June 25, 2023

This is my story about our 4-day bicycle ride in the summer of 2022, when I was trying to pretend I could still have fun even though I was living with extraordinary daily pain. (I would go ahead with spinal surgery in October – a level one spinal fusion and decompressive lamenectomy – which, thankfully, fixed the problem.)

We thought for sure we’d ride the 500 mile, very hilly, Gaspee Peninsula in Quebec last summer. We were in shape after riding 1800 miles up the East Coast so, why not? But, the pain in my thighs and lower buttocks from spinal stenosis and a misaligned vertebra was the why not. As it got steadily worse, it quickly became clear that Gaspee was out of the question.

We turned our Gaspee Ride into an Old Person’s Quebec Adventure.

We spent many hours looking into possible places to camp and hotels to stay in. About a week after we booked a hotel in Quebec City, I realized we had actually booked a place in France. Rob likes to take responsibility for that mistake, but I insist we both get credit. It would have been fun to go to France. But we didn’t.

We began our adventure in Deer Isle in Maine with our friends John and Janet who have a beautiful estate overlooking the water. They always treat us like royalty, feeding us lobster and other Maine delicacies. We went for a short bike ride and a swim but mostly spent the better part of a day sitting in southern-style white rocking chairs on their screened porch, drinking iced tea and watching the tide come in and go out.

Then it was on to Quebec City, where we stayed two nights in the historic Chateau Frontenac. Other than its location and the prestige of staying in a hotel that looks like a castle, we weren’t impressed, although the restaurant served strawberry crepes for breakfast. I love crepes. I ordered them both mornings.

After a walking tour of the Old City, we wandered aimlessly, riding the funicular, listening to street musicians, and searching for the perfect restaurant for dinner. We settled on one called Le Lapin Saute. The rabbit was delicious. The next morning we left just ahead of the Pope’s arrival. He came to apologize to Canadians for the Catholic Church’s bad behavior of some sort or other.

I was optimistic when we started our trip as I had recently had a cortisone shot in my back and had hopes that it would take away the pain. For the first few days it seemed to be working. Then it wasn’t. We bicycled along a flat bike trail northeast of the city for a day but the pain came back. We decided to take a rest day. We spent two nights and a day at a private campground on Lac Simon. We rented a canoe, went for a swim and played Othello.

Then we drove to Alma, our starting point for a 256 kilometer ride around Lac Saint-Jean along the Veloroute des Bleuets. But we took some shortcuts so we didn’t ride all 256 kilometers.

We loaded up our bikes with all our camping gear. I wondered if it was even worthwhile to embark on such a short ride, just 150 miles. Our last three tours had been 9500, 1000, and 1800 miles, the shortest one a month long.

Quebec also offers cyclists the best soft-serve ice cream in the world, served with a choice of at least a dozen different flavors of toppings. I tried to have one vanilla cone a day, usually dipped in dark chocolate.

Our first day, Saturday, July 30, 2022, we rode 30 miles from Alma to Peribonka. The riding was a lot of fun, on a well-maintained and well-marked route.

We finished the day by taking a ferry across the river after riding through the national park. (That was one of the shortcuts.) The crushed gravel in the park was tedious but the scenery along the lake made up for it.

The day did not have a perfect ending. Peribonka was host to a swimming event across the river. It evidently was not a long enough swim to tire out the athletes as there was a celebration with a loud band playing until 1:00 in the morning.

Sunday was a lovely 35-mile day, with pleasant riding until after lunch when we had to navigate a hot highway with a headwind.

But we met four friendly French-Canadian cyclists (not a surprise; we were in French Canada) in the morning while on a shuttle going over a bridge that was under construction. The shuttle, in itself, was pretty amazing, provided free, no long unplanned detour necessary. We loaded our bikes onto a trailer, climbed into a van, and conversed with the other passengers with a mix of my rudimentary French and their rudimentary English. Actually, one gentleman was fluent in English and the other gentleman didn’t know any. We met up with the two women again over lunch; they both knew enough English for us to have a decent conversation. The two men joined us as we were finishing – they’d taken a short side trip.

Then we met up with them again at the campground where they were all staying in a cabin. They had plenty of luxuries as one of their daughters was accompanying them in a van. We had a lively evening sharing dinner with them. Actually, they had more delicious food that they shared with us because we couldn’t find a decent market nearby.

Monday, August 1, 2022. we stopped at a blueberry shop around noon (this was the blueberry route, after all) and shared a blueberry ice cream that was out of this world delicious. Then we stopped outside the town of Roberval for a swim and some relaxation in the shade.

Our final day we rode 30 miles which included another shuttle through road construction. This time, when there wasn’t enough room in the pickup truck for all the riders, a bunch of us just climbed into the enclosed trailer, probably illegal. But it was a short ride.

We were only on the road for four days, barely riding 125 miles. Never far from my thoughts was the fact that neither physical therapy nor a cortisone shot did anything to ease the daily pain I was living with. I remember one night, after dinner, when I was in so much pain I could barely walk. I knew with certainty that back surgery was in my future.

But bicycle riding was the one thing I could do that was pain-free. I was grateful that we found the “Blueberry Bicycle Route” that perfectly suited us at this time. I was grateful that Rob was sharing yet another adventure with me and that I could always count on him when I needed a shoulder to lean on, both literally and figuratively.

Was four days enough to make it an adventure? Yes. On any bike ride, each day is unique. For the scenery, for the places you stop, for the people you meet. We don’t have to ride for weeks at a time to make a bike trip worthwhile.

After loading our bikes back on our car, we spent another day in Quebec, taking a boat tour down the Saguenay Fjord.

We spent a lovely evening in Tadoussac at the mouth of the Saguenay River before taking a ferry across the St. Lawrence and driving home. I had to get busy finding a back surgeon.