Biking the Mount Royal summit trail

With all the recent rain and warm weather, the Mount Royal trails have finally thawed. Headed up on my summit trail to gauge what sort of biking shape I'm currently in. Being one of my most popular rides, I know that I'm in good biking shape once I can hit the top in under 25 minutes on my double suspension mountain bike.

Ice and snow on the main trail is gone, though some melting snow and lots of water and deep mud still remain along the secondary forest trails.

The trail doesn't have much foot traffic yet, especially being that this was midday during the week. Just the way I like it when pedaling uphill at a quick enough pace to have my heart rate up where it should be during an intense ride.

Sure enough, I make it there in 24 minutes, despite 2 days of overeating and drinking a few liters of wine for our passover holiday prior to this ride.

The communications antenna marks Mount Royal's summit, Unfortunately, there is much of a view, the spot is surrounded by trees. Autoshoot myself along the fence.

Also take some shots of the antenna , couldn't fit the entire thing into one picture from where I was standing.

 

Heading down around the other side of the trail, I stop to stretch at the Chalet du Mont Royal. As you can see, the splendid view of Downtown Montreal, the St Lawrence River, the South shore, and various mountains beyond (St Bruno, St Hillaire, and even Adirondacks on a clear day), make this the sort of spot that attracts large crowds, mainly tourists, mixed in with some fitness freaks, cyclists and photographers.

From there, it's my usual run down Camillien Houde, though the Notre Dame Des Neiges cemetery, and back home from there.

The following week, I decided to ride the summit trail in the opposite direction. After exiting the cemetery, I passed by Beaver Lake to catch the trail. 

Behind Beaver lake, lies the main trail that leads from the foot of the Mount Royal park, to it's summit. Smaller trails crisscross the main trail, as well as a set of staircases with about 400 stairs leading to the lookout. I rode the trail down to the Mount Royal monument park, also known as the "tamtam".

The nickname comes from the weekly gathering of tamtam players that show up there every Sunday (weather permitting). They gather around the monument to play their tamtam in unison. Aside from tourists, the crowd is typically made up of mainly younger potheads, hipsters, rastafarians, and some old school hippies. The police tend to turn a blind eye to the pot smoking, as long as everything is under control.

As my ride there turned out on April 20th, there was a special "420" rally planned for later that day at the monument park. For those that aren't aware of it, April 20th is the unofficial international pothead holiday. With the Canadian government having recently tabled legislation to legalize commercial marijuana sales within 1 year, the commercial aspects of the industry wasted no time in getting in on the action. A team of representatives from Potcoin were setting up shop before the crowds arrived, to push their new "crypto currency" targeted to the cannabis industry. Interesting bunch of people, there were all smoking big blunts less than 100 feet from the police cruisers. Stopped for a quick chat with them.

From there, the are a variety of routes to ride home, I chose the more scenic route, riding the summit trail back to Beaver Lake. Though it was a bit wet and muddy from all the recent rain, I prefer that option than having to ride city streets with traffic.