Bungie
FrostBack #2 - IBA # 44620
For the August long weekend, Mike and I pulled out of Sudbury at about 10am on our way to Mauricie National Parc in Quebec. The plan was to ride to Carleton Place near Ottawa, spend the night, the leave bright and early with Mike’s brother Doug. Then, the three of us would meet Andre from Montreal at Montebello. Andre would act as our tour guide and interpreter, because were all Anglos! Andre picked out his favourite roads through the Laurentiens taking us up to Mont Tremblant and finally onto Mauricie. In between was some of the best that Quebec has to offer. It didn’t disappoint!
As usual, I never stop enough for pictures so this report will be a mix of my pictures and Mike’s who got designated as photographer, I handled the video duties. More importantly, stuff happened, this is the story of that stuff.
The ride between Sudbury and Carleton Place was uneventful. Traffic was reasonably light until we got close to Ottawa. Our first stop for the trip was Mattawa for gas. I’m gonna have to take a ride back out there to take some pic’s. Mattawa is nice little place with wood carvings along the side of the hwy. Our next stop was Deep River for a butt break. Mike had to stop in Renfrew to pick up a jacket he had left there the previous week while attending a wedding, so we made a little detour. We decided to take some backroads to Carleton Place as their was some construction ahead on 17. Nice ride, actually, really nice. Then one of the roads turned into, what can only be termed, an incomplete shortcut. Gravel plus twisties for about 5 or 6 kilometers. Big whoop right? Well, try riding a loaded down 700lb bike on street tires. Lets just say I worked up a bit of sweat. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. This little oops was an omen of things to come. We pulled into Mike’s parents place and unloaded the bikes. That evening, we went to visit Mike’s brother Doug, then headed out for some Pizza at Milano’s. Mike had ordered some chicken wings to go along with his pizza. There was some mix up with the order and when Mike went to check, the owner apologized then brought us over a Ceasers salad - no charge.
The plan was to be on the road for 7:00 the next morning, meeting up with Doug at Tim Hortons. Unbelievably, we were kickstands up at Tim’s at 7:45! We were to ride to Montebello to meet up with Andre from Montreal. Mike was leading, and, for some reason, we ended up going through downtown Ottawa instead of just staying on the highway. No big deal, I’ve never been downtown Ottawa before. We crossed the bridge over the Ottawa River and entered Quebec. The sun disappeared and a morning fog rolled on. We arrived in Montebello around 9:30 and .. No Andre! He told us he’d meet us ‘at the restaurant where all the bikes meet’. It wasn’t immediately clear which restaurant he was talking about. So we doubled back and picked one!
Not 5 minutes later Andre arrived. Good timing! We introduced ourselves then stopped for gas for our next leg up to Mont Tremblant. Andre has the cleanest 2003 FJR I’ve ever seen. Rob, if your reading this, you should be ashamed HAHAHA!
The terrain quickly changed from rolling farm land to the Laurentiens. Beautiful! The fog burned off and the sun came out. When we arrived at Tremblant the sun was starting to put some real heat down on us. I peeled out my jacket liners and went full mesh.
Mont Tremblant is definitely a tourist destination dominated by the ski resort. Very clean, very scenic everywhere you look. It was also my first time through a European round-a-bout. They need to put these things EVERYWHERE! No stopping at an intersection, just make sure the coast is clear and go for it.
Lots of people on bicycles as well. Not just casual bicycle riders either, you know, Tour-de-France get up. I figured because you can rent bicycles that’s what I was seeing. Turned out not to be the case - we’d be miles from anywhere and we’d come up along a more bicycles all over Quebec. Good on them! Judging by the figures on the riders and people in general, its working for them.
We left Tremblant and headed for St. Donat for some lunch. Service was slow but we all needed an extended butt break. In addition to taking us down some of the best roads in Quebec, Andre proved really useful when dealing with the locals. Like say, ordering food. I’d say “Ice Tea”, and the waitress was looking at me like I had 3 heads. Andre would pipe in “Tea Glace” and the waitress looked like she just solved the problem of life, the universe and everything.
As we pulled out from lunch, Andre says to me ‘Up ahead their’s some curves, do what you want!’ This is a major artery and Andre went into full Rossi mode, hitting the curves at about 180km/h. WooHOO! I didn’t have a clue where I was at this point, other than somewhere East of Tremblant. We were playing follow the leader as Andre took us down a never ending series of secondary highways with beautiful scenery, great twisties and bikes and bicycles everywhere. Does everybody in Quebec ride a motorcycle?!
He took us down one highway, for some reason I think it was 327, don’t quote me on that though, that seemed to be a favourite for sport bike riders from all over Quebec because their was a ton of them. I soon realized why. Fresh pavement, and incredible twisties for about 30km. Guys would just run them back and forth all day long.
Andre led us down this one road, that I didn’t have marked as part of the route on my GPS. We followed it for about 20 minutes between mountains to our right and river rapids to our left and some really nice twisties. We eventually stopped and figured out he made a mistake. Pfft! So what, the road was great! We backtracked and continued on to Mauricie.
We paid our entrance fee into the Parc and got camp setup. It was time for some dinner as we’ve been riding steady since 7 that morning and it was now dusk. The first place we stopped at was a bed and breakfast. The owner was taking a group of people on the ‘bear tour’ and couldn’t serve us. The next place we stopped at the owner came out and asked us if we had a reservation as she had a large group coming in for 8:45 and it would be at least 90 minutes before she could serve us. We went on down to a little restaurant that was basically a trailer with an addition on it. It had a little patio outside and was trying desperately to be a great restaurant with menu items like Crème Brulee and the like. Funny thing was, everywhere you go in Quebec, every restaurant has poutine on the menu - even ones with higher aspirations.
Mike and I ordered the Spaghetti with special house sauce, Doug and Andre ordered the hot beef sandwiches. I had ordered a ‘tea glace’ and the waitress looked at me funny. Must be the accent, so I said ‘Iced Tea’, she got that. Weird. At this point Andre wanders off to the washroom. Suddenly Mike is laughing his ass off. The family at the table closest to the washroom is also laughing hysterically. Andre returns immediately looks absolutely shocked and embarrassed. Seems there is one washroom for both sexes and, well, the door wasn’t locked and Andre walked in on the families Ma`mere.
Surprisingly, he still ate dinner.
Andre took food pics as required by law. I’ll have to get him to forward me the pics he took. Mike and Doug had a room booked in Shawinigan and headed off that way, Andre and I returned to the campsite. Funny thing was though, the second restaurant we had attempt to eat at, the one that had the large group coming for 8:45 - was deserted at 9pm. I suspect she either didn’t want to serve bikers or, Anglo’s. Or both.
Andre had picked up 18 beer at a corner store (thumbs up Quebec!, not like Ontario where you have to go to the Beer Store). We got back to camp and spent the night shooting the shit. Well, until about 11. I was beat so I went to bed, Andre was just getting going and says to me, “Well, I’m going for a walk”.
I couldn’t sleep, well, that’s not true, I kept waking myself up snoring. I rolled over and checked the time; It was about 12:45 and I heard Andre get something out of top box and then wander off again. I guess it was getting close to 2am when I heard him unzip his tent and he was snoring within about 60 seconds flat. The next morning we were both up around 6:30. Andre tells me he came back for beer. Seems he found a group of campers with sausages. He traded beer for them. Good trade! But I don’t think he was feeling 100% the next morning.
I made up some drip coffee and asked Andre if wanted one. “Yea!”, He didn’t have cup and mine was full of instant oatmeal. So he cut the top off a beer can and used that - Necessity is the mother of invention. I asked if he wanted some oatmeal, “YEA!”. After breakfast we broke camp while waiting for Mike and Doug to show up. It had rained on and off throughout the night and their was a fog. Things were a little moist.
I had all my gear loaded on the bike when we set off for our first pass of the mythical Maurice Parc road. The roads were wet with the speed limits posted at 70km/h. So naturally, we let prudence color our judgment and proceeded down the road at about 100km/h. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but hey, a guys got to do what a guys got to do.
The road didn’t disappoint. I rolled video non-stop over the entire thing. I guess I’m getting old, but the combination of early morning, wet pavement and a road I’ve never been on before found me getting left behind a few times. Their was NO traffic and we didn’t see any law enforcement. The longest straightaway on the entire road was perhaps half a kilometer long, the rest was a mix of medium speed sweepers with a few 40km/h corners thrown in to keep you on your toes. Even a few decreasing radius corners to exercise those sphincter muscles. Their were about 6 or 7 corners, that had the pegs very close to the pavement that, at 100km/h just would never end. My thought at the time was that it these were spiral roads. You’d be leaned WAY over forever - they just kept going and going.. Look ma! No chicken strips!
By the time we got to the end, some 60km later the road had started to dry up some and we’d just ridden perhaps the best road in all of Quebec, perhaps all of Eastern Canada. It was just a non-stop thrill ride! We took a break for a few and then decided on the ride back Mike would play photographer and grab some pics for posterity. The one pic that he didn’t get that I really wanted was a road sign depicting a motorcycle skidding in the rain. Guess they’ve had riders from the flat lands here before.
With the drying roads, speeds were a bit higher on the return trip, but not excessively so. We lucked out as we got stuck behind a car just as we passed an S.Q. (Quebec police) set up with radar on one of the few straight-aways. S.Q + out of province plates + National Park = instant ticket.
After we arrived back at our campsite I decided to cut my trip short and head back home with Mike and Doug. I was to continue on through the Charlevoix region and on up to the Saguenays before heading home. Frankly, I was feeling a hundred percent and, mom, when I talked to her in the evenings sounded terrible. Family first, so I made the call.
We pulled out Mauricie, topped up and I followed Mike and Doug as he had the route home from there plotted. My return route was from the west side of the Parc and avoided getting to close to Montreal.
It had started to rain on and off heading south to Shawinigan. Mike pulled off under and overpass to put on the rain gear. I only put on my bottoms as my riding gear was reasonably waterproof. We got back on the road and about 10 minutes later all hell broke loose. Hard rain and traffic at highway speeds aren’t fun. Visibility got down near the ‘shit’ level. I knew we were to get off Hwy 155 and onto Hwy 40 near Trois Rivier. For some reason, Mike was in the express lane and blew past the turn off - I guess he couldn’t see his GPS (it was raining THAT hard). Instead of getting off at the next exit and doubling back, or, letting the GPS re-route him, he nailed the brakes in the left lane and headed for the shoulder. Doug, behind him did the same, I think, narrowly missing Mike. I had a red pick up behind me and couldn’t pull the same maneuver. The red pick up swerved to the middle lane abruptly. Just as I was about pass the two of them, I see Mike going across the median on what I guess he thought was a turn-around for emergency vehicles. Me, I thought they had dug it up to replace some grass.
(#^&$*#&%$*$!!!
That was the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever seen somebody do on a bike short of having a accident. I had no choice but to keep on going to the next exit. I got over into the collector lane and took the ramp. I stopped right beside the highway at gas station. I was so upset at what I had just seen I was shaking. Okay, settle down, take a break. Off came the helmet, out came the ear plugs and on went the phone to call Mike. No answer. I lit a smoke and considered what my next move would be. Surely they’d notice I wasn’t with them, they’d stop, call me and we’d hook back up again.
I finished my smoke and called Mike again. No answer. I went to the washroom at the service station and came back out. It’d now be nearly a half an hour since this all went down. No call. I knew I had a return route planned but it’s starting point was on the other side of Maurice Parc. I punched it up and the GPS routed me all the way back the way we had just came. After messing around with it for a bit, I figured out if I got on Hwy 40 I’d meet up with it on the way and could jump on the actual planned route then.
One more call to Mike before I pull out solo. No answer.
Except for the rain, which had let up from the deluge earlier, the trip down 40 was uneventful. Flat boring slab. I then finally picked up my planned route somewhere east of Montreal and began zig-zagging north to avoid the congestion and construction. The skies got darker and the rain got heavier again. I press on, just seething I was so pissed off at Mike. Not just for the stupid move he pulled in VERY dangerous conditions, but the fact that he abandoned a friend nearly a 1000km from home.
The sky got very ominous looking. You know that odd color it takes before the hail starts…. Flat, farm fields as far as the eye can see in all directions. No overpasses, no shelter of any kind. Press on. Then the sky dropped and the rain went from a heavy downpour to bat shit crazy rain. The wind came up and the rain was coming both down, sideways and even UP. I’ve never had rain come up under my helmet before and hit me in the face, but it did it then. Remember I only put on the bottoms of my rain suit. I’ll never do that again, if its raining hard enough for the bottoms, I’ll put the top on too. I was *SOAKED*.
The rain lasted like that for about 15 minutes, I was traveling along at perhaps 40km/h desperately looking for some sort of shelter. Car were passing me I the other lane and caught one guy pointing at me. Your absolutely right buddy. That guy on the bike is *NUTS*.
I finally come across some civilization again and stop at a restaurant. I light a smoke and gather my wits about me. My GPS has me pulling into Hawksbury Ontario around 2:30, its about 1pm. I get back on the bike and aim it west. After the rain the temperatures had dropped quite a bit, that combined with me being wet as a frogs ass made for an unpleasant ride. No point in putting on an extra shirt or anything at this point.
As I approached Hawksbury I stopped for another smoke at an abandoned pizza place. While I’m standing there, some guy pulls in driving a van, and in perfect English says - “Did you hit the rain?”. First off buddy, “here’s your sign”, second, how did he know I didn’t speak any French?!
The skies cleared close to Hawksbury and the sun came out. I like the sun, it dries you and warms you and lifts your spirits when your punch a nun miserable.
I cross the Ottawa river into town and I need gas. Some guy blocks my bike in and goes to the washroom. Then his wife goes to the washroom. Then his daughter goes to the washroom. Then they put the lead on their yappy little wharf rat of a dog and it goes to the washroom. Then he comes over and asks if he should move his car? Asshole. The whole time I’m standing there with my helmet on staring at him. I guess the sun wasn’t strong enough to lift my spirits that much.
I still have a bit of a ride back to Carleton Place so I get on the 417 and run a little faster than traffic. Which is to say, I was doing about 135km/h in a 100. The clouds form back over up ahead and I think, “Aw crap, its gonna rain again”. Other guys on bikes were thinking the same thing as every overpass had bikes under them all busily waiting it out, or, putting on rain gear.
Much to my surprise I recognize two of them. It’s Mike and Doug! I lay on my horn to get them to see me go by - I also took this opportunity to give them the finger.
I slow down to the speed limit in the rain and wait for them to catch up. They did about 15 minutes later and I snuck in behind them and followed them into Ottawa. Mike does it again, he puts his signal on to exit on a ramp, then at the last second, cuts back onto the main highway. This cements it, he’s getting shit when we get back.
About a minute later, were 120km/h in the express lane and my right eye suddenly starts to sting. I blink furiously and this releases the oil on my eyelid. Crap. I’m one eyeing it and now the other eye is starting. I see an exit coming up and head for it, the whole time blinking both eyes best I can. It’s like watching a movie from the 1920’s unfold. I wonder how it ends? Me getting pasted on the hwy because I can’t see or do I make it to safety?
Well I made it. Except the off ramp I took at 120km/h an hour was only about 200 feet long and dumped me out on to a two lane on the left hand side. Not fun in traffic when you can’t f’n see! I stop in front of some guys house and dig out some Kleenex to wipe my eyes. Then I notice some guy in a ball cap with 3 busted teef come out and ask if I’m okay. Not a great neighbourhood to put it politely.
Eye problems taken care of I jump back on the 417 and head to Carleton Place, confident that Mike is in the area. I get there, take off my helmet and proceed to blast the shit out of him for pulling such a stupid stunt on the highway and outright abandoning a friend afterwards.
I jump back on the bike and get some food. Mike is going back to Doug’s place for dinner and a visit. I stay behind, jump in the shower, then fall asleep on the recliner. I wake up around 11 and go to bed. Slept hard until about 7 the next morning.
Mike and I get up, throw the gear on the bikes and head to Tim Horton for some breakfast. He’s heading to visit family, I’m heading home via the scenic route. Theirs a document floating around the InterWebs that shows the best bike roads in Ontario. My route takes every one of them through central Ontario.
First stop, Calabogie, nice ride, the sun is shining, the temperature perfect but I’m slightly disappointed. After the feasting on the best of Quebec, Calabogie just doesn’t seem that great. The one shining star I did find was Centennial Lake Rd. it’s a 5 series hwy but I don’t recall the number. It goes on for about 25km and is great! I cross the Madawaska river a bunch of times, get lost, find my GPS routing me down a gravel road for 20km to get back on track. No way, this is a bush road and calling it a gravel road is being very charitable. I eventually pull into Barry’s Bay. I’m hungry and think a sub would go down really good. I get gas and ask the clerk where the Subway is. Turns out its next door. Doh. Problem, its the last day of the long weekend and Barry’s Bay is bumper to bumper with hungover vacationers all of them pissed off. I couldn’t actually ‘get’ to the Subway. Piss on it. Their’ll be other places to eat up ahead.
I stop in at a restaurant in Whitney just outside of Algonquin Park. I think it was called the ‘Mad Musher’ or some such. Despite the parking lot being half full, the restaurant is packed. The waitress tells me it’ll be about 20 minutes before a table is available. Never mind. I eat a couple granola bars in the parking lot while enjoying the view of the rapids on the Madawaska river (man, this Madawaska River is everywhere!) A couple towing a tent trailer backs up directly into another car. The woman passenger gets out, looks at me, surveys the damage and they decide to run for it. The side access door of the tent trailer is open. She looks right at it, but doesn’t close it. They boot it out of the parking lot spilling the contents of the trailer all over the highway. One of the pieces look to be an expensive camera bag. It gets nailed by pickup. Yup, full of camera gear. Nikon by the looks of it. Karma’s a bitch.
I had pretty high expectations of Algonquin Park. Despite the traffic, I’m not impressed with it. The scenery looks much the same as driving down Hwy 69. Then again, you can’t expect much sticking on the main highway and not stopping to see the sights.
I stop in Burke’s Falls as it starting to rain again. I put on my rain gear (no top again, will I ever learn!). It rains all the way back to Sudbury. I’m ‘Smelling the Barn’ and I’ve got a really serious case of butt burn setting in. Just outside of Sudbury their rebuilding a bridge and the traffic over it is down to one lane. The traffic is backed up at least 5km. I’ve got some butt plug in a souped up pick up truck behind me. I can hear him revving his engine behind me. Every time the traffic moves, he floors it behind me. Where exactly does he think were gonna go? Why me.
I pulled into home around 6:30pm and put the bike away wet. It’s earned a good cleaning, hopefully the sun comes out today.
So for a wrap up, how do I rate the Quebec roads? In a lot of places, I could swear I was in West Virginia with the mountains and scenery. The road surfaces we were on weren’t as bad as I expected, in fact, most of them were pretty good. Their was a few exceptions both good and bad, but on the whole, really acceptable. I’ll be coming back to ride these again. We don’t have much to compare these roads to in Ontario. Their were a lot of spots where we really should have stopped to get pics. Simply stunning in a lot of areas. People were courteous, food was good, and theirs a lot of really pretty women! That’s a combination that’s really hard to pass up.
The Mauricie Parc Rd is a motorcyclist wet dream. It just goes on forever. Not tight and technical, although it is in spots, it’s just a great motorcycle road and apparently, only really known to those who live in Quebec and keep secrets.
2255km across 4 days and the entire trip only cost $200 including food, gas and park reservations. What a great weekend!
The Spot Track Routes:
I've uploaded the entire passes thorugh the Parc (8 parts!) a full 45 minutes of VIDEO! So crack open your favourite brand sit back and enjoy!
As usual, I never stop enough for pictures so this report will be a mix of my pictures and Mike’s who got designated as photographer, I handled the video duties. More importantly, stuff happened, this is the story of that stuff.
The ride between Sudbury and Carleton Place was uneventful. Traffic was reasonably light until we got close to Ottawa. Our first stop for the trip was Mattawa for gas. I’m gonna have to take a ride back out there to take some pic’s. Mattawa is nice little place with wood carvings along the side of the hwy. Our next stop was Deep River for a butt break. Mike had to stop in Renfrew to pick up a jacket he had left there the previous week while attending a wedding, so we made a little detour. We decided to take some backroads to Carleton Place as their was some construction ahead on 17. Nice ride, actually, really nice. Then one of the roads turned into, what can only be termed, an incomplete shortcut. Gravel plus twisties for about 5 or 6 kilometers. Big whoop right? Well, try riding a loaded down 700lb bike on street tires. Lets just say I worked up a bit of sweat. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. This little oops was an omen of things to come. We pulled into Mike’s parents place and unloaded the bikes. That evening, we went to visit Mike’s brother Doug, then headed out for some Pizza at Milano’s. Mike had ordered some chicken wings to go along with his pizza. There was some mix up with the order and when Mike went to check, the owner apologized then brought us over a Ceasers salad - no charge.
The plan was to be on the road for 7:00 the next morning, meeting up with Doug at Tim Hortons. Unbelievably, we were kickstands up at Tim’s at 7:45! We were to ride to Montebello to meet up with Andre from Montreal. Mike was leading, and, for some reason, we ended up going through downtown Ottawa instead of just staying on the highway. No big deal, I’ve never been downtown Ottawa before. We crossed the bridge over the Ottawa River and entered Quebec. The sun disappeared and a morning fog rolled on. We arrived in Montebello around 9:30 and .. No Andre! He told us he’d meet us ‘at the restaurant where all the bikes meet’. It wasn’t immediately clear which restaurant he was talking about. So we doubled back and picked one!
Not 5 minutes later Andre arrived. Good timing! We introduced ourselves then stopped for gas for our next leg up to Mont Tremblant. Andre has the cleanest 2003 FJR I’ve ever seen. Rob, if your reading this, you should be ashamed HAHAHA!
The terrain quickly changed from rolling farm land to the Laurentiens. Beautiful! The fog burned off and the sun came out. When we arrived at Tremblant the sun was starting to put some real heat down on us. I peeled out my jacket liners and went full mesh.
Mont Tremblant is definitely a tourist destination dominated by the ski resort. Very clean, very scenic everywhere you look. It was also my first time through a European round-a-bout. They need to put these things EVERYWHERE! No stopping at an intersection, just make sure the coast is clear and go for it.
Lots of people on bicycles as well. Not just casual bicycle riders either, you know, Tour-de-France get up. I figured because you can rent bicycles that’s what I was seeing. Turned out not to be the case - we’d be miles from anywhere and we’d come up along a more bicycles all over Quebec. Good on them! Judging by the figures on the riders and people in general, its working for them.
We left Tremblant and headed for St. Donat for some lunch. Service was slow but we all needed an extended butt break. In addition to taking us down some of the best roads in Quebec, Andre proved really useful when dealing with the locals. Like say, ordering food. I’d say “Ice Tea”, and the waitress was looking at me like I had 3 heads. Andre would pipe in “Tea Glace” and the waitress looked like she just solved the problem of life, the universe and everything.
As we pulled out from lunch, Andre says to me ‘Up ahead their’s some curves, do what you want!’ This is a major artery and Andre went into full Rossi mode, hitting the curves at about 180km/h. WooHOO! I didn’t have a clue where I was at this point, other than somewhere East of Tremblant. We were playing follow the leader as Andre took us down a never ending series of secondary highways with beautiful scenery, great twisties and bikes and bicycles everywhere. Does everybody in Quebec ride a motorcycle?!
He took us down one highway, for some reason I think it was 327, don’t quote me on that though, that seemed to be a favourite for sport bike riders from all over Quebec because their was a ton of them. I soon realized why. Fresh pavement, and incredible twisties for about 30km. Guys would just run them back and forth all day long.
Andre led us down this one road, that I didn’t have marked as part of the route on my GPS. We followed it for about 20 minutes between mountains to our right and river rapids to our left and some really nice twisties. We eventually stopped and figured out he made a mistake. Pfft! So what, the road was great! We backtracked and continued on to Mauricie.
We paid our entrance fee into the Parc and got camp setup. It was time for some dinner as we’ve been riding steady since 7 that morning and it was now dusk. The first place we stopped at was a bed and breakfast. The owner was taking a group of people on the ‘bear tour’ and couldn’t serve us. The next place we stopped at the owner came out and asked us if we had a reservation as she had a large group coming in for 8:45 and it would be at least 90 minutes before she could serve us. We went on down to a little restaurant that was basically a trailer with an addition on it. It had a little patio outside and was trying desperately to be a great restaurant with menu items like Crème Brulee and the like. Funny thing was, everywhere you go in Quebec, every restaurant has poutine on the menu - even ones with higher aspirations.
Mike and I ordered the Spaghetti with special house sauce, Doug and Andre ordered the hot beef sandwiches. I had ordered a ‘tea glace’ and the waitress looked at me funny. Must be the accent, so I said ‘Iced Tea’, she got that. Weird. At this point Andre wanders off to the washroom. Suddenly Mike is laughing his ass off. The family at the table closest to the washroom is also laughing hysterically. Andre returns immediately looks absolutely shocked and embarrassed. Seems there is one washroom for both sexes and, well, the door wasn’t locked and Andre walked in on the families Ma`mere.
Surprisingly, he still ate dinner.
Andre took food pics as required by law. I’ll have to get him to forward me the pics he took. Mike and Doug had a room booked in Shawinigan and headed off that way, Andre and I returned to the campsite. Funny thing was though, the second restaurant we had attempt to eat at, the one that had the large group coming for 8:45 - was deserted at 9pm. I suspect she either didn’t want to serve bikers or, Anglo’s. Or both.
Andre had picked up 18 beer at a corner store (thumbs up Quebec!, not like Ontario where you have to go to the Beer Store). We got back to camp and spent the night shooting the shit. Well, until about 11. I was beat so I went to bed, Andre was just getting going and says to me, “Well, I’m going for a walk”.
I couldn’t sleep, well, that’s not true, I kept waking myself up snoring. I rolled over and checked the time; It was about 12:45 and I heard Andre get something out of top box and then wander off again. I guess it was getting close to 2am when I heard him unzip his tent and he was snoring within about 60 seconds flat. The next morning we were both up around 6:30. Andre tells me he came back for beer. Seems he found a group of campers with sausages. He traded beer for them. Good trade! But I don’t think he was feeling 100% the next morning.
I made up some drip coffee and asked Andre if wanted one. “Yea!”, He didn’t have cup and mine was full of instant oatmeal. So he cut the top off a beer can and used that - Necessity is the mother of invention. I asked if he wanted some oatmeal, “YEA!”. After breakfast we broke camp while waiting for Mike and Doug to show up. It had rained on and off throughout the night and their was a fog. Things were a little moist.
I had all my gear loaded on the bike when we set off for our first pass of the mythical Maurice Parc road. The roads were wet with the speed limits posted at 70km/h. So naturally, we let prudence color our judgment and proceeded down the road at about 100km/h. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but hey, a guys got to do what a guys got to do.
The road didn’t disappoint. I rolled video non-stop over the entire thing. I guess I’m getting old, but the combination of early morning, wet pavement and a road I’ve never been on before found me getting left behind a few times. Their was NO traffic and we didn’t see any law enforcement. The longest straightaway on the entire road was perhaps half a kilometer long, the rest was a mix of medium speed sweepers with a few 40km/h corners thrown in to keep you on your toes. Even a few decreasing radius corners to exercise those sphincter muscles. Their were about 6 or 7 corners, that had the pegs very close to the pavement that, at 100km/h just would never end. My thought at the time was that it these were spiral roads. You’d be leaned WAY over forever - they just kept going and going.. Look ma! No chicken strips!
By the time we got to the end, some 60km later the road had started to dry up some and we’d just ridden perhaps the best road in all of Quebec, perhaps all of Eastern Canada. It was just a non-stop thrill ride! We took a break for a few and then decided on the ride back Mike would play photographer and grab some pics for posterity. The one pic that he didn’t get that I really wanted was a road sign depicting a motorcycle skidding in the rain. Guess they’ve had riders from the flat lands here before.
With the drying roads, speeds were a bit higher on the return trip, but not excessively so. We lucked out as we got stuck behind a car just as we passed an S.Q. (Quebec police) set up with radar on one of the few straight-aways. S.Q + out of province plates + National Park = instant ticket.
After we arrived back at our campsite I decided to cut my trip short and head back home with Mike and Doug. I was to continue on through the Charlevoix region and on up to the Saguenays before heading home. Frankly, I was feeling a hundred percent and, mom, when I talked to her in the evenings sounded terrible. Family first, so I made the call.
We pulled out Mauricie, topped up and I followed Mike and Doug as he had the route home from there plotted. My return route was from the west side of the Parc and avoided getting to close to Montreal.
It had started to rain on and off heading south to Shawinigan. Mike pulled off under and overpass to put on the rain gear. I only put on my bottoms as my riding gear was reasonably waterproof. We got back on the road and about 10 minutes later all hell broke loose. Hard rain and traffic at highway speeds aren’t fun. Visibility got down near the ‘shit’ level. I knew we were to get off Hwy 155 and onto Hwy 40 near Trois Rivier. For some reason, Mike was in the express lane and blew past the turn off - I guess he couldn’t see his GPS (it was raining THAT hard). Instead of getting off at the next exit and doubling back, or, letting the GPS re-route him, he nailed the brakes in the left lane and headed for the shoulder. Doug, behind him did the same, I think, narrowly missing Mike. I had a red pick up behind me and couldn’t pull the same maneuver. The red pick up swerved to the middle lane abruptly. Just as I was about pass the two of them, I see Mike going across the median on what I guess he thought was a turn-around for emergency vehicles. Me, I thought they had dug it up to replace some grass.
(#^&$*#&%$*$!!!
That was the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever seen somebody do on a bike short of having a accident. I had no choice but to keep on going to the next exit. I got over into the collector lane and took the ramp. I stopped right beside the highway at gas station. I was so upset at what I had just seen I was shaking. Okay, settle down, take a break. Off came the helmet, out came the ear plugs and on went the phone to call Mike. No answer. I lit a smoke and considered what my next move would be. Surely they’d notice I wasn’t with them, they’d stop, call me and we’d hook back up again.
I finished my smoke and called Mike again. No answer. I went to the washroom at the service station and came back out. It’d now be nearly a half an hour since this all went down. No call. I knew I had a return route planned but it’s starting point was on the other side of Maurice Parc. I punched it up and the GPS routed me all the way back the way we had just came. After messing around with it for a bit, I figured out if I got on Hwy 40 I’d meet up with it on the way and could jump on the actual planned route then.
One more call to Mike before I pull out solo. No answer.
Except for the rain, which had let up from the deluge earlier, the trip down 40 was uneventful. Flat boring slab. I then finally picked up my planned route somewhere east of Montreal and began zig-zagging north to avoid the congestion and construction. The skies got darker and the rain got heavier again. I press on, just seething I was so pissed off at Mike. Not just for the stupid move he pulled in VERY dangerous conditions, but the fact that he abandoned a friend nearly a 1000km from home.
The sky got very ominous looking. You know that odd color it takes before the hail starts…. Flat, farm fields as far as the eye can see in all directions. No overpasses, no shelter of any kind. Press on. Then the sky dropped and the rain went from a heavy downpour to bat shit crazy rain. The wind came up and the rain was coming both down, sideways and even UP. I’ve never had rain come up under my helmet before and hit me in the face, but it did it then. Remember I only put on the bottoms of my rain suit. I’ll never do that again, if its raining hard enough for the bottoms, I’ll put the top on too. I was *SOAKED*.
The rain lasted like that for about 15 minutes, I was traveling along at perhaps 40km/h desperately looking for some sort of shelter. Car were passing me I the other lane and caught one guy pointing at me. Your absolutely right buddy. That guy on the bike is *NUTS*.
I finally come across some civilization again and stop at a restaurant. I light a smoke and gather my wits about me. My GPS has me pulling into Hawksbury Ontario around 2:30, its about 1pm. I get back on the bike and aim it west. After the rain the temperatures had dropped quite a bit, that combined with me being wet as a frogs ass made for an unpleasant ride. No point in putting on an extra shirt or anything at this point.
As I approached Hawksbury I stopped for another smoke at an abandoned pizza place. While I’m standing there, some guy pulls in driving a van, and in perfect English says - “Did you hit the rain?”. First off buddy, “here’s your sign”, second, how did he know I didn’t speak any French?!
The skies cleared close to Hawksbury and the sun came out. I like the sun, it dries you and warms you and lifts your spirits when your punch a nun miserable.
I cross the Ottawa river into town and I need gas. Some guy blocks my bike in and goes to the washroom. Then his wife goes to the washroom. Then his daughter goes to the washroom. Then they put the lead on their yappy little wharf rat of a dog and it goes to the washroom. Then he comes over and asks if he should move his car? Asshole. The whole time I’m standing there with my helmet on staring at him. I guess the sun wasn’t strong enough to lift my spirits that much.
I still have a bit of a ride back to Carleton Place so I get on the 417 and run a little faster than traffic. Which is to say, I was doing about 135km/h in a 100. The clouds form back over up ahead and I think, “Aw crap, its gonna rain again”. Other guys on bikes were thinking the same thing as every overpass had bikes under them all busily waiting it out, or, putting on rain gear.
Much to my surprise I recognize two of them. It’s Mike and Doug! I lay on my horn to get them to see me go by - I also took this opportunity to give them the finger.
I slow down to the speed limit in the rain and wait for them to catch up. They did about 15 minutes later and I snuck in behind them and followed them into Ottawa. Mike does it again, he puts his signal on to exit on a ramp, then at the last second, cuts back onto the main highway. This cements it, he’s getting shit when we get back.
About a minute later, were 120km/h in the express lane and my right eye suddenly starts to sting. I blink furiously and this releases the oil on my eyelid. Crap. I’m one eyeing it and now the other eye is starting. I see an exit coming up and head for it, the whole time blinking both eyes best I can. It’s like watching a movie from the 1920’s unfold. I wonder how it ends? Me getting pasted on the hwy because I can’t see or do I make it to safety?
Well I made it. Except the off ramp I took at 120km/h an hour was only about 200 feet long and dumped me out on to a two lane on the left hand side. Not fun in traffic when you can’t f’n see! I stop in front of some guys house and dig out some Kleenex to wipe my eyes. Then I notice some guy in a ball cap with 3 busted teef come out and ask if I’m okay. Not a great neighbourhood to put it politely.
Eye problems taken care of I jump back on the 417 and head to Carleton Place, confident that Mike is in the area. I get there, take off my helmet and proceed to blast the shit out of him for pulling such a stupid stunt on the highway and outright abandoning a friend afterwards.
I jump back on the bike and get some food. Mike is going back to Doug’s place for dinner and a visit. I stay behind, jump in the shower, then fall asleep on the recliner. I wake up around 11 and go to bed. Slept hard until about 7 the next morning.
Mike and I get up, throw the gear on the bikes and head to Tim Horton for some breakfast. He’s heading to visit family, I’m heading home via the scenic route. Theirs a document floating around the InterWebs that shows the best bike roads in Ontario. My route takes every one of them through central Ontario.
First stop, Calabogie, nice ride, the sun is shining, the temperature perfect but I’m slightly disappointed. After the feasting on the best of Quebec, Calabogie just doesn’t seem that great. The one shining star I did find was Centennial Lake Rd. it’s a 5 series hwy but I don’t recall the number. It goes on for about 25km and is great! I cross the Madawaska river a bunch of times, get lost, find my GPS routing me down a gravel road for 20km to get back on track. No way, this is a bush road and calling it a gravel road is being very charitable. I eventually pull into Barry’s Bay. I’m hungry and think a sub would go down really good. I get gas and ask the clerk where the Subway is. Turns out its next door. Doh. Problem, its the last day of the long weekend and Barry’s Bay is bumper to bumper with hungover vacationers all of them pissed off. I couldn’t actually ‘get’ to the Subway. Piss on it. Their’ll be other places to eat up ahead.
I stop in at a restaurant in Whitney just outside of Algonquin Park. I think it was called the ‘Mad Musher’ or some such. Despite the parking lot being half full, the restaurant is packed. The waitress tells me it’ll be about 20 minutes before a table is available. Never mind. I eat a couple granola bars in the parking lot while enjoying the view of the rapids on the Madawaska river (man, this Madawaska River is everywhere!) A couple towing a tent trailer backs up directly into another car. The woman passenger gets out, looks at me, surveys the damage and they decide to run for it. The side access door of the tent trailer is open. She looks right at it, but doesn’t close it. They boot it out of the parking lot spilling the contents of the trailer all over the highway. One of the pieces look to be an expensive camera bag. It gets nailed by pickup. Yup, full of camera gear. Nikon by the looks of it. Karma’s a bitch.
I had pretty high expectations of Algonquin Park. Despite the traffic, I’m not impressed with it. The scenery looks much the same as driving down Hwy 69. Then again, you can’t expect much sticking on the main highway and not stopping to see the sights.
I stop in Burke’s Falls as it starting to rain again. I put on my rain gear (no top again, will I ever learn!). It rains all the way back to Sudbury. I’m ‘Smelling the Barn’ and I’ve got a really serious case of butt burn setting in. Just outside of Sudbury their rebuilding a bridge and the traffic over it is down to one lane. The traffic is backed up at least 5km. I’ve got some butt plug in a souped up pick up truck behind me. I can hear him revving his engine behind me. Every time the traffic moves, he floors it behind me. Where exactly does he think were gonna go? Why me.
I pulled into home around 6:30pm and put the bike away wet. It’s earned a good cleaning, hopefully the sun comes out today.
So for a wrap up, how do I rate the Quebec roads? In a lot of places, I could swear I was in West Virginia with the mountains and scenery. The road surfaces we were on weren’t as bad as I expected, in fact, most of them were pretty good. Their was a few exceptions both good and bad, but on the whole, really acceptable. I’ll be coming back to ride these again. We don’t have much to compare these roads to in Ontario. Their were a lot of spots where we really should have stopped to get pics. Simply stunning in a lot of areas. People were courteous, food was good, and theirs a lot of really pretty women! That’s a combination that’s really hard to pass up.
The Mauricie Parc Rd is a motorcyclist wet dream. It just goes on forever. Not tight and technical, although it is in spots, it’s just a great motorcycle road and apparently, only really known to those who live in Quebec and keep secrets.
2255km across 4 days and the entire trip only cost $200 including food, gas and park reservations. What a great weekend!
The Spot Track Routes:
I've uploaded the entire passes thorugh the Parc (8 parts!) a full 45 minutes of VIDEO! So crack open your favourite brand sit back and enjoy!
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Editing video takes a HUGE amount of time. Well, their calling for rain all weekend (gee.. big surprise) so maybe I can get a good start at it then.
