Montreal festival adds French twist to biking celebration
Montreal puts the sizzle on its status as a cycling and cultural beehive with a bike festival May 29-June 5. It’s anchored by a bicycle tour of the city that rivals New York’s Five Boro cycling extravaganza in size, adds a distinctive French twist and shows Americans how very far their dollar can go in Canada these days. Tour de l’Île de Montréal is an iconic event for a bicycle-mad city that Joelle Sevigny of Vélo Quebec, the province’s bicycle association and festival organizer, calls “little Copenhagen in North America.”
The festival is far from little. The Sunday tour on closedoff streets on June 5 typically draws 25,000 people, and follows a Friday night ride that brings together 15,000 in good weather.
The classic Sunday ride is 50 kilometres with an “express” option for fast cyclists to leave before the mob.
Shorter hops are part of the mix, as is a 100-kilometre ride that ventures beyond streets closed to traffic.
Tour la Nuit, on the Friday night, takes cyclists 23 kilometres and invariably brings out plenty of bikers and spectators in goofy costumes with some wild homemade illumination on the bikes.
Tour de l’Île de Montréal began in 1985 with 3,500 people and mushroomed as the cycling ethic took hold.
Cycling is a year-round activity despite the bitter winters in a province that is home to Route Verte, the vast bike network that made Quebec the world’s top cycling destination, according to National Geographic.
The Go Bike Montreal Festival opens May 29 with “metropolitan challenge” rides in the countryside. The main Sunday ride costs $30.50 to $41 for an adult, depending when booked.