# Cycling clubs / races in Montreal



## colnagorapid (Sep 17, 2010)

Hi guys,

There isn't much information available for cycling clubs / amateur races in Montreal other than the ones some of the local shops organize, anyone from Quebec have any insight?


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## Izarra (Jun 12, 2011)

Check on the FQSC website, you will find all the information you are looking for, but it's in French.

Fédération québécoise des sports cyclistes | Roulez gagnants !


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## moskowe (Mar 14, 2011)

The racing season in Quebec is pretty much all in the summer, for road, track and MTB. There's plenty of road races in the greater Montreal area. If you can read French, the FQSC calendar of races is here:
Calendrier des événements | Fédération québécoise des sports cyclistes
The FQSC website, in addition to being all in French, is also probably one of the worst pieces of web design ever created. As an English-speaking only racer, it's a lot easier to be in a team where people speak French and can tell you what's going on with the races, because officials will simply never speak to you in English.

Also, I don't know if you've raced in the US or the rest of Canada, but in my opinion the level of the fields is generally higher than in the States. For Men's there's only two categories, Senior 3 and Senior 1, and Senior 3 is pretty much equivalent to Cat 3, Senior 1 to Cat 2. There's also Masters' categories, with 4-5 levels, so the learning curve for Masters isn't as steep before you can race.

An extremely cool race to go to (depending on your perception of cool) is the Lachine Tuesday races, which take place in Lachine on Tuesday nights (surprise), starting on June 5th. I believe there are 10 through the summer. Basically it's an hour criterium on a donut shaped, banked corners circuit, where the speed averages about 50kph. A couple of pro riders come ride it in the summer when they have nothing else in their calendar, like David Veilleux, the Canadian rider on Europcar.


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## colnagorapid (Sep 17, 2010)

nice, thanks for the advice. I haven't raced before and will not most likely not race this season, however I do plan on improving my fitness and racing in the future. I would be happy joining a club where I can learn from more advanced riders for the time being. The website is pretty bad by design but I guess we have no choice! I've heard about the lachine tuesdays, they sound pretty intense.

moskowe, I'm not sure what you mean by level of fields, are racers stronger or weaker than the states?


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## moskowe (Mar 14, 2011)

Stronger. Because there's only 2 categories, there's basically no cat 5 or cat 4. You either race Senior 3, which is equivalent to cat 3, or senior 1/2, which is a mixed bag of cat 2 /1


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