I must admit that I am a recent convert to cycling in the city and even so, I only do it on certain days, in certain weather, to certain nearby places when I've had a certain amount of sleep the night before. It was my colleague, now partner, who inspired me to get my butt on a bike and ride to work about two years ago. Things went so well from cycling to work to cycling on the weekends that we decided our first vacation together would be a cycling trip. We were mulling over different BC routes when my partner's brother, a seasoned cyclist who works for the Ministry of Transportation, suggested Québec. Québec? He knew through his work that the Ministry of Transport in Québec had spent millions of dollars developing a province-wide bikeway. I was scared of the BC mountain ranges anyway - perhaps Québec would be a kinder, gentler place for a first time cycle tourist?
Information gathering was a breeze. A phone call to Vélo Québec got us the Québec Cycling Guide and once we narrowed the region down (visualize the beautiful, historic, and, yes, flat farmlands southeast of Montréal), we were inundated with brochures and maps from the regional tourist office offering us many custom made circle routes and all the information necessary to plan our own adventure.
We chose to box up our own bikes rather than rent. We were warned by the hostel in Montréal that getting from the airport to the city was really not a good idea on a bike, so we took a van taxi. And of course, La Route Verte is more than bikeways. When we arrived at the hostel, we, our bikes, and our baggage were welcomed. We stored our bikes in our spacious room and were shown the bike pump. There are hundreds of B&Bs, campsites, and hostels along La Route Verte ready to accept cyclists and provide secure storage, a bicycle pump, and tools - a requirement to receive the "Bienvenue Cyclistes" designation.
Our first destination was Chambly, the brewing home of my favourite French Canadian beer, La Fin du Monde. Oh, and yes, it's also the location of Fort Chambly, built in 1709 to protect Montréal and secure trade routes to the US. We did get lost; not after our tour of the Unibroue brewery but on our way out of Montréal. Since I can be described as naively optimistic when it comes to fun and adventure, I had thought that because I was leaving rainy Vancouver, my Gore-Tex jacket wouldn't be necessary. Well, it rained that first day leaving the city. After losing "La Route Verte" trail, which, by and large, was very well-signed along our entire route, we saw a beacon in the distance and arrived at a Tim Hortons to dry ourselves off, look at our maps, and find our way. Surmising we were lost, a man at the table next to us began looking at our maps - asking us questions in French - and tried to help us out. With our passable high school French, we managed to get a good idea of where we had gone wrong. Thanks to the washroom dryer, our friendly Québecois acquaintance, and a Tim Hortons' lunch, we were on our way. When we arrived near the place we had gone astray, a man stepped out of his car on the roadway and motioned to indicate where the trail was. It was the same man from Tim Hortons who had driven back to the spot, waited for us to arrive, and sent us on our way. He even blew us kisses goodbye. Merci Monsieur!
We carried this feeling of warmth throughout our trip, tasting ice cider for the first time at a family run ciderie and talking to Quebeckers over breakfast at our B&Bs (who were shocked we would be visiting all the way from Vancouver - had we flown or cycled here?). We felt it too when we met two men in their 70s who come every summer from Vermont and Massachusetts to cycle in Québec, and again when I gave my spare inner tube to a cycling vagabond who had a flat on his Bionix (Québec manufactured) electric bike. From town to town, we travelled on off-road bikeways along canals, through the forest, and along farmers' fields.
For our ten-day trip, we covered 50 to 70 kilometres per day, but spent only about two hours on a shared roadway. I have a hard time imagining the commitment and effort it took for the hundreds of organizations involved to make this bicycle route happen. Graffiti along part of the route showed one community's opposition. But it did happen, and it's wonderful. Let it serve as inspiration to the rest of the country. Next time, I'll try something a little more challenging like the Gaspé Peninsula. By the time we hit our second day of rain on the way back to Montréal, we had already bought three-dollar raincoats from the tourist shop at Fort Chambly. Who needs Gore-Tex?
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