Quebec's Route Verte -Where Cyclists are Expected, Accepted & Protected

October 17, 2017 to October 17, 2017

Touring where the community and culture supports cycling.

In September 2017 my wife and I took a two week self-supported credit card tour in Quebec Province on the Route Verte.

This article will provide a cyclist's impression of just a small portion of the 3,000 miles of signed route in Quebec Province.
First, I'm still not sure how to pronounce “Route Verte”, but that's no surprise since I didn't understand and couldn't pronounce many of the French words we heard. We did encounter a significant number of people who didn't speak English but we did get by without any significant problems. We were surprised however to discover that in this supposed bilingual country the historical markers provided by Quebec Province rarely included English text. We did get better at deciphering the French text and by the end of the tour were as likely to stop to read an interpretive sign in Quebec as we would be to stop in the US, and there were a lot of signs.

Often we could figure out the meaning using context clues.

We found Quebec citizens to be as friendly and helpful as other Canadians, with some cultural differences.

In most cases when we encountered cyclists on the trail, many would barely respond to “Bon Jour” or “hello”, with some men relying on a subtle nod of the head. A significant percentage would stare woodenly ahead not acknowledging us at all. Coming from a rural area where people say “hello” to everyone and certainly when encountering the rare fellow cyclist, this seemed odd. Perhaps like on American urban cycle paths they don't greet each other because there are just too many encounters. Many times when we were stopped and appeared lost or possibly dealing with a mechanical issue, many cyclists and many motorists stopped to offer assistance. Drivers were great at providing at least one meter of clearance when overtaking us on the road to the point that later in the tour when somebody crowded us with only one meter clearance, we both remarked how close it seemed.

Canadian drivers seem to have absorbed the requirement to give cyclists adequate clearance.

A portion of our route on Route Verte was on cycle paths. These were in some cases paved with very smooth asphalt and bright paint.

while at other times the asphalt was cracked and damaged by frost heaves.

Even at the worst, we didn't have to be overly vigilant about dodging potholes.
A greater portion of our paths were dirt. I wish I could figure out how the Canadians prepare and maintain their limestone chip paths because they were much smoother than American gravel paths, in many cases as smooth as fine asphalt.

Very little gravel was spit up onto the drive chain and I ended up never having to clean our chain during the two week tour although possibly 300 miles was on dirt paths. There were some dirt portions which were much rougher where some of the old railroad ballast was present along with some limestone gravel chunks which were probably added by some township maintenance guy who had never ridden a bicycle in the past thirty years. In all the rough road may have totaled 10 miles. On those portions I was glad I mounted Schwalbe 32 mm wide tires on the bicycle, but I remember thinking I could have gotten through those areas with our regular 28 mm wide Gatorskin tires. Another issue for socially oriented cyclists is that on most portions of the paths and even on some roads wit wide shoulders it would be easy and safe for cyclists to ride two abreast easily facilitating conversation.
As nice as the cycle paths and bicycle lanes in the urban areas were I had difficulty learning to maneuver through intersections. I am comfortable riding a bicycle as a vehicle in the regular traffic lane but there was a learning curve dealing with physically separated-from-vehicle traffic paths. In many cases the expectation was that we would stop and push a button and wait for a light to stop traffic (perhaps from all four directions) so that we could cross to the cycle path across the road or even possibly diagonally across the intersection. It's nice to have a stoker who can hop off to assume this duty but still time consuming waiting for the light to change. Another problem was that when we stopped at an intersection while the captain tried to figure out the correct way to proceed, those darn considerate Canadian drivers would stop their cars to give us the right of way, resulting in some cases with the captain hurrying up and turning into the wrong lane or direction. We did get better at this but before we cycle in Quebec again I would like to know if cyclists always have the right to use a regular traffic lane even when a perfectly good cycle path is available.
All cyclist stops along the trail had clean porta-johns with most small towns having clean restrooms with flush toilets and water fountains which were opened 24 hrs. a day.

It's possible the water may be turned off in colder weather. Most stops had benches, small pavilions and many with beautiful gardens and artwork.

We elected to not camp on this trip, partly because we feared campgrounds might not still be open after October 1 (they were open) and we were assured we would be able to find B&B and hotel accommodations easily. This was mostly true and in some small towns the hotels were low priced. We did stay at some non-franchise hotels with character such as the Hotel Montfort in Nicolet.

This early 1900's era monastery was recently converted into a nice hotel with spacious rooms and a restaurant in a small historic town. I'm sure there are many other similar places, especially in Quebec City which we did not seek out on this tour. We had to change our planned route because we were unexpectedly unable to secure reservations in Drummondville which was one of the larger towns on our route. According to "Bookings.com" 83% of the rooms were rented but we never succeeded in locating any of the vacant 17%. We ended up detouring to Victoriaville over a rural road which had as good a shoulder as many of the official Route Verte roads we traveled. Victoriaville was one of the towns with beautiful developed cycle paths where many citizens utilize the cycle paths in the center of town with businesses starting to take advantage of the traffic on the path.

A cycle path through the center of Victoriaville.

Portions of our route were very scenic, especially along the St. Lawrence River south from Quebec.

Being landlubbers we enjoyed viewing the maritime vessels.

We started counting the number of church steeples visible across the river.

However, river scenery can become boring after many miles. We read good things about the route and scenery riding north from Quebec City onto the Gaspie. This area is more remote and hilly without as many circle route options utilizing Route Verte although there may be perfectly good rural roads that can be used to create a circle route. Many of the cycle paths are rail trails which are usually straight and with minimal hills. If surrounded by trees, it is pretty, but also can become boring after a while. In open areas, the scenery was better but cyclists are fully exposed to the wind which can be an issue. We managed to deal with headwinds fully 75% of our tour. It was uncanny how the wind direction would change from that predicted by "Weather.com" as soon as we decided on a destination. These were significant winds, often 15mph or higher, preventing us from even being able to converse on the tandem if wind was blowing from the wrong direction. Overall, the scenery did rival Italy, Switzerland or Glacier Park, but scenery would not be the primary reason for touring Quebec.
Some logistical notes. The Route Verte signage was very good with few exceptions.

We didn't think to take pictures of the Route Verte signs, but if you look closely you can see one on the right past the intersection. They do a good job of placing the signs on the path or road visible from the actual intersection.

Townships or other local governments seemed to be responsible for marking the distance on the various segments of cycling paths.

We became so accustomed to the signs whenever we needed them that when they were missing (perhaps because of construction) we grumbled about having to go back to our old procedures for figuring out which way to go (the correct direction is usually uphill, into the wind, onto the rougher pavement etc.). Usually in road construction areas there were specific bicycle detour signs. We frequently used the Route Verte website map page https://carto.routeverte.com/en which almost always located us on the map and helping us to navigate. We also purchased the Official Route Verte guide.

(at http://www.routeverte.com/e/official-guide) which provided detailed maps of urban areas. This is a hefty book with unfortunately no easy way to just take along the pages for the routes involved on a single tour.
We started our tour in Granby intending to take a counterclockwise loop on Route 1 heading east toward Magog and then onto Sherbrooke. Unfortunately, we did not learn until after we returned that the Arkel panniers we used on the tour were manufactured in Sherbooke. It would have been nice to take them back to see their birthplace and perhaps get a brief tour of the facility. This first part of the route was the only part that involved significant climbing. Magog is a pretty lakeside town while Sherbrooke is along a river. We continued northward on Route 1 to Levis, across the river from Quebec City. Coming into Levis we took a Provincial trail crossing a swinging suspension pedestrian bridge below some pretty waterfalls.

We were almost stranded in the middle by a toddler who had probably just learned to walk two months previously and who enjoyed staggering along the bridge and resisted his father's attempts to pick him up. With our wide panniers we had a difficult time getting by him, but all of the other pedestrians were very considerate.

A person with a fear of heights would not be able to use this bridge.We stayed in Levis and taxied and ferried into Old Quebec City although Route Verte 5 crosses St. Lawrence river and up to the city. We were glad we didn't have the tandem in the very crowded tourist area of the old city but did see several cyclists in less crowded areas of the city. I would not have worried about cycling to hotels in Quebec City. Leaving Quebec City area we cycled south on Route 3 into an area where hotels were scarce. We were lucky to enjoy a tailwind along this stretch which features excellent views of the St. Lawrence River. Unfortunately we were unable to continue south on Rt. 4 and instead returned via Victoriaville and back on Rt. 1. By this time the long awaited foliage change was occurring so we didn't mind seeing the same area twice.

We ended up cycling in the rain for only about one hour over 11 days of cycling (last week of September-first week of October). Temperatures ranged from the mid 80's down to the upper 40's. We never needed to use the bug hats or bug repellant which we have always needed when cycling in Canada other times even though I don't think they had experienced their first frost of the season.
We had excellent cell-phone coverage through AT&T although they use a different carrier in Canada. Most hotels had at least adequate wi-fi speed with some fast enough for me to stream a baseball game on my phone. Rhona had good success using the Google Translate app to help interpret historical markers and signs although even that app didn't help us with a road sign which appeared to warn us against running over a child's body lying prostrate on the road.We already knew not to ride over children.

We never had a single dog issue as most were leashed and well trained by their owners. On our final day, we passed within 10 feet of an unchained dog lying near the trail who could barely be bothered to lift up his head to look at us as we cycled by. Any self-respecting dog in West Virginia would at least have given us a warning growl and at least pretended to chase.

I marvel at the result of more than two decades of efforts to make cycling a supported and accepted activity in Quebec. Improvements on the Route Verte continue even now as we learned when we navigated through construction zones on the paths. Of course, in most cases they thoughtfully placed signage for bike detours. We are likely to do additional tours on Route Verte now that we know what the facilities and support infrastructure are like. Since we've only done about 500 of 3,000 miles of the Route Verte, we may have to start working on our French.

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