Cycling Quebec's P'tit train du Nord

Snow geese pierce the sky in a long, swaying line, flying south for the winter. I've arrived in Quebec at the turn of the season; the colours are at their richest as I drive into the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal.

The busy biking season is over, so the popular P'tit Train du Nord (Little Train of the North) cycle path I've come to Canada to ride should be quiet. The 200-kilometre trail, from Mont-Laurier to Saint-Jerome, just outside Montreal, is one small section of La Route Verte (Green Road), a 5,000-kilometre network of connected routes across Quebec, the longest network of cycle paths in North America. National Geographic recently named La Route Verte the No1 cycling trail in the world.

I fly into Montreal, staying at the historic hotel La Maison Pierre du Calvet on the edge of the attractive historic centre. Quebec's French culture is visible in the gastronomy and the arts. There are cobbled streets of Vieux (Old) Montreal to explore, museums and galleries, bistros and late-night jazz to listen to at Upstairs before travelling north to Mont-Laurier.

It's not a promising start. I'm dropped off at a service station on an intersection with no name. A bridge near the start of the route is closed, so I work my bike around and pick up the trail again. But it doesn't take long to see why the P'tit Train Du Nord is so popular. Once I make it past the timber yard on the edge of the town, the landscape opens up. I see the hind legs of a deer disappearing into the trees. There is a sense of freedom and nature, riding past fields of horses in the bright sun.

Built in the 1890s, le P'tit Train du Nord used to be an active railway for trains carrying freight, timber and, later, tourists to and from the mountains, although word is that it operated at a constant loss until it was dismantled in the 1990s.

The cycle path is fast, mostly smooth and, because it's on an old railway, flat. I ride through a long straight corridor of just-browning pine trees, past big, weathered barns and fields of rolled hay bales, then skirt the edge of one of the many peaceful lakes in the Laurentians.