Canadian Club
Developing the young riders and the trails of Bathurst, N.B.
Mountain and Fat Bike Chaleur develops the young riders and the trails of Bathurst, N.B.
Chaleur means heat. The Chaleur region of northeast New Brunswick, named after the nearby bay in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is where a knobby tire club burns up the trails even in the dead of winter. Mountain and Fat Bike Chaleur is based out of Bathurst and gelled in 2017 to create a competitive local youth-development program. Although it’s not a membership-based club, it represents 100 to 200 riders. One of the things that makes this club special is its close relationship with the town of Bathurst to promote trail riding. Club coach Joel Jean says the trail system in the town has been around since the mid-1990s. He describes the routes – sporting straightforward names, such as the Ridge, the Pine and the Roots – as “narrow with punchy hills.” mfb Chaleur is committed to trail upkeep and building additions to the existing system, with scheduled workdays for members to wield the saws, rakes and “goonspoons.” Jean says that the club endeavours to give the existing trails more flow. In August, the club added placards to trail signs designating three emergency exit points easily accessible to first responder vehicles as part of implementing an emergency action plan to ensure riders’ safety.
Summer is when the club runs its monthly short-track race series with loops around 2 km long that people can roll on mountain bikes, fat bikes or cyclocross machines. There are also Velo NB races in Bathurst. Some of the club members head west to Edmundston for races on the Sentiers Madawaska trails. In Minto, you can find mfb Chaleur colours flying at the Coal Miner’s Lung race, which uses trials on the muddump landscape left over from the closed coal mine.
Winter is when the fat bikes have dominion. Nighttime group rides run into April. In collaboration with the town, the mfb Chaleur hosts the Big Chill race. A popular ride is along the groomed trail the city maintains behind the Bathurst watershed. The club and city have an agreement in which they can use each other’s fat bikes – 10 adult-size machines that belong to Bathurst and four youth-size rides in mfb Chaleur’s stable that community sponsors helped to purchase. Along with spin sessions at a local school, the fat bike partnership helps to fill a training void created by wretched late-winter/early-spring trail conditions.
The club has a very active Facebook group that posts condition updates of the local trails and rallies members for work bees. The group page also provides schedules for the youth racing team’s clinics.
In the future, mfb Chaleur hopes to expand racing clinics to adults to meet local demand, but there’s also a desire for a Sprockids program to further serve the young riders.
If you come to Bathurst without a ride, you can rent fat bikes from the city. When asked which trails he would recommend to someone visiting Bathurst, Jean enthusiastically endorses: “All of them!”