The weather dawned sunny, but much colder than the days we had experienced so far, closer to seasonal norms, but still warmer than we encountered last year. The temperature ranged from 4° to 8° rather than the long-term forecast which had led us to expect 10° to 16° today and much cooler after today. The long-term forecast has been fairly accurate with the exception that the weather cooled down one day sooner than forecast.
We had yet this year, or last year, to ride our bikes the 8 km from the resort into Prévost to start riding on the P’Tit Train du Nord. I looked at the elevation profile last night, and have been studying it as we drove to and from the resort. I determined that it would be a fairly easy, and quite fun ride into town as, with the exception of the hill out of the resort, and a couple others climbing up out of dips, it was mostly downhill with some nice curves. However I was unsure that I wanted to ride back at the end of the day.
We decided after our gran fondo yesterday that we would take a shorter, more restful day today. Cindy didn’t really want to ride into town so I asked if it would be alright if I did and we met in town. For me this was the best outcome as it meant I would get a ride back uphill to the resort at the end of the day. Cindy agreed.
We left a little later to allow the sun to come out strongly and the day to warm up a bit. My ride started with a descent from our unit within the resort before a climb up to the road. With the exception of the last 150 m or so up to the road it wasn’t an overly challenging climb. I did pull over at the top briefly to catch my breath.
I had spotted this sign a few times from the car and pulled over to take a picture. I found it a rather peculiar drawing, but a poignant, and often ignored, message. So many parents who drive their children to school do so because they feel it would be too dangerous for them to walk or bike, not realizing, or ignoring the fact that they are creating the danger to children outside the car by driving their children to school.
Cindy was just finishing up unloading and getting ready to ride, by the time I arrived at the station. It was a super fun ride and got me a few extra tiles.
Our destination was Sainte-Adèle, a lovely station with a bike shop and coffee shop, which is 11 km north of Prévost. We decided to explore some trails that lead away from the main trail on the way there, as last year we hadn’t done a lot of exploring off the main trail.
We explored Piedmont where they had an outdoor photographic display of the history of the area. One of the trains that used to run in this area was used for getting skiers to the hills.
After re-joining the main trail we passed Piedmont Station, which, we learned from the exhibit, had been demolished, but a replica was rebuilt when the rail trail was established, and is used as a community centre.
There were many information signs along the trails and one that was particularly useful showed the distances between stations and the elevation profile and whether or not the trail was paved.
The sun was strong and the temperature pleasant by the time we arrived at Sainte-Adèle. We decided to have lunch and coffee.
Just as we were about to leave we saw a man walking towards us with a coffee and newspaper. He asked if he could join us, and told us he had been born in and lived his whole life in Sainte-Adèle. His name was Werner and we had a very interesting conversation.
The weather was very pleasant and we weren’t tired, so we decided to continue north to explore some other areas off the trail. We discovered this waterfall, and hiking and skiing trails and a cabin for warming during the ski skiing season, just off the trail north of Sainte-Adèle.
The next 10 km to Val-Morin were ascending, but at a consistent incline that one finds on rail trails, which was more challenging than most of the rail trails I have experienced in Ontario, but well within our limits.
The trail went across a picturesque causeway at Lac Raymond.
There is a small Mexican restaurant in the station at Val-Morin, but the owners were on vacation, and it was closed. It was also closed last year when we passed it.
We decided to leave the trail and ride on the roads to Val-David. We didn’t encounter anything of consequence Val-Morin, but saw this cute house with a matching mailbox along the way.
Even though many of the places we pass through are quite small villages it’s not unusual to see denser housing forms and most villages have protected bike lines.
We saw several houses being raised to have a basement put under them.
The first two cafés we considered were closed during the week.
This is the station in Val-David, which is a very busy place with lots of activity along the trail, but also lots of motor vehicle traffic on its main streets. The main street here did not have a bike lane.
Because the first couple cafés we stopped at were closed we decided to go to one that we enjoyed last year which had sheltered outdoor seating.
The pumpkin pie and hazelnut eclair were awesome.
There were so many information signs along the entire length of the trail that there were many we did not stop to read. At the north end of Lac Raymond was another one of the cute benches, like we saw in Labelle yesterday, and the crossing sign was used for way finding.
As we rode north we removed our layers of clothing, but on the way back south, by about 4 PM we were putting them back on.
The trail follows several rivers. This is the Rivière du Nord and there was a good view of the rapids here.
This was a typical road crossing. At this particular one the drivers had a stop sign, but usually the crossings are at uncontrolled intersections and still lack gates for trail users which we appreciate as we are used to having to squeeze through gates at most rail trail crossings in Ontario.
Our “rest” day turned out to be 64 km for Cindy and eight more than that for me, with my ride into Prévost in the morning. I was happy not to have to ride back from Prévost to the resort.
This is what the unit that we were staying in looked like from the back. We were on the middle level.
We had another simple dinner of soup and salad, bacon and cheese bread. Cindy bought us some Halloween cookies from the bakery in Val-David for dessert.
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