Day 21: Quebec City to Victoriaville

121 km (75 miles) – Total so far: 2,024 km (1,258 miles)

What made a tough day tougher was that my attempts to steal an Internet signal to get an Ashes catch up all failed. It was only after I had rode several kilometres around Victoriaville that I called into the Tourist information which happened to have a free signal. The desk attendant asked me what I wanted, and I stalled for a while until I read the cricinfo headline. The Ashes may have already been won, but today’s fight back was hugely important. I look forward to the highlights later. Amusingly for readers (and less so for me) I rode 8 kilometres around Victoriaville, 4 km to a motel that was closed, back to the information office, and then back out to an Auberge which was where I came into own…

Quebec City must rank as one of the best cities to ride around, and certainly to leave by bike on the routes I chose. Spectacular riding over the St Lawrence bridge and through the southern suburbs, and then over the St Nicolas suspension bridge before hitting Route Verde 1 again. But Route Verde 1 comes into its own now and is a former train line and practically never today shared with the road. The problem was the south westerly wind from yesterday remained, at 20 – 25 mph, right in my face all day. Any frustration as to he shale surface of the track were quickly scuppered as most of the time the trees surrounding the path gave some protection. See the map also, it is almost completely straight. It gradually gains height, Quebec was at sea level, and here is at 168 metres. The distance therefore on the route verde is less than the road.

Hard work though, especially sections like Plessisville to Princeville, and Princeville to Victoriaville, were at 8 mph into the teeth of the wind. The battle in this flatter ground in the last week or so has been the wind. Prior to that the undulation gave some difficulty but not as much of a task as the wind.

Striving through the forest today, I thought again of the great days of exploration in Canada. I mentioned Hornby a few days ago, but probably the most famous is John Franklin. His mission was to find the way through the final unchartered waters of the northwest passage. As a portly 59 year old he didn’t fit the image of an Arctic explorer, but read more about him. His life story itself is of great interest.

What interests me about the Franklin Expedition is that nobody knows what happened. It is general knowledge that everyone aboard the two ships the Terror and the Erebus died, but how and why they died remains a subject for speculation. And much speculation there has been, several TV documentaries, and in the last few years, two very interesting books. Andrew Lambert’s “Franklin” tells the full story, and claims to be non-fiction. Lambert is a naval historian and spent many years researching the expedition. So did Dan Simmons. Simmons is not a naval historian, and his book comes under the genre of “fiction”. Neither author knows what happened for sure, so surely both should be fiction. Simmons’ book “The Terror” is tremendous. It postulates that a number of things killed the crews, ranging from arguments with themselves, with the indigenous Eskimos and of most interest, a large beast. Do not be put off by its length (over 900 pages), get it on your reading list.

Distance 121 kilometres Max Speed 42.4 km / hr Ride Time 7 hrs Average speed 17.4 km / hr Departed 9:40 am Arrived 5:50 pm