“If you come here and you pay to ride, you’re gonna have good trails to ride no matter what,” said Julien Levesque, General Manager of Sentiers du Moulin. “You pay, but you are sure that when you’re on a trail, all the features will be well built. If something happens, you’re covered,” he continued.
Sentiers du Moulin is one of the premier mountain bike trail systems in the Quebec City area. The region is home to five major trail systems, and two of them feature lift-accessible trails. However, even the networks without lift service, like Sentiers du Moulin (SDM), require riders to pay to ride the trails.
The trail access fees are generally quite reasonable, but it’s a far cry from free. At SDM, an adult day pass costs $24 CAD ($17.40 USD), and a season pass costs $300 CAD ($217.30) for a roughly 6-month summer season. E-bikers are charged 25% more due to additional wear and tear on the trails. Unfortunately, there isn’t a season pass that provides access to multiple local trail systems. However, local riders can earn a free pass at SDM (more on this below).
This pay-to-play model is foreign to many riders living in other parts of North America, so during a snack stop at the top of the mountain, I spoke with Levesque to learn more.
The pay-to-play model was born “out of necessity”
“It’s mostly out of necessity in Quebec that most of the trail centers […] are pay-to-play, because there’s no public land unless you go far up north. So it’s mostly on city parks or private lands,” said Levesque. SDM itself is located on a mix of private and public land, while other trail systems, like Empire 47, are exclusively on privately-held land. Thus, riders paying to access the land make it beneficial for the landowner to permit access. But there’s an added wrinkle: liability.
“It’s the legislation in Quebec that’s different than, say, in BC. If you operate a trail center, even if you were to make your trail free, you’re responsible for security and signage and everything,” said Levesque. The insurance fees charged to cover the trail system’s liability is substantial — and of course, a private landowner isn’t going to pay for that.
“So most of the trail centers, they have to pay just to secure […] trails for insurance, pay the landowners, provide insurance for landowners, provide rescue as well. Most of the time it’s the trail centers that have to provide the rescue personnel,” he continued.
Due to the lack of public land and the legislation that mandates liability coverage, there simply would be very little mountain biking in Quebec if it wasn’t for the pay-to-play model. Despite the necessity, the trail system fees bring surprising benefits that you won’t find in other areas of the continent.
The quality of the trail construction and maintenance is incredibly high
Since the non-profit groups that run each of the trail systems are responsible for liability and, in many cases, search and rescue operations, “it makes sense to have well-maintained trails, because you, as the trail operator, have the responsibility to have the trail safe, good signage, consistent in the trails,” said Levesque. “If you build features, you’re going to be responsible.”
While the trails at SDM are ridiculously gnarly and technical, the caliber of the builds and the quality of the maintenance are superbly high. Braking bumps in berms? Never heard of them. Blown-out corners or loose/broken boards on bridges? Not at SDM.
Most of the funds that riders pay are funneled straight back into building and maintaining the trails. For example, SDM employs around 10 (give or take) full-time trail builders during the summer. Their crew is small compared to other trail networks, like Empire 47 (E47), which employs roughly 30 full-time seasonal trail builders and maintainers. And the builders are just one part of the overall operation: Levesque manages 40 full-time employees during the summer, plus an additional 20 part-time employees.
This model effectively solves one of the biggest challenges faced by volunteer-run trail organizations across the continent: how do you make trail maintenance sexy? The easiest way to get people to do something that isn’t so sexy might be to pay them actual cash to get it done.
They’re able to build uber-gnarly, challenging trails
“The technical level of riding [at SDM] is quite high,” said Levesque. “It shows in the trails. I’d say maybe a third, or maybe more than that, are double blacks.”
And these aren’t Midwest double blacks. When Julien says a trail is hard, you’d better believe him. I personally sampled some of the easiest double blacks in the network, which pushed me near my limit. After looking at some of the features on the trail that was the next step up, I decided that I was fine with hanging out and “just” riding the single blacks. The closest thing that I can compare the brutally demanding technicality and high commitment features to are the renowned trails in Whistler, Squamish, and North Vancouver.
In most places in the USA, trails this difficult simply never get built, due to liability concerns faced by the land owner. But as we’ve seen, the non-profit managing the trail system in Quebec has accepted the liability. And this allows them to build mutual trust with the landowner and the local government.
“If we have a good track record with security, usually it helps adding a little building project that pushes the envelope a little bit. And then we try that, and […] the government sees that there’s nobody that killed himself, so we can try another one,” Levesque explained.
“It’s all about mutual trust. The trust is that when we build, we’ll make sure that everything is built in a way to have a safe experience for the clients as well.”
It’s all a virtuous cycle — none of which would be possible without the pay-to-play model.
SDM leans on volunteer labor, and they reward those who show up
While SDM might have a much smaller full-time trail crew than E47, they plug the gap with a passionate crew of volunteer trail builders and maintainers. Volunteer events in the spring routinely draw 70-90 people, and weekly events see 30-35 people show up. While these volunteers play key roles in routine maintenance, they’re also fully involved in major trail builds, like the recent 4.2km Saga Trail, which opened in summer 2025.
One major complaint from riders about day-use fees being implemented on some previously free-to-ride trails in the Western USA is that the trails were built by volunteers and they’re maintained by volunteers, and now government organizations like the Bureau of Land Management want to charge those same volunteers to access the trails. As you can imagine, trail systems like SDM are run much more efficiently than the US Government, and they have a reward system in place for volunteers who show up and help dig.
The rewards system is based on the number of hours that a volunteer invests. After 12 hours of labor, they get a free t-shirt. And at 25 hours, they get a free season pass, which is valid for both the summer season and winter fat biking and cross-country skiing. The same applies for volunteers who work on fat bike trails in the winter — they can earn free summer access, too. After earning a free pass, they continue to get perks like discounts on beer at the base area restaurant.
While some riders might balk at paying to mountain bike, networks like SDM have effectively commercialized the “no dig, no ride” mantra by saying, “Well, if you don’t want to dig, then you have to pay.”
But if you do dig, you can ride for free.
Additional amenities make each trail system a bona fide destination unto itself
SDM is home to 65km (40mi) of singletrack, and many of the other networks in the region offer even more. Each of these massive trail systems is a mountain biking destination in its own right, and the base area amenities reflect it. Of all the pedal-driven trail systems I visited, the base area at Sentiers du Moulin was the most impressive. The trail center utilizes a beautiful base lodge owned by the local city to run a fantastic restaurant and bar. You’ll even find a locker room, complete with post-ride showers.
In addition to Levesque’s team, the nearby bike shop, Genetik, runs a full repair and rental shop location out of the lodge. I had a couple of mechanical issues with my bike, and Genetik fixed them quickly while I waited, so my trip could keep rolling along smoothly.
The hum of conversation drifting off the patio and the excited energy of riders rolling in and out of the base area, filling up water or grabbing a rental bike, is so unlike the dusty parking lots that we call “trailheads” in many places in the USA. The energy and community that coalesces around places like SDM are incomparable and can only arise when riders have the chance to kick back, relax, and unwind after a long day out in the woods.
While on the surface, having to pay every time you ride your mountain bike might seem restrictive, my time riding in Quebec showed me that the pay-to-play model comes with a host of surprising benefits, which have made Quebec City’s mountain bike trails some of the best on the continent.
4 Comments
5 hours ago
1 hour ago
0 minutes ago
I have been travelling to Quebec City and MSA for over 15 years and the are is magnificent. The trails are amazing. 15 years ago, it WAS free to ride (we made trail donations) but things changed. The provincial government was instrumental in funding build dollars to drive the tourism industry and it’s actually a great example of government investment in the outdoor industry. This is a great place to travel to for riding. The local bike seen in QC should be be envy of many place.
However, like some other trail centres (Kingdom Trails comes to mind) success has come with growing pains and shifting interest. E47 for example is currently lodged in a lawsuit with municipality for exceeding their permit to use the public lands. E47 has a huge user base as it is located within the city limits and the organization is a used of building a for-profit enterprise on low-impact designated lands and also constructing building in non-approved areas and digging trails that have altered the local drainage patterns and contaminated part of the adjacent lake, which is entirely private property, so one can image the protests of wealthy residents. Now E47 is crowdfunding legal fees crying that they can’t foot the bills, even though they have an annual income in the millions of dollars. Massively popular, great trails, challenging management and professionalism. While completely (I believe) well intentioned, the bike world seems to have overstepped its place in the local community.
SDN and Vallee Bras du Nord (the other 2 key areas) have fared better with less conflict overall, but also suffered from early success versus competing interests. Kingdom trails for its part remains solid but the character has changed a bit as landowners pull out of the unique access agreements, possibly jeopardizing future aspects of the area.
I put this here only to help paint a more complete picture, and to express my concern for the future. While there are great success stories to celebrate, mountain biking is actually somewhat in decline, as participation in other outdoor sports (like trail running) rises, and as a broad community, we need to be aware that trail access, even in these semi-private/public arrangements, is not guaranteed. The interest of bikers are not fully harmonious with everyone else.
It may only take a few well organized opposition groups to shut down access to trails and land. It’s been 30 years since Kingdom Trails blazed a new, unique land access model that restored Burke, VT as a summer destination, and I’m seeing 90’s era “no biking” signs around the east again. Don’t assume your trails will be safe forever.
2 hours ago
Quebec riders already pay more than the listed $20–$30 day pass. Most trail centers are heavily subsidized by government funds, which come from citizens’ taxes. Then, on top of the access fee or season pass, the government also collects more taxes on those very transactions. So the rider who simply wants to ride ends up paying at least three times:
- Through taxes that fund subsidies.
- Through direct trail fees.
- Through sales tax on those same fees.
Meanwhile, the insurance system keeps costs high, and businesses shoulder liabilities that ultimately get passed down to riders. The result? A model where access is expensive not just because of great trails, but because capitalism rewards suing the deep pockets and keeping the insurance industry fat.
Yes, Quebec trails are world-class and super well built and maintained. But riders should recognize that they’re footing the bill in ways that go well beyond the price of a pass. And for that price, it has to be perfect!