Day 12: A Day of Firsts and Worsts

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"...And even with everything, if not for the last 25 km or so, I would have said yesterday was worse" -E

Okay, we'll start at the beginning. The day actually started well. Since yesterday was so long, we decided to sleep in a little. We knew we wanted to make sure to have a good breakfast given our low energy yesterday (though on later thought, we believe the dinner from Wednesday night might have had something to do with it too - good, but not enough carbs). The hotel breakfast usually starts at 7:30 am, but the manager kindly agreed to make sure everything was set up by 7:00 am just for us, so that's when we had breakfast. As soon as we were done eating, we hit the road; it was about 7:25. The morning went a lot better than yesterday - we had more energy and found our rhythm again. We decided to take a slight short cut which avoided Riviere Du Loup, and had a nice schedule all worked out. We were planning to stop in Cabano at a camp grounds, and have our first night so far with our tent, and even did the necessary food shopping to make this happen.

Despite a growing number of uphills, we had an average speed of just over 22 km/h up until lunch at about 1:00 pm. We stopped and had a nice lunch at a park in Saint Alexandre, met a number of other cyclists, and headed on our way. Shortly after lunch, the road quality took a turn for the worse.

About 5 minutes out, we had our first minor repair to make: the kick stand fell of Therese's bike. Luckily we noticed right away, got the screw, and re-attached it with no difficulty, making sure it was now quite tight.

Another half an hour or so into our afternoon, we had our first major repair to make: the rack on Therese's bike broke. It didn't come off at the screws or anything, the metal bracket literally just buckled and snapped from the weight. Since we were assured that this rack would easily handle a trip to Newfoundland by the experts at the shop where we bought the bike, and since we're actually much lighter on gear than EVERY OTHER biker we meet who is making a long journey, we were pretty ticked off. But nothing we could do about that at the time. We got out our duct tape, our zip ties, and our engineering ingenuity, fixed the problem as best we could, and got back on our way. We were originally hoping that our hodge-podge solution would last us to Edmundston where we would find a bike shop and replace the whole rack, but its actually been holding up really well, and now we want to a) see how long it will last, and b) make it last the whole trip so we can go get our money back from the bike shop. We're still undecided about if we will do this or not.

When we got back on the bike, we knew that the day was going to be longer than we planned given the two unscheduled stops for repairs, but were still in good spirits. At this point, we were quite high up from all the uphills over the last two days. Then we hit a long, and unpleasant downhill. This was another first: the first downhill we both didn't enjoy. It was clear from the surroundings that we just lost a lot of the work we had already done, but that we were going to have to do a lot of that work again to get back up. Sure enough we were right, and within 10 minutes we were covered in sweat, and already exhausted.

Not long after that, we came to the junction with the Trans-Canada Highway. Before turning onto it we had another first: the first time we couldn't make it to a rest stop, and asked some guy at a private garage to use his washroom.

Then, for the first time this trip we got on the Trans-Canada Highway. It was a little scarier to ride on than the normal roads we've been taking since the cars go by so fast, but it has quite large, paved shoulders that we bike in, and it's really not too bad. There was a noticeable increase in the number of random pieces of metal we found lying on the side of the road. Even though we had just used someone's washroom, we stopped about 3 km onto the road at a rest stop for more food, rest, and sunscreen. We were really hoping that since we were on a major road, it would be less hilly and well paved the whole way, but alas, this was not the case.

The next 10 km after the rest stop were all uphill. Admittedly there was a reasonable mix of steep and shallow uphill, but there was literally no stretch of downhill for that warm welcome. After that, we finally hit a downhill...

What followed was by far the worst stretch of hills we have had on this trip. The entire road was a series of consecutive steep long uphills, followed by steep, short downhills - with just enough flat parts in between the downs and the ups to kill our momentum (the poor road quality and the headwind didn't help either). The uphills were always longer, higher and worse than the downhills could make up for. On most of the uphills, just when we thought we had reached the top, there was another 500 m or so stretch of more uphill at a slightly different angle so that we couldn't see/anticipate it.

While on this stretch, we saw our first Moose Crossing sign, but didn't see any moose. We still had plenty of water in our packs, but it was quite warm by this point, and Therese started to get side stitches on each unreasonable uphill. We hit our first stretch where we had to walk our bikes up a long uphill, which really hurt our time and speed.

We decided that we weren't going to make it to Cabano today, the first time we didn't reach the goal we set when we started. The closest possible place to stay was a hotel 11 km away, but that still seemed an impossible task with all the hills. When we were still about 8 km from the hotel, we stopped at a random house for the first time to ask to fill up on water - we still had some, but not tons, and what we had was warm and unappealing. We were considering finding a flat shady area off the main road and setting up camp for the night, and we definitely didn't have enough water left for that. The people at that house were really nice, and happily filled us up. With the cold water in our bottles, and bellies, we felt better and more motivated again, and started back on the road hoping to manage to make it 8 km and not have to road-camp.

Then, something wonderful happened. The next uphill wasn't too bad, and we powered right by it. Then there was a flat stretch for the first time in hours, and then some more reasonable downhill-uphill (down-up is infinitely better than up-down, especially when they are reasonably evenly proportioned). Then, there was the nicest, longest downhill we've had so far. The entire last 5 km of the trip was down a steep, very well paved, and very straight road that took us right to the motel we had in mind. We averaged 50 km/h the whole way, and barely even needed to pedal. This was easily the best 5 km of road we've had to date. While it doesn't come close to making up for the hell we went through to be high enough to get it, it was a nice finish. We needed that. Time for bed, then back at it tomorrow. Should be a shorter day though, lets hope its a good one.

OH, and we almost forgot. One more first: check it out in the stats below:

Departure time: 7:25 am
Arrival time: 6:30 pm
Total distance travelled: 107.9 km
Total time on bike: 5h 50m
Average speed: 18.5 km/h

NEW STAT: TRIP DISTANCE: 1082.2 km. First time over 1000! WOO HOO! (Always nice to end on a high note 😊 )

Good night everyone.

- E and T

P.S. We get really excited when we see how many of you read our blog entries each day, thanks for following our trip! However, we can't keep track of who visits our posts, only how many people visit them, so if you've been following, and haven't done so yet,
LEAVE A COMMENT
so we know who you are; we'll be really motivated by it! Also, don't forget to check back after you've commented, we do reply to some of them. And if you're commenting, make sure to put your name, or email, or SOMETHING to identify yourself. Someone left a comment today, but we have no idea who it was. If it was you: we're still happy you posted something, but feel free to post something else with your name, so we know who you are! Thanks again everyone!

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Photos

Bloody Finger?
No, it's just rust from Therese's iron ring

Special Delivery
We dedicate this picture to our biggest fan

Ingenuity-Rack
This is our creative solution to the broken bracket problem

Comments

[Shira Hart]

past 1000km!!!!
And I was proud when I passed 10k on the mazda!!! What a day you had. I imagine I will see some of the up and down hill stretches when I follow you out east, but i think I will just respect you even more when I drive up them. It is a good thing you two are engineers so that you can do all these ingenious repairs. Do you see a lot of other bikers? Spoke to Rachel today; Nana Lil arrived in Halifax, and R and Nick met her at her hotel and took her out for dinner. Rachel said she had a great time; Nana was very excited to see Rach, meet Nick and to introduce them to everyone on the tour. Nana is doing great amd really enjoying the trip. I got some audio books from the library today for the trip. Lots of Stephen King! Love you both tons, and always enjoying the blog entries, have a good day tomorrow, love Mom

[lauren789]

Whats next?
Hi there, I'm from Quebec! I hope you're enjoying it, and that you plan on visiting Montreal, as it truly is an enchanting city with many fun activities to enjoy. Try a poutine as well, I don't know if you have heard of it, but if you're visiting Quebec, you have to eat one as its part of our culture! Happy travelling!

[Alex Leonard]

Day 12
Wow, your ride today was full of ups and downs - okay, that sounds pretty lame. :P Seriously, good on the two of you for keeping your average speed as high as you did. Walking a bike puts a huge dent in one's average speed. Also, it didn't help that the downhills failed to make up for the uphill climbs. It is really frustrating to encounter downhill runs in which you can't go quickly because of poor road conditions. At least the last 5 km of your ride was smooth sailing. Btw, awesome pic - I appreciate that! Incidentally, the anonymous comment on your previous blog was left by me - I forgot to type my name and email before posting. :P

[EandTbikeblog]

Re: McDonalds, Road Conditions, Other Cyclisits
Thanks for all the encouraging comments after our tough day! Sabrina: I wouldn't say that McDonalds is less popular so much as I would say that we're just in more rural areas, so there is less of everything. We have definitely been missing our McD's breakfast. Also, I think we ate there at least once without mentioning it. Also, my sister's comments made us think about eating healthier. But after thinking about it we decided that we still wanted more McD's breakfast. Alex: you're definitely right about the road conditions being able to ruin a downhill stretch that should make up for a tough uphill you just finished. In fact, sometimes a well paved slight uphill can still be much better than a poorly paved slight downhill - we noticed this today a few times. Mom (Shira) : we do see lots of other cyclists, at some places more than others. In Quebec we saw a lot more than we did in Ontario - they have lots of good bike paths in Quebec. Many of the cyclists we see are just sport cyclists, not travellers, and have no gear at all. We even met two people going from Trois Rivieres to Quebec City in one day with no gear, so they were faster than us. When we see other cyclists with gear at any stop, we make an effort to talk to them and find out where they are going. As I said, they ALL have WAY more stuff than us, even if they are going shorter distances. We're super pro packers!