Ignore the roar of traffic

Anything to get away from traffic

The second bicycle trip that Benoit and I took together was to the Gaspé peninsula in Quebec in the summer of 2008. The province of Quebec has a network of bicycle paths called La Route Verte. It wasn't all pieced together in Gaspésie, which we found out much to our dismay. Hopefully it will improve soon. I wrote far too many boring details of our journey. However, they might still be of interest to those wanting to cycle in the area.

Here is an excerpt:

This supposed bike route is along the very busy highway 132. For the first 4 kilometres out of Mont Joli, there was no shoulder at all and the road itself was quite narrow. Even at 7:00 in the morning, when we left the VIA train station, the highway was filled with a stampede of transports, RVs and cars, all merrily speeding along in the rain and fog. We were forced to ride on the soggy gravel for a white-knuckle ride until we finally gave up to wait out the weather. Benoît, despite wearing his bright red jacket criss-crossed with reflective stripes, was disappearing into the fog only a few metres ahead of me. For certain, if I couldn't see him, then the hurried drivers would not see us. We definitely got the impression that they weren't happy sharing the road with cyclists, nor expecting us to be there on the road at all. Once back in the saddle at 10:00, it was slightly more pleasant. The rain had stopped, the road was dry and the fog had lifted enough to give us the view of our next hill, still on gravel. I tried to take in my surroundings and appreciate the view while ignoring the roar of traffic. It might be a good idea to return to this area when there is a real gas crisis; you know, when the gas prices are so impossibly high that there are only a few stubborn drivers left.

I have added a link below where you can download the pdf version of my bicycle log from Box.net:

• Gaspesie 2008: 15 pages, 100.6 kb: GaspesieBlog2008.pdf

Clicking on the link above will take you to a Box.net web page that says that the file has been shared with you. Click on download and enjoy.

Trial run of my solar-powered bike light

For a three-week cycling trip to Gaspésie with Benoît, I brought a solar-powered bike light that you can see charging on my left-side of my handlebars in the photo. Since we didn't do any riding at night on that trip, I didn't really use my light as it was meant to be used. Instead, I would charge the light as I rode during the day, and I would use it as a flashlight/reading light in the tent at night. For such tent use, I'd love to have a head-strap accessory for it, so that I could wear it as a head lamp instead of having to tuck it under my chin.

I also brought a compass that I slipped inside my map holder. The compass came in very handy once -- when the Route Verte signs got very confusing and left us wondering if we were still heading south.