph. Elev 1243

We had a little riding and a little climbing to do today. Actually today is our longest day in time and distance. We had a change of trail surface today. The last 2 days were asphalt… some of it pretty frost heaved and broken up. You had to pay attention to the orange markings quite often. (I had to think the family with kids in trailers were getting bumped around all over the place. Hard to dodge that many with a trailer!) Today it changed to crushed compacted rock for 15km. After the cracks and bumps of the last 2 days this crushed rock surface was fast and easy.

We had a really enjoyable ride into Mont Tremblant Village. The village is really cute (and touristy) right on a lake. It was teeming with visitors, triathletes and the leftover garbage and porta-potties from yesterday’s Ironman Triathlon (2000 participants). From the village there is a paved bike path up to the ski resort. It went along through the forest with a mountain bike trail that intersected the trail along the way. It was up and down… mostly up for 5 km. The resort was still finishing up the triathlon with award ceremonies but we poked around the village. It is what I imagine European ski resorts look like. It was filled with hotels, shops and restaurants… and hobbling athletes and their proud families! The bike path makes a loop so we finished the loop back down to the village.

Returning to our P’tit Train du Nord trail we headed to another Mont Tremblant (Centerville) village. It was a busy Main Street affair of restaurants and shoppes. We stayed for lunch and had some good Mexican tacos. Visited with a young triathlon man and his wife from Boston. English speaking people were easy to find in this whole area. We had a few chats with locals as well. They were helpful.

After lunch it was 2pm and we still had 34 km to go. The trail after Mont Tremblant changed back to asphalt. We had 12 km of 3% grade. This has been the only significant climb on this trail. Shortly after the climb the trail got even better with brand new asphalt. I’ve always said “ there’s nothing better than brand new asphalt, downhill, with a tailwind and NO cars”! Yep… it was seriously sweet!

We arrived in Sainte Agathe about 5pm to our campground. The office was closed so we just rode in and settled on a spot. Seemed like a nice enough location but now that it’s dark… we are right under a road light! Ugh… you’d think we would have learned that by now. But most of the time we forget. It’s an eye mask night.

Tomorrow we head to our start of this trail… St Jerome. One more night to camp before we ride into Montreal again. We have 3 nights in the city. That gives us some time to explore Old Montreal!