7/29/09: Off segment. Rt 132 east on the south side of the St. Lawrence River. L’Isle-Verte, Quebec to Point-Au-Pere; 67 miles.
Ok, I’m not the “get even” guy, so no, I did not go up to the bathrooms and turn all the faucets on. Wanted to, but doing and thinking are two different things. I think my bark’s worse than my bite. My dig, was in the morning, after my bathroom break, I left the lights on inside, when the sign specifically asked to turn them off. Big freaking deal right?
So was awoken again by our now infamous duo of Ryan and Barney. This morning…….6am right on the button. Now Ryan was nearly done packing when I rousted, and Barney was getting stuff out of his tent. But again, I’m the last in line with respect to getting the hell out of my cozy sleeping bag to put another 5-7 hours in the saddle. So we packed, and headed over to our dinner spot from last night for our breakfast. Did another egg, toast and hashbrowns gig. Then we were on our way. Now we were taking the La Route Verte, which is the bicycling route that Barney has a book for. It goes along Rt 132 at times, and then deviates onto secondary and tertiary roads. It even goes onto stretches of bike and hike trail that is paved and gravel. Just depends where you’re at.
So we had a blast on this La Route Verte yesterday, why not do it again? Well, we did, and we were greeted with a considerable amount of climbing.This was little cookie power climbing, up asphalt, up gravel road, up bike and hike crushed limestone, up freaking everything everywhere!
We started with a climb pronto, right out of L-Isle-Verte, up on asphalt road, to the south, and then east on a tertiary country road. This section of country road was quite beautiful, with farms on all sides. We were able to keep up a good pace what with it being asphalt road and us still having a very good tailwind. And then we hit some crushed limestone bike and hike trail. Now this was really spectacular, especially when we hit a big suspension bridge and a river valley. This place was grand on a huge degree. But the downside was that we were doing these little Z5 little cookie power climbs up and down on this crushed limestone trail. It was ok at first, but after about 1.5 hours it was really beginning to take a toll on the legs.
So for about the first 2 hours we did our best to follow the La route Verte verbatim. Then, Ryan and I started to really feel those 75 lbs of gear in the yaks. Up and down and up and down and up and down. All power climbs with the yak. For those of you who ride, the trail is very much similar to the Carriage trail in the valley with respect to the ups and downs. Finally, when the trail map indicated that the next 15-20 k was supposed to be nothing but climbing, and recommended that trailers not be taken on this part of the route, Ryan and I gave in, and begged to get back on the 132 to keep it nice and even. We did that and then managed to just fly down the road at about 21 mph for a good half hour. This put us at an information center/camping area that Judy and I had stayed at back on our 2007 Quebec trip. Ryan found out that there was an internet café down the road about 10 miles, which he needed in order to get some work done. It’s now very hard to get wifi out here. I can use my aircard, but it is slow, and you cannot skype on it with one and two bars. So off we went to this town of Bic.
Again, we had the great headwind, so that solved at least half of the distance. And then there were the climbs, which really started to kick in. These were very similar to the climbing that we did out along the north shore of Lake Superior. These were some long big ring climbs that worked you, considering that the temp had now climbed to about 90-degrees. I had sweat just streaming down my head, back, legs, and especially my eye sockets. On this stretch the heat and humidity was just destroying me. I could feel the old energy bunny just going down and down. I’d get to the top of a climb and just feel like the energy was being sucked out of me by a vampire. By the time we turned off onto the tertiary road to Bic, I was pretty beat up. We pulled into this little French café with a patio, and this lady was on the patio using a Mac. Barney asked her if there was wifi and she said yes. So I unhooked all my gear and and got my computer out, then we went inside, almost in a daze from the heat, and began looking for an outlet for the computers. No go.
The lady comes back in with smoke in hand, and Ryan refers to her as Carmilla DeVille, and she says that there is no wifi. Her mistake. The owner gave her the code yesterday, but she forgot it today. Whatever. All the while the partrons are looking at us like we’re freaks, all salty, wet, disheveled, looking around the whole café for electric outlets. No go. So we cannot get wifi. Ryan pays to use their 1980 Macs that must be hooked up on Ethernet. Barney and I sit there in a booth for a bit, and I go through 2 crafts of water. And Barney asks the waitress in French for water, and hell, I’ve gone through it all while he was sitting there looking at the menue. I’ll tell you, at this point I was really wondering if I could continue riding today. I was that heat destroyed.
So then we order. I get the maple curried chicken and a gazpacho soup. The guys get a the fish and chips. The gazpacho soup was just heavenly. And the maple curried chicken – you’re kidding me! I’ve been pretty frugal for the last 2.5 months with respect to spending money on food – hell look at my subway record - but here in Quebec, VISA please! No qualms about spending money on these incredible foods and cooking. I’m definitely tasting the Quebec all the way around the Gaspe Peninsula. Period. The food in this little hole in the wall café was just incredible. We all were raving about our meals. And hence forward through Quebec. VISA please! I’m eating like a culinary cow! So……..we’re fueled up, and then go back out into the heat, and by God it was hot. So we descended down to Rt 132, and then by God rode right back up another climb to get back to the same altitude that we started at!
Did a long climb, and then a turn to the north, to put us right along the St Lawrence River, and that’s when it hit us – the temps dropped about 10 degrees, and you could taste salt in the air. We made that turn and Ryan was holding both arms up in the air as a kind of salute to the ocean. It really felt as though we were now along the ocean, and if you look out across the river, its now the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This took us to another bike and hike trail, and down right along the “Gulf”. The trail was wonderful as we meandered along the Gulf all the way into the city of Rimouski. Then we road along a boardwalk for another 4 or so miles to another little tertiary road along the Gulf. We took this amazingly scenic road to the town of Pointe-Au-Pere. It was here that we started to see some crazy nice locations right along the Gulf, a mere 100 feet off of the water.
We were going to ride another hour, but we came across this tiny, non-utility campground next to a fish store and restaurant and it was game over. We asked a gentleman camping in a 5th wheeler if we could camp, and he nodded yes, pointing to the fish store to get permission. We go in, and it’s 5 bucks. I had the five out of my wallet as fast as the rifleman! Done. So then we get sea food. I got a kilo of shrimp, crab legs, and a baguette. And then I picked up a six of Quebec micro brew. We went back to the picnic table and just chowed. Barney ate the rest of his sturgeon, while I went through the whole carton of shrimp and the crab legs.
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