Quebec Days 10 and 11

Start: Riviere du Loup
End: Tadoussac
Mileage/cumulative: 26.76 / 472.18
Elevation Ascended/cumulative: 2,287 / 11,910
Weather: Start – Cloudy 45 degrees / Finish – Partly Cloudy 52 degrees
Flat tires (entire group) day/cumulative: 0 / 4

So here’s the thing about multi-day cycling trips. You can have an absolutely awful day, so dreadful that you want to get off your bike, toss it into a ravine, and swear off cycling forever. Then the next day you get back on that same bike you were ready to toss onto the scrap heap and you fall in love with it all over again. It may be the ultimate definition of a love-hate relationship.

After Day Nine, I was ready to find a local recycling plant and have my bicycle turned into something more useful, like beer cans. Fortunately, a plate of nachos and a cold beer was all it took to restore reason and my bicycle was spared. That turned out to be a good thing because Day Ten turned out to be pretty special. It didn’t start out that way, as we left our nice, warm hotel at 7:00am to ride downhill to the Rivière du Loup ferry, which didn’t depart until 8:00am but boarded on a first-come, first-served basis. The “feel like” temperature was 41 degrees, with the wind cutting through us as we stacked our bikes against the ferry’s hull and made our way up to what we presumed would be a heated deck. While the upper deck was warmer than standing outside on the car deck, it would be a stretch to say that it was comfortable. Some of us sat huddled in chairs while others roamed the deck searching for marginally warmer spots, all of us looking somber. The crossing took seventy minutes and, luckily, there was a small cafe less than a kilometer from the ferry terminal, where we devoured a hot breakfast and coffee. The one lone cook scurried about, preparing food for ten hungry cyclists, probably wondering what happened to her quiet Tuesday morning.

Fueled by eggs and toast, we hopped back on our bikes and began the 24-mile ride toward the small town of Tadoussac. The first clue that we were in completely different terrain was the one mile-plus, 12% climb almost immediately after leaving the cafe. We left the flat farmland behind on the eastern shore and were now in hilly alpine country on the western side of the river. Our route had punchy climbs and screaming non-technical descents, a wonderful change from the past several days. A good climb is almost always rewarded with a sweet downhill. The only reward for riding on a flat road into the wind is, well, nothing.

So, up and down we went, finally reaching another ferry crossing, this one a ten-minute ride across the Saguenay River to the village of Tadoussac, where the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay converge. It’s a tiny village, with a population of 814 in the 2021 Canadian census, but it attracts over 200,000 tourists each year, with all of them arriving between June and early October. The primary attraction is whale watching, bringing busloads of tourists for excursions. It’s a beautiful village in a wilderness setting but it’s hard to imagine how anyone lives here year-round. Brrrrrrrr.

We spent Day Eleven (a rest day) doing laundry and walking along the shoreline. It was a nice break and allowed us to rest up for the challenging days ahead. It’s time to put on our climbing legs!