8/6/09: Segements 77 and 78: Rt 132 west and the Route La Verte bike trail on the south shore of the Gaspe Peninsula
http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment77.html
http://www.4thehealthofit.net/segment_htmls/Segment78.html Bonaventure, Quebec to Pointe-a-la-Cloix, Quebec: 74 miles.
Check out Barney’s blog on http://www.nwpassage2.blogspot.com/
Let me tell you, this morning was a magnification to the past two week’s worth of mornings, harder and harder to get out of the tent and get on the bike. Man, I hit the snooze alarm – a towel over my eyes – several times this morning. And then I shouted out to Barney to see if he was awake, and he was, saying that I needed an extra twenty min to let the tent air dry from all of the dew this morn. But really, I was just really sore and tired. I actually needed an extra bit of down time before I got up to do it all over again. So slowly but surely I got gear packed and then tore down the tent. And it was true, the dew was just terrible, and I really had to wipe down the whole tent prior to packing it.
Did all of this amidst a killer headwind, nearly taking the tent up like a balloon and sending it into the next camping spot. I had to keep one side staked down while folding the other side for packing. It was a total hassle. Lift the tent just 8-10 inches off of the ground, and it filled up with air and was ready to fly away. Good thing – no gnats creating blood circles on the head, neck and legs. Slept like a rock though all last night. And now, I was hoping to do 120K to the New Brunswick border today on very tired legs.
We hit a local restaurant in Bonaventure and had the Grand Slam. I won’t go through the list for the umpteenth time, but go back to the previous blogs and you’ll get the gist of it. For 9 bucks, that was a lot of food! And we just sat for 10-15 min drinking our coffee, trying to prolong the time before we had to go out there and deal with a headwind that was already standing the flags up to full flight. Five to six hours of battling the headwind.
So we get going, and right from the gun we’re also doing these power climbs, mile after mile after mile. So take a headwind, couple it with neverending power climbs, and you have the makings for a very long and tough day of riding. Today’s headwind and power climbing was III, call it Dawn of the Getting Dead Legs Day III. I was really just using the middle ring all day, save for the descents where I could shift into the big ring for 10 min or so, before going back into the middle ring. It was relentless. But somehow, someway, we got into a groove. Well, I should preface that with – Barney took off like a freaking Nazi at the start, and I was thinking: “Dude, what in God’s name are you doing. Like I’m in Z3 here and it’s the first thing in the morning.” But after about 30 min of drafting off of him I was ok, and then took over pulling duties.
And I got into a pretty good groove and rhythm and just started to tick out the miles. And Barney got echelon behind me and we just motored for about 1.5 more hours into this nasty headwind. We were all along the ocean to begin with, so the headwind was at it’s worst. Duck behind a peninsula or go inland briefly and the headwind went down considerably. So we just kepy a constant pace and ended up in the town of Maria, and took a well deserved break. Sat at a pavilion along the ocean and Barney pulled out another packet of beef jerky and I darned near ate all of it, just sucking the salt out of each and every piece I put in my mouth. Barney finished his Brie and bread, had some jerky and then relaxed as I did……..and we both fell asleep for brief periods of time listening to the waves of the ocean and the gnarly headwind blowing through our ears. There was a point where I was OUT, dead to the world, wishing that THIS was our end point for the day. But nope – we still had 40 more miles to go!
So we got it going again, and right off the bat we had a big series of power climbing to do, going over a triple decker climb that spanned a whole peninsula. And as usual, add to that the most ferocious headwind of the day, and it made for a very nasty way to get back on the bike and begin pedaling again. Now what we’ve experienced these past three days is: headwind bad in morning, terrible in afternoon, and dieing down in the late afternoon. So to was today, as the afternoon session with the headwind was just crazy. I had to get out of the saddle many a time and accelerate to get it up to speed – to a mere 9 mph. And………add to that, as if that wasn’t enough, the fact that my rear wheel was really beginning to wobble more than ever – a sure sign that my tire was getting ready to explode from the bead. Hit fresh blacktop and the thing felt as if I had lead wheel weights on one side of the wheel. Do a descent and it felt as though the whole freaking wheel was going to implode. So I stopped and checked it out, and sure enough one of the areas adjacent to the bead was ready to blow out. Ok, chalk up another tire to the yak from hell. This guy was in bad shape, and I could only hope that it would hold out for the rest of today’s ride. If not – BANG!
The scenery – it was outstanding as usual, and thank God for that because it took you away from the headwind and the power climbing hell that we were experiencing for the day. We were still along the ocean, on our left hand side, and traveling through these cool little towns. But once you leave a town, you could almost rest assure that you’d be power climbing again……..and again and again. The temps were about 10 degrees cooler today, so my little washcloth was not nearly as well used today as yesterday, and I ended up wearing my long sleeve jersey for over half of the day, with the zipper zipped all the way down to allow air flow. By 4 hours into our ride my legs were really feeling the efforts of 3 straight days of headwind and power climbing. And I’d wait for Barney every 30-45 min and see how things were going. And we were both in agreement that we would NOT do anymore of the Route Verte bike trail, as it ran way out of the way most of the time, not to mention go on gravel and dirt road. Will this headwind – ARE YOU CRAZY!
We finally got to a section where the towns disappeared, the beaches disappeared, the gas stations disappeared, and we had nothing but forest to ride through. On my last stop to let Barney catch up we were about 14K outside of Pointe-a-la-Cloix, and I was pretty smoked. My head hurt, my legs hurt, my ass hurt, and I was beginning to get that “Coke or die” feeling in my blood. So we decided to go that final 14 K because there was really nothing there in the bush to do – couple of campgrounds in the midst of nothing, no stores, no gas stations, no restaurants. It was a complete wilderness along the ocean. We had New Brunswick in full view on the other side of the bay, but we were still a good ways from the bridge to Campbellton. So we just kept rolling. And at this point I was just aching for sugar, looking and praying for a gas station around every corner. But nothing. Another power climb, another curve, another descent, but nothing in the way of a store. And the rear tire – it was just like an accident waiting to happen, each and every mile I was just praying that it would hold for the remainder of the ride.
Probably 7-9 miles into that 14K I began to get my hypoglycemic shakes. I needed my sugar fix and fast. And I round another corner, or worst yet, do another climb, and nothing. The wind had picked up again so it was just a massive fight to stay alive with a reasonable mph average. I finally had to stop at a place where there was a campground off the road about a half a K. I got into my last emergency gells – one chocolate and one red raspberry hammergel. GONE. And I waited for Barney. When he got there I explained my sugar condition, and suggested that I HAD to have a coke and candybar asap. There were a few signs up the road, so we rode towards them for about a half a K. And sure enough there was an Esso station. Went inside and got 2 ice cold cokes and a chocolate chip cookie. Guzzled the cokes and woofed the cookie, and then we got another cookie. Sugar fix was complete. I felt energy surging back into my system, like Popeye having had his spinach. I was human again.
Then we hit information center just across the street and found out that the campground we passed was the only game in town, and that the only place to get beer was 3K from the Esso station. So we decided to get our campsite, and then Barney would go on a beer run while I changed out another rear tire. Got our site, and the gnats were just crazy horrible, buzzing and landing on me like I was the Kennedy Airport. Barney went off for beer while I fought gnats and worked on putting a new tire on the Paragon rear wheel. Gnats were flying in my ears, in my nose, buzzing my head, neck, legs. It was a whole new experience in patience trying to take tires off and put tires on while swatting at these ferocious gnats trying to dig into every exposed section of my body. I’d kill them in my ears, under my chin, in the back of my neck, all the while trying to concentrate on getting my tire seated properly and then pumping it up without breaking the valve stem.
Barney came back just as I had the wheel back on the bike and was ready to pump up the final high pressure. I sucked down a beer like it was out of a straw, and then another, with sweat beading down my forehead and chest and legs from the combative fight with gnats and the pumping of the tire. Swat, pump, swat, pump. Again and again. And wouldn’t you have it …………I freaking snapped the stem of the tube. Psssssssssssss. Totally flat. Now I’m full blown pissed. And it’s a part of Pete that Barney’s not seen before – only read about in the blogs. I pull the pump head off, throw the broken valve stem to the next province, and begin to pull the wheel off again in a not too pleasant manner. I was muttering four letter words under my breath, and just about ready to take the wheel and do a discus throw to New Brunswick. So I grab my gear, and go back to the picnic table in the sun, for the gnats are not as bad there as in the shade. And the fight began anew – me and my wheel against the gnats from hell. So I got a new tube in, tire on, seated, half blown up and then put it back on the bike and finished inflating. And the gnats are just about going in one ear and out the other. It was sickening. Done.
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