The Three Peaks: City Summits

If you only have time for one ride in Montreal, make it this one. The loop centres on Mont-Royal, the historic park that Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect behind New York's Central Park, shaped into the green heart of the city in the 1870s. Jacques Cartier named the mountain back in 1535, and the indigenous community of Hochelaga held the site sacred long before that. From the main summit the route links two neighbouring peaks for a surprising amount of climbing without ever leaving the urban core, and close to half of it is unpaved, so you trade traffic for gravel park roads and quiet connecting streets.

It is an urban wonderland folded into a short loop. You roll past the 30 metre illuminated cross, the largest cemetery in Canada, the campuses of McGill and Universite de Montreal, Lac aux Castors, and the mansions and lookouts that ring the mountain, with more than twenty species of mammals and around 180 species of birds living in the woods around you. The route flexes to the day you have: ride it briskly in well under an hour, or stretch it out with stops at the Kondiaronk lookout, a coffee by Beaver Lake, and a detour to Saint Joseph's Oratory, Canada's largest church.

The climbs are short and punchy rather than long, which keeps the effort lively the whole way around, and there is almost always somewhere to pause and take in the view. This route is one of Trevor Browne's picks from his Montreal gravel guide.

Mont-Royal gets busy on weekends, so aim for an early morning or an evening if you want quieter trails and that golden light, when you can catch the sun rise or set over the skyline. On summer Sundays the Tam-Tams drum circle fills the eastern slope, which is a good excuse to linger near the lookouts. The main path is groomed through the winter, so the loop stays ridable on snow and doubles as a cross-country ski route long after the rest of the city's gravel has frozen over.

Almost any gravel bike handles the surface, though tires around 38mm and up smooth out the rougher park roads, and you can ride it in any season. There are picnic tables and a cafe by Beaver Lake at the summit, so you never need to carry much food or water, and the whole loop starts and finishes right in the heart of downtown.