Day 5: to Gracefield

I’m not into patriotism or pride in country or anything like that, but I’d like to take a minute this Canada Day to reflect on what my chosen home has to offer. Maple syrup, a lot of space, a ridiculously short non-cold season, reasonably polite people and bugs. So many fucking bugs. Mean ones.

We left the park in Shawville this morning and almost immediately were back on some of Quebec’s fantastic cycling infrastructure. We rode a bicycle specific trail dotted with picnic tables and other amenities for around 25 km under the cover of cloud. We had it completely to ourselves.

Then it was back on the backcountry gravel. These roads are generally pretty great riding, if challenging at times, but the bugs are intense right now, as you’ve undoubtedly gathered.

Imagine riding a bike down a hill on one of these roads. You hear your tires on the gravel (love that sound!), see light dappling through the trees, the occasional rodent scampering through the foliage, and that’s about it. Ahead is a hill. As soon as you start ascending it and slow down swarms of flies appear out of nowhere and envelope you. You wave an arm to shoo them away and can feel tens of them against your skin as you do so. You pedal hard to outrun them but going uphill you can’t move faster than 5 kph which is not fast enough. You swat, you squint, you swerve, you do whatever you can to prevent being bitten. It’s a lot of work and not even type two fun.

I had at least 3 in my mouth today. I spat out two and I’m sure the other is currently boring its way out of my stomach right now.

Bugs.

Had lunch at a general store in Ladysmith and then spent a few more hours with the hills (18% grade at one point) and flies for much of the rest of the afternoon. Took a shortcut along a highway 20 km out from our destination and got caught in a thunderstorm and soaked. Beautiful, well appointed and partially paved cycle trial for the last 15 km.

Had camping meals and a swim in a pool at camp tonight.

We’ve hatched a new plan for tomorrow and consequently the rest of the trip. We will be skipping some of the backcountry sections of the Log Drivers Waltz route in favor of some Route Verte trails. For whatever reason the trails are much less buggy and have more frequent exit points in case we need them. We’ve queued up about 85 km to a campsite in Gatineau National Park on Taylor Lake. I think you’ll appreciate how Chris named tomorrow’s ride.

From there we will be 140 km from the car and basically back in the realm of civilization. Not sure that we will do all 140 on Thursday and then drive home, more likely we will ride through Ottawa, camp somewhere just outside town. And on Friday ride a half day to the car before driving home.

Chris’s version

Waking up in Shawville spirits were high. The weather was cool and a little overcast but it looked like the rain had missed us. 

The first hour or so went by on some excellent cycling infrastructure, seriously, it’s pretty great. As the sun came out we started to climb. We pushed deeper into maybe the most remote section of the route. 

The climbing was a constant. The roads were varied from chunky gravel to smooth champagne gravel. There were bursts of speed on the downhills only to be slowed to a crawl on the up hills. 

And of course there were the ever present bugs. The biting fly world has seemed to decide that my hands are the best thing since sliced bread. It was a race to out run them when possible but when the pace slowed the swarm was ever present. 

During lunch in Ladysmith, where I was feeling quite dejected about the whole thing, I bought some leather gloves. The good news is the flies stopped chewing my hands, the bad news is there were more of them following in the swarm. 

After pushing through some great scenery and amazing riding roads we came to the highway. We had decided to skip part of the loop. As great as Jingletown road sounds, I’m sure it had some teeth, or at least the flies would have. We pushed along the highway along the back edge of some very ominous looking clouds. With little warning, the heavens opened. 

It was a hard push in some very heavy rain but just up ahead was some more Québécois cycling infrastructure. We turned onto the trail and within 100 metres, the sun was out and blue skies were overhead. We shook our heads and laughed.

The rest of the way to Gracefield was along the Veloroute Des Draveurs. Again, it’s pretty great. The last stretch was paved along side a dirt road. 

Once in town we set up camp, had a swim and some dinner and hashed out tomorrow’s plans.