Author: Paul Rito (Page 17 of 28)

53 miles, 2,037 ft of climbing. Grande Riviera to New Carlisle.

It was a beautiful day for a ride, and today was short by our recent standards, so we took our time. Some headwinds to deal with through the last half, but John and I have synced up enough to know when we need to switch leads to save our energy.

The highlight of the day was arriving at our warm showers hosts’. There is a whole family complex, and two houses that were built from railroad cabooses.

Fearing another rain out according to the weatherman, we got up at 6 and were out of our hostel by 7. We had around 56 miles to do today, depending on which way we went, and rain was supposed to start around 11. We took one last look at the radar and headed out. Suffice to say it never rained on us all day .

We left Gaspé on a great trail that took us around the edge of the bay. It ran along an old train track, and just when our GPS was telling us to turn right, the Route Verte 1 sign said go left. So we did as that’s our preferred route. It led us to a causeway which was shown as connected on our map. As we got closer to the railroad bridge up ahead, the path got sandy and it was hard to control the bikes. Add in that there were car barriers just like the ones on the trail we had been following and we were pretty certain we were still on route.

A perfect weather night, warm and breezy and didn’t require getting into the sleeping bag. The sunset was cloud covered but still pretty nice. John reported having trouble getting to sleep in the campground and I concurred. Our plan was to get up at 5 and on the road at 6, and we were actually on the bike at 6:20, so not too bad. Today was as the title says, lots of rolling hills and lots of climbs.

Lots. And while the weather was nice and the winds light, it was again a lot of climbing in full sun. We were both tired enough when we got to Rivière-au-Renard-Ouest, we changed our route to take the shortest way to Gaspé which also, we duly noted, was one long gradual climb compared to the 11%-13% grades we were navigation

68.4 miles, 4556 ft of climbing. Whew. It was our first day of serious climbing. The main climb was 3.5 miles and much of that at 13%. But it was a good prep for what’s to come. We’re tired, but it was a glorious ride.

We left Samantha’s (oh yeah, she’s also a classical pianist!) at about 9 am as the rain ended earlier than expected. We had a big day to Grand Vallée and the best part was that was the end of the rain for today and tomorrow.

The first half of the ride was a mix of dense fog and clear skies with sun. We had a tailwind, up until we got to a town and a cove. Getting out of the cove was always into a headwind, but that was much shorter compared to the stretch between towns with that lovely tailwind.

Nice quiet rest after gorging ourselves on a half of an IGA roasted chicken each, potato salad, and Pilsner, and donuts for dessert. A nice touring side benefit: calories don’t need to be counted, only consumed. It’s a lot of work hauling your own butt and the bike and bags. I’ve already lost 10 lbs and will probably lose 20 before I’m done.

We got up at 4:45 to take advantage of both the early sunrises here and to get to Sainte-Anne-des-Mont (yes, finally a woman saint!) before the rains we’re to hit. We were on the road by 6 am. 57 miles today and 2700 ft of climbing with a light headwind that got stronger as the day went on. 3 pm was the projected time for the thunderstorms to hit, but its 4:17 now and no rain yet.

Before we went to bed last night we asked Tristan if it would be possible to stay another day if the promised thunderstorms materialized and he said, “Sure!” They did materialize and we woke up at 6:00 to check the radar and see if we had a chance of moving on today. We had a window from 8 to 11 and decided that we’d head to the next town where we would re-evaluate.

No wi-fi service last night, so this is a little late getting posted.

Rimouski, (which is a First Nation word for “many moose”, not Polish) to Baie-des-Sables (Bay of Sand) with our Warm Showers host, Tristan. 42 miles, 806 ft of climbing.

Today was a glorious cycling day. Clear and sunny, not too hot, and a mix of tail- and head-winds and great scenery made for pleasant riding. It was another morning of rain storms, but they were over by 8:45 and it was mostly dry by 9:30 when we left Phillipe’s. We had a lot of side roads to use today and they were welcome as the traffic has picked up along the main route 132 which is the only road on the perimeter of the Gaspé peninsula. It’s summer vacation time and there are a lot of RV’s and campers to add to the normal truck traffic, so any side roads were much quieter and almost traffic free, including 3 miles on a gravel road.

49.5 miles and 2,521 ft up and 5 hours in the saddle. Good, hard day. We left Trois Pistoles around 9 in a light fog. Cool enough to require jackets but it did warm up as the day went on. Or should I say that we warmed the day up with our exertions. Lots of climbing some pretty steep grades but a beautiful area including a provincial park so it was worth it. We are now at Phillip’s house for the night, a very genial warm showers host who served us a hearty dinner of roasted bratwurst, sweet potatoes, and roasted red peppers. We shared dinner and a beer and heard about his travels in Tasmania and New Zealand and an upcoming trip from Venice to Munich, and shared ours, too.

A wonderful ride today. 77.3 miles and 1631 ft of climbing, but we averaged almost 1.5 mph faster than we have been doing thanks to a strong tailwind most of the way between Joe’s house in La Pocatiere to Alex’s & Gabrielle’s house in Trois Pistoles.

We said goodbye to Joe around 8 and got on the road. We skipped a few Route Vert deviations that would have added a lot of miles on gravel roads, and neither John nor I wanted to tackle gravel in addition to the long enough day already. The weather was clear and sunny and my, that tailwind. A few times we turned around to face the wind and realized it might be a harder road back if the winds keep up through August.

Short post mid-day 7 because I didn’t have any wifi service last night.

Hostel stay was great. It rained hard all night and we slept in till almost 8:00. We had breakfast at the hostel and started the day off @ 9 am with just a misty fog which developed into a somewhat steady rain.

We were wet for for 30 mi, but then the sun came out and dried us off. Original goal for the day was to get to 40 miles to Montmagny. We had a great IGA lunch (poke bowl for John and potato salad and chicken salad sandwich for me) and as the sun was shining we decided to ride on to La Pocetiere where John had a warm showers host set up.