Friday, August 9, 2013
Quebec City - Riviere-du-Loup, QC
Evan - 113 km, Dave - 143 km, Luke - 187 km
Partly cloudy, low 20 degrees.
After a nice rest at with our hosts, Dominic & Mari-Josee, we loaded up and drove to downtown Quebec City to tour around a bit.
Our host in Riviere-du-Loup was going to be out between 7:30 pm and 10:30 pm, so we planned to ferry from Quebec to Levis, and ride the 185km to arrive at 10:30 that night.
We parked near the shore and walked through some of the downtown, then climbed up stairs and hills to Fort Frontenac, and then walked around that to the Plains of Abraham. By the time we got back to the van, it was almost 1 pm. Then we drove to the ferry and took it across to the opposite shore. It was a really short trip. Dominic had told us that it's so easy and cheap that people use it for commuting all the time, instead of driving across the bridge.
Fort Frontenac
Plains of Abraham
Ferrying across
After getting off the ferry, we decided to go into the town and find some food. We went to a cafe for some sandwiches, and by the time the Riders finished and got set up to ride, it was 3:30 pm!
Lunch - we're all hungry!
I went ahead about 65 km for the first break, and Luke met me there first. Dave got there a while later, asking why I'd gone 75 km, and we found out that he and Evan had taken a bike path and ended up detouring about 9 km. He had gone ahead from Evan to try and catch up with Luke, because Evan decided to take it a bit slower pace. Evan got there a while later, rested for several minutes, and then went on ahead.
There are a number of people riding across Canada this summer, and you can find out about many of them from this website, Biking Across Canada. Two of the people riding, Katie & Sofi - the Wanderers on Wheels, have been ahead of us this summer, and we almost caught up with them in Riviere-du-Loup. They arrived a lot earlier in the day then we did, and informed me of a construction zone which was mainly dirt, mud, and rocks; the only detour for which was 15 km of country roads.
I went ahead and when Dave and Luke caught up after 40 km, I drove them through it. I then circled back and picked up Evan, who had gone 36 km. He loaded up and we went on way ahead to try and meet up with Dave and Luke for another break.
Luke and Dave have lately been going at different paces, because Dave likes to ride hard, and Luke is finding that after riding so many days, he needs to take it slightly slower.
On this side of the river, there is a cycling-friendly road, Hwy 132, which we've been taking. At one point it splits to 132 and another highway, Hwy 230. Dave reached that point and ended going up 230 about 10 km. At that point, it was about 9 pm, and he had no light on his bike, so he decided to turn around and come back to the intersection. He texted us that info, and we were already past 230, so we went and caught up with Luke to check on him. He was fine to keep riding, so we doubled back to find Dave. Once we caught up with him, he'd started coming back up Hwy 132, but decided that to ride all the way to our destination would make it too late, so we loaded him up.
We grabbed some McDonald's food (some burgers for Luke too) and kept driving through the dark. By the time we caught up with Luke, it was after 10:30 and he had about 13 km left to ride. We gave him directions, let him eat his burgers, and kept going.
Luke didn't actually reach the end until about 11:45 pm, because he had got a flat, so that delayed him.
We were all so tired that we just set up our stuff in the bedrooms and crashed within an hour.
Here is a link to the route for the day (including all the driving and detours): Day 43 - MapMyRide.
Definitely our latest day (riding-wise), and we collectively decided to never start that late again, especially with long rides.
-Ben
This what we saw for pretty much the whole day, through farmland and small villages, close to the St. Lawrence River...
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