May 29, 2007

A Ride up the Fluve St Lauent

It was a cold night last night but it was toasty warm in the tent. One thing that both Denny and I noticed was that in the morning with a outside temperature of 45 degrees the mosquitoes were swarming. There must have been over a hundred of them buzzing my head while I was breaking camp. I bought a head net the day before I left and it worked fine. I mentioned to Denny that I am thinking of adding a page to the website called “Observations”. It would contain a bunch of one or two line observations that either of us make and mention to the other.

Ferry ride accross the St. Lawrence River

Today was not much about people but more about the day’s ride. It was a great day of cycling all in all. Last night while eating supper we decided to cross the St Lawrence River (Fluve St Lauent) in Sorel instead of Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers). Three Rivers had two options. Call for a van to take us over the bridge or take the ferry. Sorel had one option and that was a ferry. It was about an eight mile ride to the ferry where we saw the St Lawrence River for the first time. The river was calm and it was a nice peaceful ride across. Riding through Sorel I saw a outdoor café where we could have stopped for breakfast. It warmed up nicely after the sun was up a couple of hours and that would have been nice. However, we wanted to get to the ferry and passed it up. The problem became that it would be over thirty miles until second breakfast. There was a restaurant near the interstate but when I went inside I was told that they don’t serve breakfast and that it was a Chinese restaurant. When we did stop I had a go at ordering breakfast in French with the cheat sheet that I keep in the zip lock bag with my cell phone and money. At first I was worried when my french toast didn’t come with the eggs, toast and home fries (which were more like small square french fries) but the french toast came later.

Taking a break by what else, the river.

Winds today were 10 to 15 MPH and were out of the northwest in the morning through mid afternoon when they shifted to coming from the west. That meant that for most of the day we had head to cross winds. In the late afternoon we had tail to cross winds. After crossing the river we got on la Route verte for the first time. La Route verte (the green road) is a series of bike trails in Quebec. We were mostly on roads and although they try to keep the route out of traffic, it is a lot easier to stay on Route 138 which is what we followed since getting on the north side of the river. Today was a real flat day. Our lowest elevation was 26 feet above sea level and our highest was 135 feet which we hit in the last hour of riding. It was a bit dicey getting through Trois-Rivieres as it is a good sized city. We missed a turn when we both waved to a police officer and didn’t follow the road less traveled to get through the city. Once through Trios-Rivieres we could see the river from the road almost the rest of the day. It was a planned 60 mile day but the weather, temperature, scenery, roads, towns we went through, and winds in the afternoon were all favorable so after a break and a fifteen minute cat nap in the mid afternoon we decided to stretch the day out to take advantage of favorable conditions. We finished the day at 97.37 miles.

One of the other two rivers emptying into the St. Lawrence

One of the two spired churches we see every day.

This was our sixth day of riding and the first for me where I actually feel that my legs are strong. Denny felt good as well. All in all it was a great day of cycling up the Fluve St Lauent.

Jim

Cycledog (Ride the extra mile!!)

© 2007 - JNS