Alex’s Bike Trip

Thunderstorms and hail kept Alex off his bike today. He took the opportunity to tour the Grand Falls and visit a a deer farm with Marie-Pierre’s uncle Louis. They drove around in a truck, and Alex says it felt weird to be going down the road at higher speeds than on his bike. It did make him appreciate the landscape even more, though – “lovely hills river” was the way he described it in abbreviated text-message form 🙂 After having ribs for supper tonight he should be energized for biking tomorrow, assuming the weather gets better.

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Just got a text message from Alex. He rode 120km today, mostly on the Trans-Canada highway along the New Brunswick/Maine border. He noticed a lot of deforestation, and says that truckers were honking their horns to encourage him (I hope it really was encouragement!). Today was warmer than yesterday – but he froze last night and had to wear socks as gloves.

He’s in Drummond, NB now, staying at Marie-Pierre’s grandmother’s house after having visited the Grand Falls. He’s also in a new time zone, but didn’t realize it until he arrived and was told his watch was set to the wrong time. He had a big supper and did some laundry. I’m sure he’ll appreciate having a warm place to sleep tonight 🙂

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Just received a brief update from Alex:

Today was his toughest day so far. He biked 80km of long hills, and had to eat two breakfasts to keep his energy up. He says that the landscape was beautiful, and that it reminded him of Alaska – a bit too cold for his tastes. His average speed today was 15km/h, his normal pace is closer to 21km/h.

He’s now 30km from New Brunswick, camping by the water of Lake Temiscouata outside of Notre-Dame-Du-Lac, QC. One of his camping neighbors offered him supper, and they’re talking about his trip.

 

 

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I can’t believe I pulled off so much biking yesterday, the winds were ideal though. Today, I didn’t put that many miles the weather was truly shifty. I slowed down to let the storm pass by me. This area is famous for strange weather patterns, sunny one minute rain the other. I had the full rain gear on for most of the day, it made for not a extremely pleasant ride. Later in the day the skies cleared up and I rode into town finding the nearest bike shop, La Zone just to tune up Carmen before I enter New Brunswick. Boy am I glad I found that place. I met two great Mechanics, Jacques and Maxime who worked on the whole bike. Jacques invited me to his place for supper and let me stay for the night.  He’s a great mechanic and has a great wealth of knowledge on biking and on the routes to get to Edmunston. I also was offered a shower! The supper was great with mucho calories added with icecream and chocolate, kuddos to Lucie and Jacques for their hospitality. Same goes for André, Frédérick and Christiane in Lévis. Thanks for the pancakes, I am sure they gave me the extra kick I need for the day! Unfortunately, my batteries are dead in my camera so I’ll have to wait till my next post to upload the latest pictures 🙂

I should be crossing the provincial border into New Brunswick probably by tomorrow. Rivière du loup is a quiet town that is going through a housing boom. Same goes for a lot of places I’ve visited on the rive nord. Loads of houses are being built all around me. When I am not in urban areas I’m either next to the St-Lawrence or riding next to fields, singing to the cows!

 

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I just got an update from Alex. He had a long day, biking 140km – he had to take a lot of detours because of Sureté de Quebec roadblocks. The area was buzzing with police because a body had recently been found there (you can read more about it at CTV.ca). Alex said he saw SWAT teams and police helicopters.

He’s done for the day now, camping at a municipal camping ground in Rivière-Ouelle, QC. He says he’s talking with some locals about the murder and about politics around the campfire. New Brunswick tomorrow!

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Great news folks!

To get out of Quebec city I took the Ferry to Levis, it saved me a lot a hassle at the bridge. By chance I found a B&B called Le Manoir l’Heritage that’s right off the river again! I have a view of the Montmorency falls and l’Ile d’Orleans and best off all free Internet to speak to the world. The owner, Andre, is fantastic. He let me stay at the place for free 🙂 I also met a Brazilian student at the B&B and we both went to a pizzeria. All in all, it made for a pretty interesting night with good company. Here are some picks from my sightseeing tour in Quebec City.

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Hey Guys!

Everything is going smoothly, I am now In Quebec city following the Japanese tour guides and doing some sightseeing of my own. I was lucky to find a bike shop to park the bike thanks to Gavin (my eye in the sky). The roads in Quebec are the best I’ve ever seen, the shoulders are wide and traffic is low. For the last 3 days I’ve been following the Route Verte circuit which is a series of posted roads for cyclists. It’s really an awesome sight seeing the large ships pass by on the St-Lawrence, they creep along and make almost no sound.

Diet wise, I’ve been eating a lot for breakfast. I really load up on sugar before I start riding. I’ve also been taking advantage of all the ice cream parlors that Quebec has to offer, not to mention all of the Subways (one sandwich artist was shocked when I asked for a 18in sub!) Last night I made good use of the lighting in the motel room to Install a new bike computer. Louis (my old bike computer) is no longer with us, I accidentally snapped the cord when resting my bike against a wall.  I’m having difficulty uploading pictures, so I will have to wait. Thank you to everyone for the messages, unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of responding to them all. I only have a few minutes left on the internet 🙁

Alex

Bibliotheque Gabriel Roy (Quebec City)

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Talked to Alex again a bit earlier. He sent me a text message saying that he’s staying at “a quiet motel outside of Quebec City” tonight. Funnily enough, it’s the same motel that my parents and I stayed at when we were in Quebec City and had to find a place to stay at the last minute – “Motel Colibri” in Sainte Foy. It certainly isn’t the nicest hotel in the city, but Alex is enjoying it. He took his first shower in days, did some laundry in the bathtub, and set off the smoke detector by making some Kraft Dinner using his little burner.

He says he’s going to spend tomorrow visiting Quebec City, and probably find a place to stay just across the St Lawrence.

Twitter still doesn’t seem to be working, so he’s just going to start sending updates to me directly, and have me post them here rather than updating the “Daily updates from the road” page himself.

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Twitter, the service that we’re using for the “daily updates from the road” page, isn’t working at the moment, so Alex sent me a status update directly so that I could post it here. His message was brief (text messages are limited in length), so I’m paraphrasing a bit.

Current position: N46.42840 W72.36816 (Champlain, QC, northeast of Trois-Rivieres, right on edge of the St-Lawrence river).

Had a slow start this morning because of rain, but he got a free breakfast (he doesn’t say from where). He cycled another 100km today to end up where he is – heading for Quebec City tomorrow.

 

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(Note from Gavin: this post was originally written on Tuesday night, but wasn’t posted until now because Alex was having some technical difficulties attaching the photos. As you can see from the Daily updates from the road page, Alex has now left Boisbriand and is heading north along the St-Lawrence riverside.)

Hi Guys,

I am now in Boisbriand, Quebec just past Montreal. Guylaine and Sylvain, my warmshowers.org contacts, are very welcoming. My first day of riding was particularly rough. I was riding by the seat of my pants with strong headwinds. The winds forced me to reconsider my setup. I ditched the front bags for rear trailer. It really helps to deal with the winds and I have better handling now. I spent an extra day in Hawkesbury with my grandparents waiting for the trailer. Thankfully the local bike shop (Intersport) was able to deliver the trailer within a day, that’s something you wouldn’t even see in larger towns.

Anyhow, I had a great time with my grandparents and I must have gained 5 pounds since leaving their house.

The cell phone messages to the website (a.k.a. twitter) are now working.

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