Bienvenue Quebec

Fredericton was very good to us. We washed ourselves, and our sleeping bags, and everything felt very nice as we climbed out of town. We were off, 500km to Quebec city.
About 70 km into our first day out of Fredericton, at precisely the same time as it started to poor with rain, I hit a rock, that popped my innertube, and wrecked my tire as well. We have lots of spare tubes, and a spare tire as well, so it didnt slow us down too much. We finished in Woodstock, where we had originally planned. We camped under a Gazebo in a playground, right next to a campsite because our spot was cheaper than the campsite; free.
We had a lot of great roads in New Brunswick. The highways were newly built, so they had a nice flat shoulder to ride on. They were busy, and left the old more scenic highways almost empty. We alternated between both, and had mostly great rides the whole way. We left Edmunston on June 2. Right near the beginning of the day we met a woman we had heard about earlier who is running/walking across Canada for animal rights. She was great and had us sign her flag. Just before the Quebec border, we passed another guy who we had been told about. He is walking to Victoria right now. Last year he walked from Victoria East, he started March 2006, and this summer he is walking back to victoria.
The 4 lane highway, merged into a rutted 2 lane road, and we saw our Bienvenue a Quebec sign. It was great to be in the big provinces now. 50 km into Quebec Treena started getting flat tires. Just before where we were going to stop for lunch her tire popped. We threw on a new one and rode 2 km to lunch. When we got there, we realized that the new tube had popped. We fixed that before sitting down to lunch. About 2 km after lunch, Treena's tire was deflated again. We pulled the tire off, inspected it inch by inch for anything that could be cutting the tube. We tried calling a bike shop, but we kept being told in french that our phones werent working. The payphone even said our phone card was no good. We had no spare tire of course, becaue we had used it 2 days before. We cleaned up her tire, inspected it again, put in a new tube, and went off on our way. For only 2 km of course. Her tube popped again, and we gave up. It had popped 5 times in all, we had no tubes left, and we werent about to put anymore in anyways. This was our first impression of Quebec.
We stuck out our thumbs, only to trucks though, because our bikes had to come with us. About 10 minutes in a guy who only spoke french picked us up. We put our bikes in his truck, and he drove us up to a restaurant off the highway. He went on his way, and we thanked him and walked our bikes back down to the highway where we were before. He tried.
Not long later, Pascal picked us up. He was moving to Mission, and had bought a big trailer half an hour earlier to haul his stuff West from Montreal! We threw our bikes in the trailer and he drove us all the way to Quebec City. He told us all about his favorite french things, that you cant get out west, and took us for some good Quebecois Pizza, that you butter the crust of, "because its just like bread." Our adventure was really just beginning though. We were dropped off on the side of a major highway, about 15 km from the city of quebec, at about 10 at night. We camped in the bush, right next to the highway. The street lights weren't the best for sleeping, but with some imagination, cars can sound like waves crashing.
We took down our tent in the morning, locked our bikes to some trees, and started the hike for a bike store.
It was difficult because nobody really spoke english, and we had no idea where we were. We climbed through the bush, carrying Treena's front tire, trying to find a home depot and wal-mart we had scene the night before.
The wal-mart welcome lady gave us "the hand" and walked away when she realized we werent french. Other people were more helpful though. We walked to a bike store, and they were great. They drove us to our bikes, and brought them back to the stores to fix them up, and sent us on our way. We got a bunch of new tubes, a new tire each, and the spare is back in the bag.
We rode into Quebec City by about 3:00 and were greeted at our hostel by 2 retired teachers who are riding around Eastern Canada Together. We chatted all night, and we shared a ton of stories, and tried to figure out which way to battle Ontario. We spent 1 more full day in Quebec city, and met quite a few people in our hostel who were backpacking Canada. Quebec city amazed us. The architecture, and people, and pure frenchness of it all. We went and watched the Senators lose game 4 together, and went back to the hostel to prepare ourselves for more biking.

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