On Laurentian roads

This entry is a bit late owing to various factors including a serious heat wave and family politics.

The middle Vélo-Québec bike challenge this year was in the Laurentians. The Parents picked up Leonardo and I early on the Friday afternoon in the hope of avoiding St-Jean Baptiste long weekend traffic on the Laurentian Autoroute. We might have made it had the Parents thought to start out with a full gas tank. As it was, a stop to fill up the tank in Laval meant that we spent something like nearly three hours stuck in traffic.

We had supper with Thierry, his daughters and a boyfriend of one of them. Thierry is a family friend from way back. He and his older brother Christian (my best friend from high school) were with me on my very first Tour de l'Île back in 1993.

I had to look up that date via a slightly arcane and somewhat sadly relevant connection. In writing this, I had frisson from thinking it was 25 years ago that I first did the Tour de l'Île.

The next day (Saturday), the Challenge's route took us along a variety of Laurentian back roads which had made with no discernible logic. There was an awful lot of up, down, left, right, repeat, etc. The short hills lead to a lot of gear changes and I confess at times I lost track of where I had shifted to fore and aft. This resulted in some less than desirable gear combinations.

I arrive at the lunch stop to find my Father who had taken a shorter option before lunch. He regaled me with how his route had taken him along a road that went by a camp he had gone to in his youth. He spoke as if I had gone along that road even though I repeatedly pointed out that I gone a different route.

After lunch, there was a longish bit of old provincial highway leading towards Lachute. This was parallel to the Ottawa River and thus on level ground. Unfortunately, the end of the Challenge was up in the Laurentians and climbing was in order. While climbing a hill on a more sensibly laid road than normal, my chain hopped off the front rings with a crunching sound. I managed to get the chain back on via adroit shifting and pedalling. However, the sound was enough to attract the attention of a nearby encadreur (volunteer). He expressed concern, which I dismissed. Nonetheless, I noticed that gear shifting on Leonardo was becoming less than crisp.

My route took me off the sensible road and onto a back road, the same one that my Father had been going on about. I had decided that between the relatively high humidity and the hills that I would "only" the basic distance which amounted to 107.75 km (average speed: 19.7 kph, maximum: 55.4). This road proved particularly perverse as it climbed up paved roads only to have the descent on gravel!!!!  This was less of an insult to me than to the people on skinny tires.

It was not a great day. Furthermore, a week and half later, I took Leonardo in to the shop so they could figure out what wasn't working smoothly, the diagnosis was that the drive train needed to be replaced.  I have faith in my local bike shop and their logic seemed very sensible to me.