Vacancy time... heading east

It's summer and that means our summer vacation is here.

We are heading east to Quebec City, the lower St-Laurence (southern side of St-Laurence river where it becomes the ocean), as far as Rimouski and Grand Metis, and then take a ferry across and visit the Charlevoix.

This is some of Québec's nicest scenery, and also some of the oldest settlements.

Here's a bit of the itinerary (enough ideas for three trips).

We are ready to leave on a vacation to the east of the province and the lower st-laurence: the south shore of the st-laurence past quebec until, say, Grand Metis or Matane, which is a 400 km stretch of maritime beauty. Then we might cross the st-laurence and come back via the charlevoix.

The schedule: Quebec city for a couple of nights, camping in the Kamouraska region (Seska, also the place for St-Andre/Kamouraska rock climbing, 160 km past quebec city), then a couple nights camping further east (trois pistoles like last year (quite satisfied with the camping there) or more east). Weather will dictate our exact plans.

Touristicalistic attractions include:

Quebec city:
-national art museum
-museum of civilization
-strolling the old city (both lower and upper)
-biking some of the many local bike paths, some newly built for last years 400th anniversary which should be very good)
-the giant outdoor multimedia show projected on a large numbers of grain silos in the port, which was created by Robert Lapage for last years 400th anniversary (a big hit)
-take the ferry to levis, and come back: a very great view of beautiful quebec city!)

Bas St-Laurent (lower st-laurence)
the maritime museum at Islet
Montmagny (where my coworker is from)
Cruise/tour of Grosse Ile which is where many irish immigrants died
Cute villages
Artisanal brasserie near camping and the climbing area of St-Andre
-museum of the region in La Pocatiere
-a look around La Pocatiere
-maritime things, maybe a kayak ride or another ferry or cruise
-a bike ride(s) with the wind pushing us
-Reford gardins/Jardin de Metis and the 10th garden competition (trés arty)
-lighthouse + empress of ireland (sunken ocean liner) museum + retired cdn-navy submarine tour at Point aux Peres in Rimouski
-Parc de Bic - nice maritime/islands scenic provincial parc
-regional museum at Rimouski
-and of course maritime food.

Charlevoix
If things go well, we will cross the st-laurence and see some of the Charlevoix, I'd like to see parc de la haute gorge de la riviere malbaie, which I have known about ever since the Pomme d'Or was climbed in 1980.

and... finally... we want to bike around the island of Ile-aux-Coude, which we did two years ago when we visited here for our first time.

So that's too much stuff for a week-long trip. But there's lots of good possibilities, both indoor and out, so we am sure we will have a nice vacation.

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Why are we visiting here and not some far-away exotic place? We have invitations for lots of great places (cdn rockies, switzerland/Italy, L.A. and west coast) so why are we staying close?

Three reasons:
quebec is beautiful and a great tourist destination
we haven't finished exploring this region
plane tickets? We don't need no stinkin' plane tickets!

Montreal is an island - take a ferry ride!

The Gazette's Travel section today again has some good ideas for activities in the not-too-far-from Montreal department. They call this recurring feature "Short Hops" and it has always provided great ideas for those of us who need to get outside on the weekend... but need some ideas on where to go.

Today we found two good features on ferries and local boat cruises available to see Montreal from an entirely new and excellent angle: the river!

Note that there are no car-ferries in Montreal, these are all foot traffic and bikes ferries.

The short ferry rides and longer cruises are all highly enjoyable little adventures.

Here's the link to the Gazette Short Hops page (click here).

Sunshine outside

So why are we inside?

We are going outside... now!

Vacation coming up... another Bas Saint-Laurent exploration?

Our vacation is coming up... and we want another Bas Saint-Laurent exploration. (geo-translation note: Bas=lower as in lower Saint Laurence river, east of Quebec city and on the south shore of the river, this is the part of the river shore between the near-to Quebec city area and the Gaspé).

Our physiotherapist made a really good pitch today for Tuscany, but...well that's just a bit too far. So, maybe we could dub the Bas St-Laurent "the Tuscany of Quebec." Except it is wrong. There is only one Tuscany, and only one Quebec. And Quebec definitely has its own very special charms.

Our main hope is that the weather is happiness-inducing. Because good weather begets good bicycling. And we hope this year to do a nice'n'easy 100 km ride with a big tailwind. Get on the bike, and fly with the wind. And while we ride we will enjoy some of the best scenery in Quebec, and therefore some of the best scenery in the entire world. And with good weather, camping is a must. Rainy weather induces the need for costly indoor accommodations.

We really liked our visits to the Bas St-Laurent last year. Last year we did excellent bike path cycling (le Petit Temis) and road cycling (along the St-Laurence and spicier inland riding), the art and culture (Reford Gardens/Jardin des Metis, assorted museums), history, and the fresh sea air and great sunsets over the Charlevoix. This year we might take a ferry across the river and do a few days in the Charlevoix too. the Parc de Haute Gorge de la riviere Malbaie is one of quebec's most impressive sights.

The world has not collapsed yet, so with summer here it's time to enjoy life. Woohoo!

Broken Bixi Racks

A Bixi with and without, a front rack


Apparently a Bixi rack on top of Bixi user-interface post


Another Bixi sans front rack (it looks... naked!)


We were checking out Bixis parked on St-Viateur, and noticed one had a broken (as in broken off) front rack. Then on Laurier we saw another broken-front-rack Bixi. And On Parc avenue we found the broken part.

Have we discovered Bixi's weak link? Or have people been using the front rack to carry extra people?

We hope that the Bixi V2.0 will have an improved front rack.

bikes + biomechanics + a messy life

We have always tried to live life to the fullest, in our own modest bikecentric way, and sooner or later we knew certain life-experience events would catch up with us. Well, it has! A few weeks ago we pulled a hamstring muscle and discovered that the (unhappy) right side of the body was not quite the same as the (much happier) left side of our body.

So entering into our life is weekly physiotherapy, and stern advice to not hammer! Luckily bikes can be ridden slower (which is not, we point out, the same as slow), and we continue to explore and experience the full joys of life on two wheels.

So life has become a smidge more moderate, and we are looking forward to regaining 100% of our hamstring muscle again, because we got a new mtn bike this year, and we want (heck, we need) to hammer!

We don't want pity, but we do want to stretch properly after rides for a change. And we learned to do the "wiper."

Two good days, two good rides

Destination: Oka!

We rode Montreal -> Laval -> Deux-Montagnes -> Oka today on a perfect summer's day. It was a bit of an exploration ride, one we'd wanted to do for years, so today we left the front door on bike, and two hours and twenty minutes of effort and we arrived at the ferry (traversier) at Oka.

Oka village was about two hours twenty riding time and 50 km in distance from (approx) Montreal, which we define here as Parc/St-Joseph.

Did we say a "ferry?" Yes, to cross the Ottawa river to Hudson. And to our surprise, it was a new ferry (a pair of them) and not the barge-type they had in the past. We paid the two dollars and we had a nice break in the ride on the open water. Summer's great!

The ferry ride was shared with a dozen other cyclists. Some were going to Rigaud to take the ferry there to come back to the north side of the river. No one else was coming back to Montreal!

In Hudson, we got back on shore and started the ride back to montreal. It's a longer ride back, but we had a tailwind to help us along. This is a quiet, narrow country road with big houses and some nice views. We stopped at the first dep we found for a recharge (the CFM traditional chocomilk and Reeses peanut butter cups)

The route was Vaudreuil, Pincourt, then back on to Montreal island at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and then the excellent Lakeshore boulevard (speed limit 30 km/h) to Lachine, then along the river though the nearly-nonstop waterfront park in Lasalle and Verdun. The entire section of on-island riding is truely excellent. We passed on to the Lachine Canal at atwater market, then through Old Montreal and up berri and axis north to villeneuve and home.

118 kilometres, 5:30 riding time, around 6 hours total time, and an average speed of 21.6 km/h.

Inspiration: the gazette cycling blog had a thing about the lakeshore recently, and I had wanted to do oka, and I knew the ferry would cross the river, so I made a ride out of these ingredients.

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Louiseville to St-Elie-de-Caxton saturday.

We took Sid on a Mauricie (introduction to Maskinongé area) ride, a modest 80 km, and a nice tripling of his annual mileage so far this year. So, this was an easy version of our recent Maskinongé explorations. That's what we thought. Sid was thinking about something different, like his sore, sore ass. Lucky for him the last 25 kilometres are steadily downhill.

We did a bid of explorations north of St-Severe to Charette, and we agreed that this valley is one of the nicest we had ever seen.

The weather forecast was iffy, but we had less than one minute of rain all day.

Supper in Louiseville was greasy. But it did give back some of the thousands of calories we burned.

Lachine - Lakeshore bike path

We rode along the Lachine lakeshore bike path tonight.

The path goes along the open shore beside the lake, and is one of the nicest of any Montreal bike path.

Also, it didn't rain on us despte the black clouds. (We said "the south shore is getting drenched, but we won't get rain here." And... it worked.

We did the detour to the small lachine market. and had a sandwich and muffin because it was time for food. We carried the food back to the waterfront and ate at a picnic table on the waters edge. There are many waterside and lakeside parks for picnicking and other forms of rest stops.

Lachine is a great destination for downtown-dwellers. And lakeside is always one of the best sides to be on.

We ride northeast in middle-Maskinongé

Our most recent Mauricie region bike adventure has not been the Mauricie river as planned, but another ride in the Maskinongé region. This time we went northeast along the edge of the laurentian foothills, happily, below the foothills, so we had good views and not too many hills to climb. (The satmap shows this well)



Nice spot north of St-Severe


The Laurentian foothills start at the edge of the road.


Another Catholic church


Mini church!


Summer's here when the strawberry stands open

Quebec strawberries are the best kind of energy food, or food of any sort.




This ride follows the bicycle-friendly local geography of the Maskinongé region


Our ride map is available on Bikely


Our previous explorations here had focused on riding north and south in big loop rides. But this left the land in the middle of the region untouched. And we knew that there had to be some good riding there.

So we parked the car in Saint-Barthélemy (which I can now spell!) and rode inland and zigged and zagged our way north-east until we reached Saint-Etienne-des-Grès, which is darn close to the St-Maurice river.

As we had done before, we took the cycling map for the region and pieced together a ride from routes on the map. This time we took the highlighter and drew a route through the middle of the territory.

How did it go? It went well. Very well. Although there were two closed-bridges under reconstruction, we got across them ok. The wind was against us for the first half, but boy, that made for a really great second half of the ride with the wind on our backs giving us a turbo-boost. Woo-hoo!

We passed through the villages of Saint-Barthélémy, Saint-Justin, Saint-Ursele, Saint-Léon-le-Grand, St-Sévere, Saint-Barnabé, Saint-Etienne-des-Grès, Saint-Thomas-de-Caxton, Yamachiche, Louiseville, Maskinongé, and back finally to Saint-Barthélémy. Total distance is 115 km. (you can easily do a shorter version)

The ride follows the edge of the Laurentian mountain foothills. It maneuvers around streams and rivers. Instead of hills, the road does pass through some river-valleys.

We liked this ride, and we have discovers that the region has exceptional road cycling.

You have the choice of riding one of the rides on the Maskinongé region's Cycling Map, combining their rides into a longer ride, or just exploring. It's a nice scenic compact region with lots of roads and lots of cyclists. But most of the cyclists stay on the narrow strip of the route-verte along the Rt 138 along the St-Laurence (which actually isn't even visible in this region). We recommend that you take time to explore north of just about any village along the Route Verte.

This was our last discovery/exploration ride in this region. We have been amply rewarded for our efforts with a number of excellent rides. We are sure these will become some of our favorite rides in the years to come. And, maybe yours too.

Cycling and Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable Tourism and Leave No Trace, and cycling and fun and montreal.

...coming up in our next post

Our next Mauricie ride

An exceptionally good ride

We are looking forward to repeating this great ride we did last year.

It had everything you'd want in a ride (except rain, but that was only the last 5 minutes).

We highly recommend this ride.

Map on bikely here.

Montéregie region's 2009 road-cycling map

This map is available... everywhere!

The Montéregie tourist region has published their 2009 road-cycling map. They have inserted the map in a lot of recent publications, so it is quite easy to get a copy.

This region is south of Montreal (and east and west too), and is, to put it simply, HUGE. So their road-cycling map is quite useful for anyone who wants to go cycling, but is unsure where to go.




A season's worth of close-to-Montreal road-riding routes


We like this map a lot.

But, we have one little problem with it.

In the lower left of the map is the Chateauguay valley, aka the Suroit or Haut St-Laurent.

It is one of our favorite cycling destinations. It has quiet roads and peaceful countryside.

However, this Montérégie road-cycling map directs you to ride on Rt 201 between Ormstown and St-Antoine-Abbé. Avoid this road at all costs, it is a busy highway, with no paved shoulders. It is hugely dangerous and, in out opinion, you risk your life if you ride on it. (it is however, a direct link between these two towns).

Luckily, the roads immediately parallel to the Rt 201 are excellent bike roads, so we suggest that you use them instead.

Start of paved shoulder rant (You may wish to skip it)

We feel that this kind of dangerous-to-cyclists no-paved-shoulders route is a symptom of tourist agencies giving the map-making contract to companies that never leave the office when they design bike-routes. Seriously, when a map maker creates a dangerous bike route like this, they should be forced to ride the route, at night, with no lights, and then we'll see if the dangerous bike-route gets changed in next year's edition.

Or, is it Transport Quebec who doesn't build paved shoulders on the numbered highways in this area. The Routes 138, 201 and 202 all needed paved shoulders added to the highways that were built in the pre-paved-shoulders era. We feel that this is serious negligence. Numbered Highways have to meet modern, current standards, and the parts of these highways that do not meet modern road-safety standards need to be upgraded as soon as possible, and since it's not a technically difficult construction task, the paved shoulder is a good example of a "shovel-ready" project.

We have seen lots of modern roads in quebec built to the highest safety standard. We just think that the Chateauguay valley road users also deserve the same level of safety. It's not rocket science. Paved shoulders make sense, especially when the region's tourist maps show these roads as bicycle-designated. It is time for the different departments of government to get togrther and get these things fixed. NOW!

End of paved-shoulder rant!

Except for this little criticism, we like this map a lot and have gotten lots of good rides in this close-to-Montreal region. Especially, the quiet roads country of the Chateauguay valley. A ride along the Chateauguay river (and roads to the south) are some of the best in Quebec.

Missing road in Google maps - Chemin du Nordet, St Donat

The excellent Chemin du Nordet, a road through wilderness

We love cycling the Chemin du Nordet, an amazing recently-built road between St-Donat and Lac Superieur in the Laurentians.

This road is a favorite for cyclists looking for a Vermont-scale road in the laurentians, as well as for anyone looking for a Laurentians' road that isn't post-apocalyptic in its road-surface quality.

This road has been in existence for several years, but Google maps (and therefore Bikely) has steadfastly refused to acknowledge its existence. MS has had this road on their maps for years, which makes Google's omission that much more unbearable (and embarrassing for the all-knowing Google).

So, we looked into it, and found out how to report "new roads" to the Google's map supplier.

Now the clock is ticking, and we we see how long it takes the correction to show up on Google maps, and then on Bikely. We would hope it is mere hours, but it's more likely weeks and months! Stay tuned.

Note: if you want to ride this road, this link will get you the road on the Bing (MS) map. You should be aware that this is a hilly road (and that's a good thing).

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