Cornwall and Lac Morency -Day 6

The day dawned with bright sunshine, but cold and ranged from -3° to a high of 7°. We didn’t rush to leave hoping that by the time we started riding in Prévost it would have warmed up a bit. I offered Cindy the opportunity to ride from the resort to Prévost today, as I did yesterday, but she declined as after two long days on the bike she was feeling a bit tired and we were planning another 50-ish kilometres today.

We decided to try a trail more recently established than the P’Tit Train du Nord called the Corridor Aérobique, a 58. 5 km trail from Morin-Heights to Amherst that runs roughly perpendicular to the P’Tit Train du Nord, and currently requires a ride of about 10 km on roads to get in between the two trails. The municipality is in the process of putting cycling infrastructure on the roads to connect the two trails, and has designated a route, Vélocité Trajet Cyclable, but I only found this out later after I planned a route between Prévost and Saint-Sauveur that began the same as yesterday‘s ride, but leaving the trail before Piedmont station with a small distance on Highway 117.

In the park where we saw the photographic exhibit yesterday we saw an outdoor exercise class today.

There was a 9% grade climb into Saint-Sauveur which we managed but we pulled over to catch our breath at the top. Saint-Sauveur is a pretty town with a ski resort, lots of shops, restaurants, coffee shops, and outlet shopping. We visited it last year on the one day on which we were unable to ride because of rain.

We spotted a lovely looking coffee shop with sunny outdoor tables so we decided to stop, even though we had only gone 8 km at that point.

As we sat and had coffee Cindy speculated that we could have avoided the highway by continuing along the trail to Piedmont station. I looked at the map and it turned out she was correct, however coming the way did significantly shortened the 9% climb.

Saint-Sauveur did not have cycling lanes on the main street and it was incredibly congested. The cars were slowing us downeven when we could filter.

Once we got off the main street we were able to move faster. And there were a lot of descents.

We were now on the Vélocité Trajet Cyclable and encountered paved shoulders, and protected bike lanes.

After another great descent we got to the eastern end of the Corridor Aérobique. Every time we went down a hill we were thinking about what the return trip would be like.

We knew from the Corridor Aérobique website that hybrid bikes or fat bikes were recommended for this trail, but we decided to give it a try with our road bikes.

You can see a map here.

Here we have arrived at the Morin-Heights station. There were no amenities, other than a bike rack, here.

At this point we had cycled 20 km and didn’t know what we might encounter along the trail in terms of places to eat, so given our two longer prior days we decided to ride to Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard and if we encountered nothing but trail, to turn around, and come back to explore the trail in it’s entirety next year.

This was the only controlled road crossing we encountered on the rail trails in the area.

We never encountered any hills this steep on the P’Tit Train du Nord, and the surface wasn’t as good, as we expected. It’s difficult to tell in this picture but it was steep enough that walked some of the descent and all of the ascent.

At the bottom of the dip there was a bench to enjoy this lovely view.

There were many hiking and skiing trails that lead away from the main trail. They were often benches along the trail with bike racks.

The had an average grade of 4%. We climbed all the way to Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard and encountered no amenities so we turned around there and rode back downhill to the Vélocité Trajet Cyclable.

The climbs on the way back were not as challenging as we had both feared. I guess we are getting better at hills.

I was almost able to catch the thumbs up on the speed sign here on our way back.

Red is often used as an accent colour or for roofing in this area and we saw many lovely homes.

Back in Saint-Sauveur it was time for lunch so we stopped at the first place we saw that had outdoor seating, Lou’s smoked meat. Next door was a chocolate shop, also with the patio, where we decided we would get a hot drink and treat after lunch.

We split a jumbo smoked meat sandwich and a small poutine. It was definitely the right decision to split as we were both so full by the time we finished the delicious meal that we didn’t go onto the chocolate shop afterwards.

The town has benches that look like ski lift seats as an homage to its roots as a ski village.

There were a lot of Halloween decorations in this area but this was one of the best displays we saw. Perhaps we will try crepes for lunch next year.

The traffic jam getting out of town was absolutely crazy. We filtered where we could.

In Parc Georges-Filion, beside the Saint-Sauveur church there were more ski lift benches.

There was also a stage named for Kate and Anna McGerrigle who are from Saint-Sauveur.

After leaving the park the traffic jam was so long, and so close to the curb, that we dismounted and walked our bikes on the sidewalk faster than the cars were moving.

We followed the road out of town down the hill to the Piedmont station and the P’Tit Train du Nord trail, as Cindy had suggested in the morning that we could. It was nice to avoid the highway on the way back, and a very fun descent, however we weren’t unhappy about our morning route which had allowed us to avoid the longer 9% grade climb.

We finished the day with another simple, but filling meal, hardly believing that we had just finished our final full day at Lac Morency. But we still have two more days ahead as we are breaking up our trip home with a stop overnight again in Cornwall.