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.
[gpxcheckpointtable=show;gpxcheckpointinterval=10; gpxelevationcolor=green;gpxspeedchart=show]
Scott (aka Becky impersonator) – we got cut off on msn just as I was asking you where we could meet up with you for the weekend (on your way to Rimouski)…. or maybe that was a subtle slight….hmmm, probably not. Well, we’re sorry to have missed you and hope that you have a good rest of the way around the world trip. We’ll be keeping up with your posts and seeing how it’s all going. Ride safe! JRAA