Autumn is upon us and with it are multiplying the opportunities for colorful getaways along quiet country roads. I offered myself, from the south or north, three loops in the Laurentians.

“I gave your name to try out the new double diamond trails in Mont-Tremblant,” my editor-in-chief simply wrote to me. I admit it, I got a little scared when I learned that there would be these jumps, gaps and other outcrops of rock...