a mountain bike trail?
July 12, 2007 by andyriga
I got an email about the falaise from the guy who runs Cycle Fun Montreal.
Here it is:
“You might want to show a picture of the lake that used to be here or around here in the preindustrial past. I’ve seen it in at least one local history book.
My own interest would be to create Montreal’s first legal off-road bicycle trail along here. Tens of thousands of people with mountain bikes, and not a single off-road trail on the island. I am aware of the multi-user (pedestrians vs cyclists) conflicts this would create, and would hope for once that we could use some education to help both sides get along. Creating separate bicycle and pedestrian trails would be a good start.
Nice Blog.”
I haven’t seen any pictures of Otter Lake. Anybody know of one available online or in a history book?
As for mountain bike trails, I’m not sure there would be room for two trails. I don’t know much about mountain biking. Wouldn’t mountain bikes be rough on the escarpment?
The BITA architectural firm in Montreal has a project called Lac à la outre (en perspective). They have an image of an (unreferenced) historical map showing Otter lake. Their weblink is: http://www.blta.ca/Projets04.htm#
Andy- nice research… thanks for sharing the good feel you’re getting for the place. As for mountain bike trails, if they’re properly designed, with reasonably gradual grades (<10%) and features designed to divert water drainage, they can be inserted into a falaise-type landscape without too much trouble. After all, who wants to ride on the flat?
A sustainable MTB trail build by professional is less damageable to the environments than a hiker trail. Some city like New york and Seattle has the same problem with the same kind of land Like the Falaise. So they’ve build sustainable trail and now the population can enjoy it. In majority, the average land used is 1500 acres for a average of 10 miles of trail.
http://www.imba.com/canada
http://www.adsvmq.org