R & R (Raspberries and Rain)

The weather today reminded me of what we used to say in Wisconsin -- if you don't like it, wait 10 minutes.  We left Montreal on a beautiful, sunny morning, voicing admiration for the wonderful system of bike lanes and trails.  Some of the bike commuters were a bit aggressive, but we were well protected from motorized vehicles!  We had lunch in a lovely park well out of the city, and I carefully put on more sunscreen.  No more than half an hour after lunch, we were standing in a bakery watching the lightning show.  Not a bad place to spend an hour!  We bought a raspberry pie after we had measured Susan's bike bag and determined it would fit.  Just riding in the rain wasn't enough for me.  I forgot my CamelBak and had to ride back through the rain about 6 miles to fetch it.  My total mileage for the trip from Montreal to Berthiersville was 65 miles.  

                                      

                           The meandering bike trail -- practically a bike highway at this point!

       

                                            An impressive line of thunder clouds

                              

                                     Waiting in the bakery for the storm to pass.

          

                                                     Serving up the pie for dessert.

Montreal in a day

So much for rest on our off day.  There is just too much to see and do in Montreal. 

        

  Our day began with a breakfast visit to the Fairmount Bagel Factory, for Montreal wood-fired bagels.

 

           

 

      We hopped on our bikes to visit Habitat, built as futuristic housing for the Montreal Expo in 1967 and continuously occupied since then.  

        

                                  

            We also saw the Biosphere, again part of Expo and now an environmental museum.

                                   

      Lunch was at the Maison des Cyclistes, home of the organization which set up most of the bike routes we have been riding.  It felt a bit like a pilgrimage to go there.

                       

       We didn't have time to do justice to the Botanical Gardens, but we loved what we saw.

                                      

     Victory!!  We returned to our hotel by way of the Olympic Stadium, site of the 1976 Olympics.

And a fine day concluded with dinner with an old friend and his new wife who drove up from Ottowa to meet me.  I was on my best behavior and didn't take photos of a wonderful dinner at a contemporary French restaurant. 

Ah, the sun again

Yesterday's ride was a slog--rainy, chilly, gravel trails, but we landed safely at a very bike friendly hotel.  We shuttled in the van from Orford for about 20 miles, unfortunately missing what is supposed to be a beautiful part of the ride, trying to keep ahead of the storm.  We only rode in hard rain for a few miles of  the 46 we did ride, and we sat out a good bit of rain in a nice, warm diner, so things could have been worse. Our ride ended at St. Jean sur Richelieu, at a hotel I had visited once before.  The owner is an energetic and charming woman in her 80's who provided all we needed to clean our bikes, ourselves, and our clothes, and even offered complementary wine and beer!  

Today the sun returned, and we had a pleasant 30 mile ride into Montreal.  We explored a bit of the city on foot and ate two fine meals, so we are contentedly contemplating our day off tomorrow to see more of the town.

         

     The Auberge Harris, where we stayed in St. Jean sur Richelieu, has a fine collection of art by local       artists.  This painting is of the hotel.

                                      

                               We entered Montreal on a 2 mile long bridge over the St. Lawrence.

          

             There are lots of bikes everywhere in Montreal.  The blue one would be an interesting ride.

                                          

    One of the paper dresses we encountered in an exhibit in building in the old city. Even the cameo is      
made from paper!

  

        

       Bill, our Kentucky gentleman, Jim, the Michigan banker, me, John, the retired railroad engineer, and Susan, a stained glass artist, at a Tibetan restaurant.  We are quite a diverse group.

Riding in the rain

Predicted thunderstorms didn't materialize, so we could ride, just getting a bit wet.  Our 55 mile route from Drummondville to Orford took us on long, straight roads, a stretch of dirt road, and up a few hills. I can never say I zoom up a hill, but after the training of the past weeks, today's climbs were actually a welcome relief from the flats.  And of course, the ups brought with them some lovely downhill runs.       

   

                                       

                                              Our day started with 20 miles on a straight road.

                                      

                                             Susan and John coming down a wet road.

                                       

        The cat,being catlike, declined to pose.  No question about the politics in this house.

          

                             The reward for climbing hills.

          

                         The reward for a good day's ride -- raspberry pie!

Our luck holds, at least for today

We rode out of Becancour at 6:30 this morning, hoping to get most of our ride in before it rained.  Luckily for us, we stayed dry and even had a fair bit of sunshine.  We don't expect to be so fortunate tomorrow.  Our only issue today was that our support driver for this section of the trip is not a biker, and We had not explained that lunch time for us is based on miles ridden, not time of day.  We had covered about 35 windy miles by 10:15 and were not happy campers when lunch didn't appear until 11 am.  Fortunately, some of us were able to persuade an ice cream store to open early and had an ice cream appetizer while we were waiting.  We were well fortified to finish our 61 mile ride.

Dinner was also out of the ordinary.  As we didn't find any reasonably priced restaurants close to our hotel, all eleven of us climbed into the Ford Excursion to drive to a diner.  We were quite a sight as we all came climbing out.

     

                                    Waiting for lunch

                                      ,

                                        The ice cream selections were as good as the cones.

                                      

         Along the route we encountered a fishing lesson.   We didn't witness any catches.    

 

   

                       

                                   Cars get lots of information from road signs in Quebec.  

                        

                                There are some we don't understand.  Ideas, anyone?

A short day

A leisurely morning on this trip is a 7:30 breakfast!  We enjoyed our lovely auberge for a bit before we headed out for a 33 mile ride to Becancour.  Our route took us through Trois Rivieres, which has a reputation for being less bike friendly than most of Quebec, so we were pleasantly surprised to find well marked bike routes and a nice park by the river.  However, we also rolled through some less scenic parts of the city to meet the Canadian Automobile Association shuttle van which took us on the expressway bridge across the St. Lawrence.  A nice service, as there is no bike option at that point on the river.

     

     This sign advertises the sweetest, most beautiful, biggest, best raspberries, so of course we had to buy a box.  The stand is just down the road in Champlain from what we were told is the most beautiful church in Quebec.  Clearly this is a town that likes superlatives.

  

     The young woman selling berries was a bit skeptical about the sign.

       

     We ate them with lemon and mango sorbet.  Superb!

       

     This enterprising couple are riding all the way across Canada, 3600 miles so far!

       

     A bicycle built for three?  Jim, who did last year's ride and just joined us, showing off his new bike.

                      

                              Two ways to take your bike across the bridge.

On the raspberry loop

With its splendid bike trails, Quebec was as easy to depart heading south as it had been two weeks ago when we were going north.  We rode about 65 easy miles today, ending in Ste. Anne de la Perade, a lovely little town with a big ice fishing festival each winter.  We rode on the northwest side of the St. Lawrence, with the river in sight most of the way.  The region feels much more settled than further north, with farmland, dairies, and lots of farm stands.  Lucky for us, it is raspberry season!  Much as I love ice cream, satiating myself on fresh raspberries is an even bigger treat.

    Prancing horses along the bike path as we left the city

     Giant erector set???

     Cindy and Susan discussing the route at lunch

     We stopped at a Louis Garneau outlet along the route.  Others have bought Canada jerseys; I now have a Team Rwanda shirt!

     The nearly 200 year old inn where we are staying.   That's a new house, as the town dates back to 1667.

    Now this is serious ice fishing.  Note the power lines in this picture of a picture.  There are even restaurant shacks taken out each winter.

     Susan and I shared a quart of raspberries!  We did offer a few to others.

A welcome day off

Usually on vacation, every day is a day off. On a bike trip, a day off is a day off your bike.  Today was a welcome respite, as yesterday's  63 mile ride from St. Jean Port Joli to Quebec was the toughest we have had.  It was hot and muggy, and the much feared headwind finally hit us.  It felt like the longest climb I've ever done, with enough wind to keep us pedaling even on the downhill stretches.  We have ridden 730 miles since we started out on July 8, and all in all are feeling quite proud of ourselves.

As was the case on our day in Quebec City before the ride began, it rained today.  We should be back to sunshine and cooler temperatures tomorrow.  What great planning!

On a sad note, several members of the group are not doing the second loop.  We will miss them, but we welcomed three new riders and a new driver tonight. I already know two of them, and one of the riders I am just meeting has ridden with the group in past years, so I have heard much about him, and he says the same about me.  Now we have to see how many of the stories are true!  This is a great group, and the camaraderie is strong.

    Why am I so happy?  The highlight of the day was a trip to the Apple store, where my phone was restored to functionality.  I've been without it for more than a week, but the genius repaired it in about three minutes.

    We wandered through the old city visiting a few art galleries, where we saw this painting, which reminded us of scenes from some of our rides.

     Along Rue Ste. Ursele, a particularly lovely street in the old city.

    A great Moroccan lamb tagine for dinner should fuel me for tomorrow's ride.

Let's keep on Rolling

  Sixty-two miles with no real hills didn't seem like quite enough, so I added an additional 16 miles to the ride at the end of the day.  We are going down the St. Lawrence on the same roads we rode two weeks ago, so today's ride, while lovely, wasn't too exciting.  Fortunately, the winds were much lighter today than gusts behind us when we rode up.  A 40 mph tailwind is one thing, a 40 mph headwind quite another.  We did have a bit of breeze coming at us, but not more than about 10 mph, so we were fine.

When we arrived at our day's destination, St. Jean Port Jolie, I checked the distance to the next town and rolled on to L'Islet, where there is an interesting maritime museum which had been recommended.  The woman at the desk there was sufficiently impressed with my long ride today to set me up with a special tour of a hydrofoil which had been built during the Cold War to look for Soviet submarines.  I learned that Alexander Graham Bell invented the hydrofoil, but this boat was the first military application.  It looked horrendously uncomfortable inside, and for the sake of the sailors, I was glad to learn that it was abandoned after just 3 years.  I was more interested in the exhibit inside the museum, which described navigation and navigators on the St. Lawrence over the years.  There were many wonderfully crafted artifacts used on boats over the past centuries.  Although I didn't see a mention of pirates, there was even a peg leg, carved from what looked to me to be ebony.

One a food note, I bought a pint of raspberries this morning.  We ate some them with our mid-morning snack of strawberry rhubarb tart, and I carefully put the rest of them in my pannier to share at lunch.  The day was warm, the sun was hot, and we had baked raspberries, which tasted like raspberry pie without the crust.  Yum!

           An old schoolhouse now repurposed.

    This truck was being turned back, but bikes were 

     allowed to roll right through!

 

                      The historic hydrofoil.  The view from the top was outstanding!

                 Nightfall over the marina

Observations along the way

We had a short ride today, 26 miles on bikes and about 26 kilometers on two different ferries, taking us back to the southeast shore of the St. Lawrence, as we prepare to loop back to Quebec City.  We need some practice reading elevation charts; the one someone found for today's ride convinced us we were facing the worst hills yet, but all agreed they were far easier than expected. I guess you have to check the distance gauge as well!

Here's a few things I have noticed during two weeks in Quebec:

--If you see the Canadian maple leaf flag flying, you have probably found the post office.  Blue and white fleur de lis Quebec flags are seen everywhere.

--Good ice cream is scarce; good beer is plentiful.  This afternoon we bought single half liter bottles from a selection of microbrewery offerings at a minimart.  And where was the minimart?  At a gas station!

--The substantial investment here in bike routes and accommodations means a group like our attracts much less attention than we received last year going from Minneapolis to Boston.  

--Campers seem to migrate to whale feeding grounds.  I've never seen such a concentration of campers and trailers on the roads as I have in the last week.

--Poutine is good!

     The elevation chart that scared us.  Or maybe we are learning to climb hills!

     Bikes waiting for the ferry.  

    The group at the end of an easy day.  We aren't an anomaly here.

Whale day

As usual, Nancy picked a wonderful spot for a rest day.  Our group fills up a lovely bed and breakfast, making us feel that it is our house.  This house come with a few benefits, such as great laundry service, crepes for breakfast, and a view of beluga whales swimming in the harbor.

The big adventure of the day was going out whale watching.  All sixteen of us were bundled into warm red jackets and went out in a bright yellow zodiac boat.  For most of us, it was our first ride in a zodiac, and our captain was happy to show us that his was the fastest.  More importantly, he showed us lots of whales.  We saw lots of little minkes, little only in relation to other whales, several fin whales, two humpbacks, and the most rate sighting, two blue whales.  We were told ours the first boat to see a blue whale this season!  And did you know that the blue whale's heart is bigger than a VW beetle?  I may check that one out.  It is quite a thrill to have seen the world's largest mammal, however big its heart may be. 

      We were led into Tadoussac yesterday by these signs.

  

   We were happy to have heavy jackets, as it was surprising cold on the water, especially when the           

    boat was really flying through the water.

    Happy campers!  Ziva, Al, and Margaret

    A diving humpback.

    Dinner at harbor.  Al, Sharon, Chuck, John G., and Hope.  We were fueling up in preparation for    

    tomorrow's hills.