In the last ~7 years a new option for Mountain Biking has popped up in Eastern Ontario, Mont Ste Marie. In less than a decade this area has turned into a MTB hot spot with $100+K invested and thousands of visitors per year. Their annual MSM Velo Fest is into it’s 3rd year now and the events/attendance of bike companies is quickly becoming one of the largest in Eastern Canada.
Origins
In a rare exception, I will allow some personal elements to be included in this blog. What makes this area more satisfying to me than others is that it all started as a pet project of mine when I owned a chalet near the ski hill. That first trail (now Hotel & California) was my first attempt at building a trail. I killed myself that summer to get a trail running high along a ridge of the local lake. When it was all said & done I dragged out my clunky GPS and was horrified to learn it was only 1.1km round trip! That was the first slap of reality of just how much work it takes to build trails. Ultimately, I didn’t do too bad, it’s still in good condition 7+ years later.
Pilsner
After a year or two off, some local friends and I decided to build a loop leveraging ‘Radar Road’ (gravel road that climbs from bottom to one of the two peaks). From the top of Radar Road (Cheval Blanc peak) we built ‘Pilsner‘ which connected the two peaks of the resort. It was a grunt but we managed to complete the 2.3km connection to the 2nd peak (Vanier) in just 1 summer. One of the trail highlights is ‘Pilsner Point’ which shows off Hectares of untouched Quebec wilderness from a view-point several hundred feet up. It reminds me of North Carolina, and to a lesser extend Albion Hills, in many ways.
Lager
To complete the loop we needed a trail from the top of Vanier back down to start of Radar Road. Once again we completed it in one summer but it took even more time & help. We had to do a LOT of scouting to ‘safely’ descend roughly 1000 feet in just 2 km. It took a lot of rock movement to build the catwalks & switchbacks but it was eventually complete. Following the beer theme, we named it Lager. It too included an amazing view which we call Lager Lookout.
Moving Forward
Near the end of Lager completion we learned of another MTB crew who had recently purchased recreational property in the area and were interested in completing a loop around the lake, leveraging Hotel & California. We offered out assistance and from there a club was formed (VeloMSM) and the rest is history.
There is now a total of 38km of trails and rapidly expanding every year with a total of 8,400 feet of descending.
There are some insanse climbing trails like Tower of Power, and wicked ‘Flow’ trails like Hollywood/Lug Tread/Growler.
If you’re ever looking for an amazing place to ride, this is it. It’s about 1hr drive north of Ottawa and there’s lots of condos to rent and camping at the lake.
