7/11 perce

Explored the region by foot, bike and car today. Four people went hiking in forillon national park (and bruce went swimming!), spotting whales, while 3 rode over killer hills to perce, a cute town made famous by a big rock. It's a pretty cool rock and we walked out there at low tide.  Went to the same restaurant as prior night to see if service time would be faster (it had to be!) And watched the gaspe history movie, projected onto the sails near the harbor. 43 miles. Tomorrow is the digest version of the trip as we drive 10+ hours to montreal.

7/10 gaspe

When Ted Williams hit a homerun in his last ever at bat,  the official attendance was just over 10,000.  Today,  3 of us rode into gaspe.  Those numbers will both be exaggerated for time eternal, but that's ok.   Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Left Grande vallee with our hotel bill of $64 US (including breakfast - but why can't hotels get decent croissants??) up and down rolling hills a bit inland from the coast under cloudy skies.  By lunch time, we got rained on - first time on the trip.  Also for the first time, we headed south cutting over the gaspe peninsula to the somewhat cute town of gaspe around 3pm in time to catch the end of the france-belgium world cup game.   A great trip with good friends.   Already thinking about next year. 39 miles (drove sag a third of day).

7/9 grand vallee

 

Biking days tend to blur into each other - today however will stand out.  Left st Anne and did 55 miles with the beach directly on the left, and mountains, waterfalls and cliffs to our right.  Perfect pavement for the most part,  a tailwind, light traffic and cool temps because the ocean is all of 39 degrees.  Had a couple of smallish hills, where the temps would rise about 20 degrees, and a few small towns/inlets but mostly just looking at the water and mountains.  Trying to recall a place like this -  California, but hills are brown and don't drop right to the road as much.   Nova Scotia , but you're riding on top more.  Hawaii but there are no roads.   Unique stunning riding.  After another picnic lunch, we had a few more miles until everything changed.  An absolute killer 13% climb, followed by a little 7% hill and then another 11% up to about 1000'.  But that wasn't the "top" as we dropped down a few times and then right back up.  1500+ ft of climbing in around 6 miles. Was actually very doable, which is good cause tomorrow will be much more of the same.  Arrived just before the rain - still has not rained on us, although it has rained 3 times at night.  Nice hotel in grand vallee, with lumber loading dock nearby.  71 miles.
Also heard from DCs - their last day of riding as they climbed out of rose du norde (5am wakeup!) To jonquiere and the train back.

7/8 st Anne des monts

Back to "normal" today - river (now the ocean) on the left, wind at our backs.  Left quality inn, after free mediocre (but better than expected) breakfast and after a quick spin through matane,  back cruising on 132.  Fast riding with the ocean right alongside most of the morning.  We had expected the hills to start today, but even the 8-10% climbs breezed by.   We beat the sag crew to Les  machins so got a decent 2nd breakfast at a small diner.  Except for 2 short stretches, nice shoulder on the road today and spectacular views as we did the occasional climb.  2pm arrival at modern cie hotel, with the prospect of a long day with real hills tomorrow.  Everyone clambering to drive in the afternoon. Nice dinner at micro brasserie, where the boys drank 4 beers, while the girls got the premium patio table. 57 miles.

7/7 matane

The geography today defined the great white north.  Cool temp, miles of sweet smelling pine and birch forest with absolutely nothing around but rivers flowing into the st Lawrence.  Set out mostly east towards baie comeau, which my grandmother would call the alta-ruchus.  Good road, with nice shoulder and the trucks and wind mostly gone.  Stopped in small Inuit town of pessamit for chocolate milk and munchos.   Kept on trucking to chutes aux outardes (despite our first flat tire, other than the car) for another picnic lunch - this has become our go to lunch.  15 more miles to  baie comeau, a small cute town in the shadows of some hydro dams.  Caught a really nice ferry, and saw a whale spouting,  back to the south side, and the town of matane.  Heard from the DCs who rested for Shabbat - hiking, leading about whales and massages.  68 miles for us.

7/6 forestville/tadoussac

Written by jon and shira

Ideally,  every day of a bike trip is better than the last.  This was not one of those days.  It started out cool (finally!) With a nice included breakfast, and a late start as we were taking the ferry over to the cote-nord.  The downhill slide was slow - a little queasiness on the crossing (25 miles, 2 hours) and no whale sightings.  After another nice picnic lunch by a waterfall in les escoumins, the chods sadly turned south and the rest of us north.  You know the expression "man plans and God laughs" - well we had planned on a tail wind, which whipped all around mostly as a cross wind.  And as the real highway had ended, the trucks we hadn't been seeing proved that they still had goods to deliver. 

Heading north, it was a windy ride with a few hills, and a few "route des baleines" cutouts along the seashore.  Arrival in forestville, least attractive town by far, by 5pm.

Heading south, the DCs had to get religious -benching Gomel and gratitude for the Canadian lamed vavnik that found them.  They redefined the words  headwinds and hills as " the absolute worst conditions we just endured for the last 4.5 hours"  We left you guys and made s right up 138 happily riding on a sizeable shoulder, even found a familiar alt route verte road parallel to highway for a few miles...until the skies continued to darken, the hills became treacherous and infinite and the shoulder completely disappeared. With 18 wheelers zipping by us and crosswinds pulling us towards the highway, we chose safety over machismo and unclipped and walked our bikes for roughly 3-4 miles up HUGE hills only to find no shoulder in site. David's raynaud's (assuming even the non-doctors know what that is) and Shira's terror brought us to a level of discourse that was to say the least nonproductive.  Hence David did what every good hubby would do- he stuck out his thumb! Within seconds we met the Canadian lamed vavnik! A lovely middle aged man driving a pick up truck threw our bikes in the back, and brought us (out of his way) to tadussac. With language barrier (where were you Jon and Becky??) we conveyed our gratitude with many "Mercis" and biked our way to hotel tadussac where David's currently warming up in a hot bath and I'm debating a hot stone massage at the spa.

21 miles for Jon (drove sag), 36 for northern route,  'refuse to answer' for southern.

7/5 riviere-du-loup

When you're cycling, a turn of the corner often leads to big changes. That happened 3 times today.   The first wasn't so good.  We're cruising along out of la pocatiere (after an amazing Timmys breakfast!) When we come to a tangle of limbs and titanium by the side of the road.  When you come upon a bike crash, it's often hard to ascertain how many people are involved or the extent of the injuries.  This was our two doctors - Dave hit a bump and crashed into bruce.  They took a bit to get up, Jason mostly fixed up the bikes and we set off for a bike shop to ensure the new seven wasnt too wounded.   And that the boys were ok of course. The second 'round the bend' was a view of the sea in st Denis.  Stunning.  Then after a quick iced espresso,  the third turn was into the park des chutes in riviere-du-loupe where the bike shop folks has set up an amazing picnic by the waterfall.  Which got devoured.   Then 25 miles, flying along route 132 - literally.  Average speed from mile 60-65 was over 20mph, mostly because of the wind.  At one point, I stopped pedaling and went 0.75 miles before my speed dropped too much. Arrived in trois pistoles,  which is actually really nice, to further nurse our wounded doctors. 76 miles, and hopefully the end of the heat.