We woke up with our tent still wet on the outside. We packed it in garbage bags and got ready. We started late because Sara, whose job is loading the gear truck, noticed that there was only one person loading the kitchen truck so she began helping. Then just as we were ready to go, a truck and trailer pulled up and asked us about our trip. We shared and then they told us that they have done bike touring before and have toured by voyage canoes as well. We started our ride and joined up with Brigitte and Bonita. We rode a few kilometres and then realized that Anita and Deanna weren't with us and so we waited at a corner for them until we were told that Deanna's tire had blown off the rim so she had to put it back on and then re-pump the tube. We rode on some quiet country roads almost to the first rest stop. It was very nice and relaxing. There were very beautiful farms. We ended up waiting for Deanna and Anita at the first rest stop, since they are fast anyways. We rode on together, Sara and I pushing to keep up with them. We stopped briefly at the second rest stop and then deviated off the route. We realized why we were turned off soon, the road split into two one way streets, we wanted to go to a restaurant in Trois Rivière almost at the end of the oncoming one way street so we walked our bikes all the way down. After we realized that we could have biked around, it joined up again with our route. Hindsight is 20/20. We went to the Binerie Chic, rated #1 on Trip advisor for breakfast restaurants in Trois Rivière. It is like a 60s diner set up inside but outside has more of a French/European feel and had a view of the one side of a huge cathedral. I ordered "banafraise crepes", bananas, strawberries, and chocolate sauce on crepes. It was delicious. It was entertaining because we were all trying to practice our French and the waitress was practicing her English (she was doing a better job/). We got to go in the cathedral across the street, it is amazing the amount of work and money that goes into these places, and they are barely used anymore. Sara and I then left the others to ride by ourselves. There is a certain pressure to perform when you are in such a large group. Along the way we stopped in 2 more cathedrals that were gorgeous, stained glass and all. Quebec has very nice homes with very well maintained gardens/landscaping. They have bold coloured homes or stone homes, with beautiful flowers and bushes. It really is great to bike by them. We also got our first view of the St Lawrence river with all the sailboats and cargo ships. As your biking through the cute towns along the way you notice some odd sites: farms in the middle of town amidst the town homes, Even farms with waterfront property, also two story homes with the staircases on the outside of the building. We had to bike over a 100m bridge with steel grate. Our instructions were to very loosely hold your bike and be careful because it can be very slippery and is nasty to fall on. There was a vibration also that you really noticed when you got off the bridge. Along the way we saw a fromagerie biologique, so we stopped and bought some soft unripened cheese and some locally made chocolate with caramel. As we were biking we saw a lot of huge fields of different produce, soy beans, cabbage, corn etc. They just never ended. We saw the turn off to camp and we saw a hill... that we had to climb. It almost looked like someone had shot ip the road it was very bumpy, we were tempted to ride on the wrong side of the road because it was smoother, but we didn't. For dessert we got pie from a local dairy farm. A few of the riders had stopped in at this farm that had a store and the farmer was very impressed with our purpose so he drove to the next rest stop and dropped off a lot of pies for us! We were truly blessed. The evening we spent looking up things to do in Quebec City where we will be biking through tomorrow. We are camping at Camping Panoramique Portneuf in the town of Portneuf.
132.6km
6h 13min
21.3km/h
463m elevation