Bienvenue à Bromont

There’s always been something very special about visiting Québec. Before I had a passport and opportunities to travel abroad, Québec was the first place I found myself completely immersed in a foreign language and culture. Living in Buffalo, NY, I’ve made day trips and small holiday trips to Ontario my whole life, but journeys to Québec always have had that certain, ‘Je ne sais quoi.’

I had the opportunity to study French at McGill University in Montréal for a few months in the summer of 2002. I got introduced to the local freeride scene through a buddy and spent more time riding street than concentrating on my coursework. It was an exciting time for me, because it was the first time seeing people ride big urban features. I was blown away watching guys hit the big stair gaps near the Parc Olympique and at other spots around the city. Until the day I die, I will never forget seeing Julien Meunier of 24 Bicycles crash horribly on a gap on over an impossibly steep set of stairs in Québec City.

Some of the street guys also road DH and invited me check out Bromont, a mountain with a lift only 45 minutes from the city. It was my first time riding downhill and I definitely wasn’t prepared for what was in store. The trails were way over my head, with very technical rock gardens everywhere, steep rooty shoots and a thin layer of greasy mud on everything. As we drove back towards the lights of Montréal that night I felt like I’d been through a war, but I knew that I was hooked on gravity riding for life.


Fast-forward 12 years and I found myself with an opportunity to tour around Québec again. I was lucky to remain in touch with a few riding buddies up there and gave them a shout to let them know that I was going to be in the neighborhood. I made sure to call Dominick Ménard, who is an old friend and one of the great downhill racers that Bromont has produced. When I reached out to him he explained to me that Bromont has really changed their philosophy on trail building and the official tracks were much more flowy and groomed. “Definitely bring your freeride bike for the park, but also bring an enduro bike so I can show you some back country stuff that you need to pedal up for.”


Luckily, Ibis had just sent me a Ripley to try out, so I feverishly built it up to make sure I had a suitable rig to tackle whatever Dominick had in store. Dominick has recently been doing a ton of enduro racing, so I had a feeling we might be putting in some serious miles. I made sure my travel buddy Joey had his trail bike in tow as well and we headed North to maple syrup country.

When we showed up to Bromont, I almost didn’t recognize the town. There had been so much commercial and residential building that it looked like a completely different place than the one I had visited over a decade ago. It was awesome seeing tons of new bars and restaurants to try out on our visit.


Joey and I stayed at the Château Bromont, a wonderful hotel that is super bike friendly. It is a beautiful, bright modern hotel that is located directly across from the bike park. From the roof deck Joey and I had a hearty Québécois breakfast and watched riders hit the famous Bromont bridge jump. As we munched our French toast with local maple syrup, we knew it was going to be an awesome day.


Dominick is a sales rep for Devinci Bikes and had some appointments in the morning, so he linked us up with local freestyle legend Eric ‘Pointer’ Fortin to show us around for the day. Eric is a super talented rider and was featured in old-school films like East Side Freeride 2. He’s busy with a career in construction now, but he’s one of those dudes who won’t ride for 3 months, get on his bike and completely slay it.

More than the gnar


We left it to Eric to be our guide for the day and he came up with some great combinations of trails that most folks probably wouldn’t think about. “Let’s ride 21-7-to the bikepark. We’ll start with some old school gnar, then drop into a great section of the jump trail then hit the big jumps in the park,” Eric said as he strapped on his helmet and threw a leg over his very orange Xprezo Furax.

I remembered some of the lines in the rock gardens, but it was much easier to just follow Eric float through the chunder like it was nothing. “Bromont always throws the most stuff at you,” Eric said as we stopped to rest for a moment. “There’s not much dirt here, so the loose rocks and all of the roots really force you to get better.”


The flow style trails were pretty awesome as well. They are mellow enough for a short travel bike, but still super fun on a big bike. Again it was great to follow Eric because he knew the right speeds for all the gaps and jumps and it was awesome to watch the aerial display as well. When we hit the bridge jump at the bottom he laid out a nice moto whip for the crowd in the lift line.


It's about to get real enduro around here...

After a full day in the bike park we headed back to the hotel and grabbed our trail helmets and bikes. Dominick told us to meet him at the bottom of the lift for last chair. I definitely didn’t expect a full on thirty-man crew with party supplies in tow. It was rad to hang out with a bunch of local shredders at the top of the mountain and watch the last light hit the valley.

“This is a usual Saturday night for us,” Dom explained. “A bunch of us from Montréal and Sherbrooke rent places here all summer long,” Dom explained. “There’s always someone riding and barbeques and parties just happen spontaneously every night.”


It was cool to see that Bromont is sort of turning into a Whistler East. There’s not many places on this side of the map that have good enough riding to justify spending a season, as well as an awesome bike culture supporting it. “These guys are going to hang out here until the sun goes down, but we have some riding to do,” Dom said as he slid his goggles onto his face from his xc helmet. “We have a bit of climbing to do, but the way down will be worth it.”


The three of us pedaled up a mellow fire road for maybe 15 minutes and then traversed to the backside of the mountain. As we pedaled up I asked Dom how he got started riding off-piste trails. “You get bored riding the same trails in the bike park and with modern trail bikes, you can get almost the same downhill experience as you do on a big bike,” Dom explained. “If you are willing to pedal a little, you can link cross-country and downhill trails into a really nice ride.”


Once we got to the top, we ducked into the woods and the next thing I knew we were into some serious stuff. The trails were much steeper than the ones in the bike park and without Dom navigating us from point to point there is no way I would have any idea where we were. “There are less people who ride these trails so there is still a nice layer of fresh loam on the trails,” Dom said as he roosted a corner.


There were some really challenging parts with mandatory gaps, but I tried to stay on Dom’s wheel and did what he did. We were losing light very fast and I had to use the Force to navigate the last third of the trail. We ended up on a road and pedaled back to Dominick’s place where there was a full on party going on by the time we got back.


Xprezo yourself

At the party we met a bunch of Dom’s friends, including Jonathan Allard who works as an engineer for Xprezo Bikes. Jonathan explained to me that Xprezo Bikes designs, welds and assembles their bikes in Bromont. He also mentioned that Xprezo is owned by Hugo Bardo, one of the original partners of Balfa. Balfa is no longer around, but the Québec based bike company was world renowned for their 'out of the box' designs. When Jonathan offered us a factory tour the next day, I jumped at the opportunity.


The factory is located in a nondescript commercial park just ten minutes from the resort. Jonathan brought us inside and introduced us to Hugo and the entire staff. Hugo was happy to meet us and took us on a tour of the entire factory showing us all the stages of production. We started the tour in the machine shop where chief welder and machinist Philipe Benoit was fabricating links for the suspension bikes. Hugo explained how Philipe used to weld for Balfa and when they shut down he moved out to Whistler to ride and work for the mountain. Once Hugo got the idea to start Xprezo, he called Philipe to come and work for him.


“For about three years all of our bikes from A to Z were produced in a 25’ by 25’ annex to my house,” Hugo said with a grin. “It was a bit of a secret and even our best dealer didn’t know the frames were made in such a humble location."


The Balfa spirit lives on in Xprezo Bikes, particularly the tradition of combining an aluminum front triangle and a steel rear end. “Nothing beats the feel of steel and we have developed our manipulation techniques to a very high level,” Jonathan explained as he showed off an amazingly light steel road bike. “This is not a production bike, but more of an example of what we can do with chromoly.”


Jonathan also explained another benefit of steel. “When we are waiting in the lift line at Bromont, we’ll check bikes for cracks in the swing arms. We see a lot of cracks and of course in an aluminum bike that means it’s ready for the trash. If you have a crack in a steel frame, bring it by the shop and we’ll run a fresh weld over it and you’re good to go.”


With a huge influx of carbon bikes into the market, how can steel compete? “We love the feel of steel especially in a rough and rocky place like Bromont. Steel is an isotropic material, meaning it has identical values of a property in all directions,” Jonathan explained. “We really pride ourselves on the fact that all of our bikes are built to last and made of completely recyclable materials. On a big impact carbon will snap sharply and fail, while steel will just dent. There is very little you can do with recycled carbon. There is a desert in the US full of old carbon hulls of airplanes that they can’t properly burn. They will be sitting there for thousands of years.”


The racks and racks of beautifully crafted frames in various stages of production were awesome to see first hand. It was great to just pick up a raw frame with seamless welds and think about how much fun someone will have on it someday. With hundreds of bold color combinations for the front and rear triangles, as well as stunning graphics, every single Xprezo is an entirely unique machine. Check out the full line of bikes at www.xprezo.ca/en/


Conclusion

Bromont has long been the heart of Eastern Canadian gravity riding. The rough terrain has made for legendary World Cup racing over the years. On this trip to Bromont I saw there is much more to the mountain than the old school gnar. The bike park has made huge strides in creating trails for all levels and styles of riding, including some terrific jump tracks and flow trails. The lift-accessed enduro trails require some pedaling and local knowledge to find them, but they are well worth the effort. More than anything I was impressed by the growth of the mountain bike culture, spearheaded in part by a great local bike manufacturer, Xprezo Bikes.


This trip to Bromont would not have been possible without the help of Dominick, Hugo and Jonathan. Big thanks to them as well as Carole-Anne Ménard from Ski Bromont as well as Pierre-Gilles Gauvin at Château Bromont. Check out chateaubromont.com/wp/ and www.skibromont.com/velo/en/ for more info.

I’d also like to thank all of the folks that keep me on the best bikes on the planet; Hans Heim and Jeff Kendall-Weed at Ibis Cycles, Scott Boyd at the Hayes Group, David Parrett at Thomson, Cara Burgess at Bell Helmets, Joel Richardson at FSA, Elayna Caldwell at SRAM, Jeff Wilbur at Cateye, Noah Sears at MRP, Josh Parris at Specialized and Colin Hastings and Jeremiah Stich at Bert’s Bikes and Fitness in Tonawanda, NY.

Posted In:
Stories Reader Stories