Day 54 – Sweep (Trois Rivieres, QC – Quebec City, QC)

Posted Aug. 21 from Rivierew Ouelle QC

Having a Blast!

Today, since we cooked for everyone last night (a great Boeuf Bourguignon, if I say so myself) and breakfast this morning, our cook team was responsible for sweeping the route. Given that, there was no pressure to leave camp early, or ride at a fast pace, so I stopped less than 2 miles from camp to visit the Saint Maurice Blast Furnace Historic Site, where I met Kelly and Judy from our cooking team. The site is a national historic monument of the remnants of the first blast furnace in North America, built in 1730. Unfortunately the buildings opened at 10:00 AM, but one of the workers, after we played our “we are riding our bikes across Canada” card, opened up the facility and gave us a private tour.

After successfully navigating our way out of T/R, we still managed to put down a pretty good pace (20+mph) and took advantage of it to make frequent stops. Our first was for a 2nd breakfast at a place with great views of the St. Lawrence River. After that we stopped to check out what was going on at a kennel breeding hunting dogs – again playing the “we are riding our bikes across Canada” card, and asking if they would mind giving us a tour. They were breeding English Springer Spaniels (my first and 2nd dog) and let a litter of eight 10 week old puppies onto us – it was an avalanche of fur, wagging tails, floppy ears and nibbling teeth, but lots of fun.

Next stop was at a small restaurant for lunch where I decided to repair my rear tire, the one I put on in Thunder Bay about 2,000 miles ago! It was thin and puncturing regularly, but the self sealant was working. I decided to throw in an inner tube so I could ride at a higher tire pressure than the 60 PSI it seemed to seal the leak at.

With a well inflated rear tire we were off again. About 5 miles out, Judy got stung on her neck by a wasp. I repeated my first aid from yesterday and we pressed on.

Along the route some TdC veterans from last year had prepared sweet corn for this year’s riders. Luckily Kelly was paying attention and noticed some of our riders at the stop – I was head down riding 20+mph focused on the next 50 feet of road at the front of the pace line, and Judy about 6” behind me – some sweep! We stopped for corn and to share our experiences with our hosts, and then headed off to Quebec for our 2nd to last rest day!

The route into Quebec took us up a steep hill (15% grade by my estimate) underneath a very large iron railroad bridge. The most amazing part of that was that an amputee cyclist riding a “hand crank” tri-cycle, cranked his way up. We gave him a big cheer when he got to the top.

We ended the day in “Le Vieux Port” of Old Quebec replenishing our fluids and carbohydrates at “le festi-biere” where we sampled more than our fair share of micro-brewery products.