Hi friends,
I just matched to McGill for residency and I need to know where the good biking is in town. My wife and I are looking at places in the Westmount-Cotes des Neiges-Outremont area. I know there is great riding in the Laurentians, but for everyday???
HELP
good biking on the island - i did a drat-legal race there once (the espirit), and the bike course is an F1 auto racing track. glassy pavement, banked corners. . . good fun! absolutely outstanding place to do intervals and not toooo tedious to do a longer ride.
-mike
For hill repeats try Camelien Houde (i.e the road that goes over Mt. Royal). Take it from the Park St. side. It’s a 6-9 minute climb and pretty steep in some sections.
For sprints, go to the F1 track. It’s 4.3 km, very smooth and has a dedicated bike/in line skating lane. Avoid training here during the day on Sat and Sun; too many people.
For some good TTing there is the Estacade. It’s basically a long peninsula in the middle of the St. Lawence river. It’s a paved road that’s 10km out and 10km back. The nice thing about this is that there are absolutely no cars, no stops, no lights and it never gets really busy. You can really push it here without having to worry about anything, except the ground hogs. Go back and forth twice, and you’ve got yourself a 40km TT. To get to it, find your way to the Fire Station on Nun’s Island. You can park on the roads nearby no problem, or bike from where you are. There are bike paths that lead there from any direction your comming from. Go around the Fire Station and you’ll find a bike path. Take the bridge to the end (2km) and you’re at the Estacade. From the end of the bridge, if you turn right, you go to St. Catherine (10km exactly to the fence). If you turn left, it’s the back way to the F1 track (4km). The way to the F1 track from this direction however is not paved, but still passable on a road bike.
For long rides (60-200km), one of the best places to go is the South Shore. It’s flat, but the roads are in relatively good shape, the traffic is pretty light and you don’t need to drive somewhere just to bike. To get there, follow the directions above for the Estacade and go towards St. Catherine. Once in St. Catherine, find your way to Rue Central which leads into Boul Montchamp, turn RIGHT on rue St. Catherine and LEFT on Montee St Regis, then after about 100-200m, turn RIGHT on Rang St Regis SOUTH. From there there you can pretty much go all the way to the American boarder if you want.
Have fun, especially with the snow this weekend. I just moved to Paris a few weeks ago and FYI, there’s no snow here 
2008 Schedule
70.3 Austria
Alpe D’huez (long distance)
IMC
previous posters have pretty much covered it. For longer rides the main option is to ride west along the south side of the island. These rides can be started on the bike path that begins in the old port of montreal. From there you can head west through Lachine (which hosts a fast weekly crit during the summer if you are a stud), Dorval, Beaconsfield, St Anne. you can even leave the island and do some decent hill repeats in Rigault.
PM me if you ever want to get together for some long rides this summer.
thanks everyone…also…
good 50m pools? i heard there is one in verdun and there is the olympic pool right? pie IX area?
can you swim at the U of Montreal pool if you’re not a student there? how much $$?
cheers
There are some good routes to ride off island around Rigaud. A good source for routes is the Beaconsfield Cycling Club’s website, they have maps for most of their rides.
If you want to swim, the only 50m pool that I know of in the area is at the aqua dome in LaSalle, but it’s entire length is rarely available. If your interested in joing a tri club, there is a great club called the Antilopes (http://www.antilopes-triathlon.org/) that train at this pool. They swim tues/thurs morning from 6-8, and sat from 9-11. They’ve got some really good swim coaching. In a little over a year I went from swim 2min 100’s to 1:30’s.There is also the McGill tri club, they may be more convenient for you.
Stephane
McGill has a 25 yard pool which hosts a good masters team and also a triathlon team. If you are a student it’s very very affordable. If you are living in the NDG area and want a really top notch swim group, i would recommend the masters team that swim out of the Westmount YMCA. I have heard that they are a super strong group who compete nationally, but like any masters group have room for slow people too.
During the summer there is a shockingly beautiful out door 50m on Ile Saint Helaine. It was built for FINA a few years ago and is open to the public in the summer months.
Hi,
To correct mtlrunner, McGill has a 25m pool. U de M has a 50m pool but it costs a fortune to get in if you aren’t a student there,$15 per visit. If you are planing to live on the west side of downtown then the olympic pool will be quite a trek for you. They dont always have it open so you can swim 50m, sometimes its only open for you to swim across the pool.ndg has a free community pool but i heard its super crowded.
There are a lot of 50m pools around, but very few of them have 50m lap swimming.
I’ve heard nothing but good things about the McGill tri club. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you can join it for just 1 or 2 sports if you prefer for example to bike or run on your own.
Antelopes is a big tri club, I don’t know anyone that trains with them but they race well and look like they have fun.
For everyday riding go to the bike shop Martin Swiss in Westmount, they should be able to help you find good safe rides out of the city and out to the West Island.