Scott and Becky go East

You may have noticed that there are only a few photos in the posts from the last few days. We were hoping to get them updated, but it looks like we’ll be out of time before we leave.

Also, a number of people have been asking to see a wider assortment of our photos. If you want to see our complete photo album, you can view it on Smug Mug here. They all have GPS locations in the photo metadata, but the SmugMug map doesn’t seem to work quite right for us.

This morning we begin the next phase of our journey. We get on a ferry (Relais Nordik) that takes us from Rimouski up to Blanc-Sablon (the Quebec – Labrador border). We’ll be on the boat for 4 days and 3 nights and stop at many small towns along the north shore of Quebec that are only serviced by this once a week ferry.

We do not anticipate having Interent for a while (definitely not on the ferry). We might be able to find it in St. Barbe, but I expect that by then we will be eager to be riding. We will continue to write, and will update when we can.

Rimouski is a beautiful town at the beginning of the Gaspe Peninsula. We had several errands to run, including picking up our new bike shorts from the Rimouski station A post office. This was the first time we tried to use “Poste Restante” (General delivery) to receive a package, and it worked remarkably well. We also stocked up on some groceries and camping supplies, since Rimouski is our last large town until St. John’s, which is several weeks away.

The ride from the campsite to downtown was quite nice once we discovered the shoreline trail. There are beautiful bike and walking paths around Rimouski. One of the paths goes along the shoreline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It became very clear by the smell and the lack of water that this area was tidal. With every deep breath I was reminded of my childhood and the smell of the sea.

I do wonder if I am beginning to feel the first pangs of homesickness. It is not unexpected as we have been travelling through a province where we don’t speak the language well and the culture is different than what we are accustomed to. I am looking forward to Newfoundland and being able to communicate with people more easily again. Physically however, I’m feeling quite well. Given we’ve been riding for 7 days I’m very happy how well my body is adjusting!

Scott says:
Communication continues to be our biggest challenge. Although we are comfortable enough with French for activities of daily living, it’s a challenge to learn anything about the person we’re talking to. I had a brief chat with some Boy Scouts from Quebec City who were interested in our bikes. It appears that Quetzel (s.p.?) is a synonym for recumbent in at least some parts of Quebec. We’ve seen a couple of them on the road – a long wheelbase recumbent similar to a Longbike. The most common question we get is “do you have a motor on that?”, to which our usual response is “seulment mes jambes” (only my legs). Fortunately the bike questions are fairly consistent, so we have a chance to think about our answers in advance of the next questioner.

Hi everyone,

I’d like to say thank-you to everyone who has left a comment on our blog. It really helps keep me motivated to keep writing about our journeys.

If you see a delay between writing and posting that is because the comments are moderated. Once you’ve had a few accepted then your comments become automatically approved; until then, we must manually approve them. That allows us to keep the spam comments out.

You’ll likely see updates in batches rather than daily for the next while. We are soon about to enter rural Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and I’m not certain how often we’ll be able to get Internet. Once we make it to St. John’s, we’ll be sure to spend a few days updating the blog.

Cheers,

Becky

57 km, 3 h 10 min

Today is our last ride day on the south shore, and it is a relatively short 60 km. We need to make it to Rimouski today so we can do a bunch of chores tomorrow before we get on the boat. Once we get on the boat we will only see small towns until we get to Lewisport or St. John’s which is at least 3 weeks away. It will be a completely different riding experience in the wilds of Labrador and Newfoundland.

This morning, I awoke with the same headache that plagued me during the ride yesterday. The rash on my thighs does appear much better. I suspect that the Vitamin D supplement is the source of my issues. Last time I took it, I also got a rash, and cut all vitamins until it cleared. When we skipped the D the day before yesterday I was OK. So, I hope that is the source of the problem and both the headache and rash will go away in the next day or two. For today, a couple of Tylenol should allow me to ride without the unpleasantness of a headache.

Since we don’t have a long ride, this will be a lazy morning, which we both need. Neither of us like getting up and rushing in the morning. We would rather lounge around reading or writing and slowly make our way. We each get our own space in the morning. I sit out at the picnic table drinking coffee and writing or reading. Scott lies in the tent reading or meditating. In some ways, this is an individual spiritual practice that we each need to stay sane. Since we missed it the last couple of days in the rush to get to Rimouski on time.

As I type this I’m chuckling at the campers two sites down. They have a young child of 2 or 3 who is making screaming sounds to match the cackling crows. It seems the crows are playing along, so the two of them are making a gawd-awful racked! I’m just amazed at how well the child can imitate the crow. If you were still asleep before, you certainly aren’t now.

================

We followed the 132 to Rimouski, which wasn’t that interesting, but very quick and relatively flat. We stopped briefly after 15 km for a hotdog, which turned into over an hour break. It took them more than 45 minutes to prepare 2 hotdogs! If we had any clue how long it was going to take, we would have continued along and stopped later in the day!

We at now in Rimouski and happily settled in our campsite for the night. It is nice to have Internet again, so we’ll try and get everything updated before we get on the boat Tuesday morning.

Every little Quebec town on the Saint Laurence has a beautiful church. This is the one in the town with the 45 minute hot dogs!

Since we didn’t take the Route Verte, we got to avoid climbing and decending these hills.

We did get to go down (and then up) some fun hills as we approached Rimouski.

The day started unhurriedly, which was nice. I really enjoyed the peace of the wilderness campsite. Our morning yoga practice was the first sign that things were not going to be great today. I forgot the “Om”! I often am surprised at how well our morning chanting of “Om” is a measure of how in sync we are with one another. If we are totally out of tune then our decisions may not be aligned, if one starts before the other, then our timing is likely to be out of sync. Forgetting all together is a sign that we are not hearing one another … and that was how the day began, with me forgetting the “Om”.

The ride to Riviere-du-Loup seemed more painful than it should have been. We were eager to get moving, but I was in need of frequent stops. Just before entering Riviere-du-Loup, Scott says “let’s make this a quick stop”. I was starving, so I wanted to stop for lunch, but I didn’t say anything. It felt too soon to stop as we wanted to get within a short ride (50 km ish) of Rimouski today. We also needed a grocery store stop, as we were out of fruit and had nothing for supper.

As we entered town, things got confusing quickly. There were no signs indicating which way we should go, and the roads got big (multi-lanes in each direction). We didn’t want to end up on an expressway. We ended up on the 132 for a short distance, then turned and headed to a grocery store. At the grocery store, I sent Scott in (rather than me), as he wanted to the stop to be quick and I am not that quick at groceries. I also felt like he wasn’t really listening to me today, so rather than deal with him thinking we needed to move faster, I figured I’d do the waiting and let him to the shopping. He came out of the grocery store with a desire to have lunch there
(he was tempted by the rotisserie chicken). So, we moved to a bench and some shade and I sent Scott back into the grocery store to get lunch. After what seemed like forever, he came back with lunch for him and nothing for me! We clearly did not communicate that one well. I ended up going in and getting pretty much the same thing he had. Not exactly an efficient stop!

Shortly after lunch, we were back on the road. I started to get a really bad headache. I was hoping we would come across a picnic table in the shade somewhere, and I could take a couple of Tylenol and nap for 20 minutes before continuing. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen .. there was no shade to found and no picnic tables either.

We followed the 132 for a while rather than the Route Verte to avoid hills. There was more traffic after Riviere-du-Loup because Highway 20 ends; however, with more traffic came better roads and wider shoulders. So although it wasn’t as interesting riding, it was definitely comfortable and efficient.

After arriving in Trois Pistoles, I noticed my thighs were red and sore. I had put sunscreen on, so I didn’t think it was a burn. Scott said it looked more like a rash. I figure that something I ate has caused an allergic reaction of some kind (or sensitivity). I was quite unhappy with that, had a headache still, and was feeling uncomfortable. We looked into a hotel rather than camping, but couldn’t find anything that looked reasonable, and the weather was nice. In the end, we ended up camping at the municipal campground which was quite beautiful (another nice wooded campsite).

Pulling into the campsite, Scott made a comment that made me realize that he was under an incorrect assumption. He thought the boat was leaving on Monday, and so we needed to get to Rimouski early in the day Sunday to get some of our chores done. Actually, the boat leaves on Tuesday, so by getting to Rimouski on Sunday, we have all day Monday to do chores and relax.

Scott says:

After Riviere du Loup, the Route Verte takes all kinds of back roads and gravel pathways, but after the first bit we stuck to the highway. The wide shoulders were great – very comfortable riding despite cars and truck passing at 100+ kph. We’re definitely stronger on hills now…

The only gravel section we did was in L’estuaire – a combination of foot paths and gravel roads. It was quite a neat area, and would be fun to ride further. On one section, grass had overgrown the wheel ruts to the point where riding was getting dicey, then we ran into some serious birders on the path. That was a good hint to turn around and strike back for the highway.

Today was a long day, as we really needed to get closer to Rimouski. Our hope was to make it to Riviere-du-Loup, but there was just no way I could push another 35 km. I was tired at 70km and ready to stop, but there were no campgrounds. In the end, I’m glad we pushed and got here, as it puts us in much better shape to get to Rimouski without needing to rush too much (only 120km to Rimouski and 2 days). It is really difficult to work on “slowing down” when you have to get someplace in time for a ferry reservation!

As we rode today, the terrain changed. It is definitely getting hillier. We avoided the Route Verte in several places and stuck to the much flatter 132. Hills that have a grade over 10% can be a really challenge on our bikes, so we much prefer to avoid them if we can. The 132 is rather quiet in this area, so it is a nice more direct route.

The St. Laurence is tidal here, and you can smell the ocean. Between the ocean smells, the every green trees, and the hills in the background, it reminds me of home (northern BC), only at home the hills are mountains with snow on top.

The campground is on a knoll between the highway and the St. Laurence. Fortunately, our campsite is on the highway side of the hill, and not down or up too much of a hill! It is a beautiful walk through the woods to get to the washrooms and showers.

I realized today that if we hang out our cotton stuff (which is mostly my pajamas) and our sleeping bag liners they smell much better and need to be laundered less frequently. Since they don’t really get dirty, this is convenient as we can’t go laundry that often. We will start hanging them out in the morning while we have breakfast and in the evening while we have dinner.

A corollary to this is that when we setup the line, we also have a place to hang our food. Hanging the food rather than keeping it in the vestibule of the tent allows us both to sleep better at night. I’ve also taken the precaution of ensure that all food is in at least one zip lock bag, so there should be few if any smells from the bags. This seems to be enough to keep away raccoons, skunks, and squirrels, so far anyways.

	Partdistance	Parttime	Partspeed	Distance	Time	Speed
	0.000 km	0s	-	0.000 km	0s	-
	10.048 km	40m 13s	14.99 km/h	10.048 km	40m 13s	14.99 km/h
	10.002 km	45m 55s	13.07 km/h	20.049 km	1h 26m 08s	13.97 km/h
	9.958 km	2h 22m 18s	4.20 km/h	30.008 km	3h 48m 26s	7.88 km/h
	10.005 km	50m 30s	11.89 km/h	40.012 km	4h 38m 56s	8.61 km/h
	9.992 km	48m 06s	12.46 km/h	50.005 km	5h 27m 02s	9.17 km/h
	10.045 km	53m 53s	11.18 km/h	60.049 km	6h 20m 55s	9.46 km/h
	9.984 km	47m 50s	12.52 km/h	70.034 km	7h 08m 45s	9.80 km/h
	6.820 km	32m 32s	12.58 km/h	76.853 km	7h 41m 17s	10.00 km/h

74 km, 4 hours
Quebec to Montmangy

It was a delightful day to ride and we are feeling strong. We started off slowly, making our way through the cycle paths of Quebec City to the old city, where we stopped for a wonderful exotic lunch (Scott ordered the Tilapia, I ordered the duo of sausages with couscous). Both were delicious.

My appetite kicked into high gear yesterday and hasn’t stopped. I seem to be eating like someone who is cycling for 5+ hours a day! I also took iron this morning, realizing that the last few days I’ve had a slight sore throat and for me that is a sign that I need to be taking an iron supplement. I just need to learn to remember on the initial onset of the sore throat rather than 2 days later, d’oh!

We took the ferry across from Quebec City to Levis. It was neat, in that 50% of the car deck was allocated to bicycle racks. The boat had maybe 6 cars on it, but at least 40 bicycles! It certain was a more pleasant way to cross than riding over a large bridge.

After crossing the climb out of Levis was also quite nice. The path had a grade of about 2-3% most of the time, so it was a pleasant ride.
We are staying at an RV park again tonight. It is a nice municipal camp ground, and they had a special price for touring cyclists. It is only $16 a night – our cheapest pay-camping so far. We set up right in the middle of the field (near the cooking shelter), so we felt like all eyes were on us throughout the evening. Once it got dark we realized we’d set the tent up right underneath the light .. Oops .. I slid it back a bit to be in the shade of a tree.

Scott says:

The bike path along Blvd Champlain was surprisingly busy for a weekday morning – it was crowded enough that we had trouble passing people at times, which was great to see! Lots of cyclists, inline skaters and pedestrians. Our lunch was on Rue du Petit-Champlain, below the old city. It’s a lovely little pedestrian street with lots of touristy shops (and tourists), and had a good lunch as well as got to people-watch. Lots of people intrigued with our bikes, which were parked across the street, but in view. I didn’t get any pictures of the people taking pictures of our loaded touring bikes, but there were a few. I did get a chance to play with light and colour in some of my pictures during lunch, which was amusing. Some of the pictures don’t look half bad – at least by my standards.

Our break for lunch was after only about 10km, so I was worried we wouldn’t get anywhere today, but I tried not to worry about it, and after lunch we made good time to Montagny. The bike path in Levis was nice, and since it was on an old rail line, quite flat – the tailwind helped too.

60.4 km in 4h25

We made it to Quebec City, or at least to the suburbs after a relaxing morning in the campsite. Becky spent some time writing, and I read and relaxed. This meant we didn’t get a very early start, we began riding shortly after 11 am.

As we approached Quebec the hills increased. We had noticed the introduction of a few hills yesterday about 10km outside of Portneuf. Totally was mostly hilly with a couple pretty brutal hills. One was at least a 15% grade (shortly after it hit 15% Becky started walking her bike and was no longer moving fast enough for her GPS to register the grade). This made for some beautiful vistas across the St. Lawrence. The light wasn’t great, so I didn’t stop to take pictures, which I now regret. I need to remember the saying “the best pictures are the ones you actually take”.

We only stopped briefly for lunch (hummus and pita for Scott, bagel and almond butter for Becky), but it started to rain (mostly just spitting). It is unpleasant to sit in the rain, so we got back on our bikes and rode. It didn’t rain for long, and only spat a couple more times during the day. Not enough to worry about getting wet or putting on wet weather gear.

By the time we reached the Quebec City suburbs, we were both beat, although Becky admitted it more readily than I did. We stopped in Cap Rouge below the long rail trestle for a second lunch and rest, before tackling the monster climb up Chemin Ste. Foy.

More French is coming back to us, and we are able to function most of the time in broken French, although we do need to regress to English now and then. By the time we reached the Info Centre at the Pont Pierre Laporte (across the St. Lawrence), we were tired enough that our French was pretty limited, but Becky managed to get us a lovely (and inexpensive) room in a nearby B&B with a combination of French and English. Our bikes are settled in the garage for the night, and we have a large, quiet room.

	Partdistance	Parttime	Partspeed	Distance	Time	Speed
	0.000 km	0s	-	0.000 km	0s	-
	10.032 km	40m 08s	15.00 km/h	10.032 km	40m 08s	15.00 km/h
	9.994 km	48m 54s	12.26 km/h	20.026 km	1h 29m 02s	13.50 km/h
	9.983 km	1h 09m 55s	8.57 km/h	30.009 km	2h 38m 57s	11.33 km/h
	10.002 km	47m 19s	12.68 km/h	40.011 km	3h 26m 16s	11.64 km/h
	10.004 km	1h 01m 56s	9.69 km/h	50.015 km	4h 28m 12s	11.19 km/h
	9.383 km	2h 32m 53s	3.68 km/h	59.398 km	7h 01m 05s	8.46 km/h

88 km, 5 hours

It is a beautiful day. Our ride today takes us along the St. Laurence river coastline.

It seem to take forever to get out of Trois-Rivieres / Cap-de-la-Madeleine this morning. The campsite wasn’t that close to the Route Verte and the Route Verte takes you through many twists and turns as you navigate across the city. At one point, it brought us to a beautiful Basilica. We took a brief break there, and Scott took many pictures. I was intrigued by the kiosk outside that had 1/2 information booth and the other 1/2 for blessings (with a priest sitting inside watching the world go by). I thought about asking for a blessing, but wasn’t sure it was appropriate, given that I am not catholic. Personally, I think we could never have too many blessing.

We tried to stop at the library in Champlain to do an Internet update; however, it was only open on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

By lunch time, it looked like we had caught up to some nasty rain / storm clouds. We had been watching them all morning. At 1 pm, I decided we need to eat and take cover, in case the storm clouds let loose. We had a lovely lunch and break at Bastican. The rain clouds blew right over us. We are getting much better at ordering our meals in French. I was even able to specify that I did not want lettuce or mustard on my hamburger!

In Sainte-Anne-del-la-Perade, I decided it was too early to stop at the grocery store, figuring that we could wait and their would be one closer to our nights stop. We did stop at the Subway to do an Internet update. We discovered that “Access Quebec” wifi is not free; however, the fee was not unreasonable and we needed to order some shorts and get a few emails sent. We are finding it difficult to get wifi or any type of Internet access in Quebec.

After our stop to do Internet stuff, it was already 4pm and we had over 35 km to cover before reaching Portneuf, where we intended to stay the night. We still needed to do a grocery store stop, as our food supplies were pretty sparse (although, we had enough food, such that we would not be stuck with nothing).

I had expected their to be a grocery store of some kind in Donnacona, as it is listed in larger print on our CAA map. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Donnacona appeared mostly abandoned (it was eerie at first, as we entered a well-kept town at 5:30pm with not a single person to be seen). Eventually, we did pass people and several restaurants, but no grocery store.

In the end, there was no grocery store in Deschambault* or in Portneuf. With a little bit of searching, and Becky asking someone about 50m before a sign, we found the Depanneur (corner store). It had enough of what we needed for a lovely dinner and breakfast .

All is well in Portneuf, Quebec.

* I realized on Wednesay that I had been confusing Portneuf and Neuville. Donnaconna did indeed have a grocery store; however, it was 15 km East of Portneuf! Oops.

	Partdistance	Parttime	Partspeed	Distance	Time	Speed
	0.000 km	0s	-	0.000 km	0s	-
	10.053 km	51m 24s	11.73 km/h	10.053 km	51m 24s	11.73 km/h
	9.994 km	57m 50s	10.37 km/h	20.047 km	1h 49m 14s	11.01 km/h
	10.028 km	33m 38s	17.89 km/h	30.075 km	2h 22m 52s	12.63 km/h
	9.958 km	1h 47m 57s	5.53 km/h	40.033 km	4h 10m 49s	9.58 km/h
	10.032 km	2h 02m 34s	4.91 km/h	50.064 km	6h 13m 23s	8.04 km/h
	9.963 km	27m 34s	21.68 km/h	60.027 km	6h 40m 57s	8.98 km/h
	10.009 km	31m 03s	19.34 km/h	70.036 km	7h 12m 00s	9.73 km/h
	10.000 km	56m 46s	10.57 km/h	80.036 km	8h 08m 46s	9.83 km/h
	2.107 km	16m 05s	7.86 km/h	82.144 km	8h 24m 51s	9.76 km/h

125 km average 19.4 kph

Today was an excellent day for riding, and we took full advantage of it. Well-rested, we were up shortly before 6am, and on the road by 8 – beating our previous “record” by almost two hours. The terrain was mostly flat, and we had a tailwind, so were moving along well. When we stopped for a snack, a couple on a tandem pulled up shortly afterward. They were Bob and Linda up from Iowa for a two-week tour around the Route Verte between Montreal and Quebec City. They were only going a bit faster than we were, so we joined them, and spent the rest of the day chatting and laughing.

Linda is the Executive Director for a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Iowa, and Bob is active in bicycle advocacy and has written a guide on bicycle touring in Iowa, so they had lots of stories. I hope when we’re in our 60s we’re as active as they are! They are doing more mileage per day than we are, and manage to carry about half as much – perhaps something we can learn from… Their daughter Jess is a Unitarian-Universalist minister’s wife in New Mexico, which is a neat connection too.

Just after we finished shopping for dinner at the IGA in Trois Rivieres we had the shock of our lives. A VW van, plastered with stickers and towing a big trailer pulled up beside us, and a woman was hanging out the passenger window shrieking! After we got over our shock, we realized it was the Flatt family, friends from New Brunswick. Sharon recognized our bikes, and was screaming in surprise and shock. They had just pulled off Highway 40 to get gas and fill up their water jug so a few minutes earlier or later and we would have missed them. We weren’t expecting to see them until we got to Fredericton in September!

	Partdistance	Parttime	Partspeed	Distance	Time	Speed
	0.000 km	0s	-	0.000 km	0s	-
	10.079 km	28m 55s	20.91 km/h	10.079 km	28m 55s	20.91 km/h
	10.001 km	44m 12s	13.58 km/h	20.079 km	1h 13m 07s	16.48 km/h
	9.925 km	26m 18s	22.64 km/h	30.005 km	1h 39m 25s	18.11 km/h
	10.027 km	35m 22s	17.01 km/h	40.032 km	2h 14m 47s	17.82 km/h
	9.993 km	41m 31s	14.44 km/h	50.025 km	2h 56m 18s	17.02 km/h
	10.034 km	1h 43m 55s	5.79 km/h	60.059 km	4h 40m 13s	12.86 km/h
	9.987 km	27m 04s	22.14 km/h	70.046 km	5h 07m 17s	13.68 km/h
	9.982 km	31m 48s	18.83 km/h	80.028 km	5h 39m 05s	14.16 km/h
	10.068 km	57m 03s	10.59 km/h	90.096 km	6h 36m 08s	13.65 km/h
	9.908 km	42m 18s	14.05 km/h	100.004 km	7h 18m 26s	13.69 km/h
	10.015 km	49m 57s	12.03 km/h	110.019 km	8h 08m 23s	13.52 km/h
	9.989 km	1h 12m 08s	8.31 km/h	120.008 km	9h 20m 31s	12.85 km/h
	4.310 km	29m 47s	8.68 km/h	124.318 km	9h 50m 18s	12.64 km/h