Day 17 - Some days are just hard and bike parts can shred

miles today: 73 total miles: 1,092
km today: 118 total km: 1,757

We awoke in the beautiful biker campspot in Parc Nationale du Bic and, without really trying, got moving quickly. Maybe it was the mosquitos, but really we were just efficient. We know it would be a relatively short day, but with a significant climb over the Appalacians and, unfortunately, a stiff headwind. We also know we wanted to stop quickly at a bike shop in Rimouski to address our front wheel and maybe make a detour to an English garden that Jean-Michel suggested.

Out of the mosquitos, we found a gorgeous spot still in the park to do our morning yoga stretches and on the beach someone else had the same idea.

We are savoring a kind of bittersweet idea that we are leaving the St. Lawrence today for good. Over the mountains for a couple days, and then we will be on the Atlantic Ocean. Some combination of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes has been our companion since we jumped in the taxi cab in Port Huron - it’s like leaving a friend behind.

I know we haven’t talked much about the bike since we had major repairs, but there has been a pesky noise from the front hub that has driven us nuts. I thought that the hard rain maybe pushed some grease out of the bearings in the front hub (there was some grease visible outisde the hub) so we thought we’d find a bike shop and either ask them to quickly repack it or buy some grease to try and top it off at camp tonight. Remember - short day ahead. :) I took a video to capture the sound to share with a mechanic to help diagnose.

Sometimes, I’m too optimistic. . . . We knew from the start that this front wheel was kinda disposable, so no knocks on Doug’s for putting it on the bike, but it turns out that sound is the sound of a hub shredding itself to disintigration! We found a bike shop right when we hit Rimouski and a guy there spoke good English and wanted to help. But the mechanics were grumpy and “too busy” to help out, so we bought a tube of grease and figured we’d try dealing ourselves at camp.

But, there was one more bike shop Velo Plein Air and we thought we’d give it a quick try. We stopped in their Mountain Bike shop and were told the mecahnics were in the main shop up the hill. Thankfully, we trudged up the hill and I walked to the service department and opened with my sheepish “je ne parle pas français” and was met with “are you cool with English?” The mechanic was from Temecula and his dad (also there) had lived in the US off and on, so no language barrier. More importantly, they not only knew tandems, but were able to drop what they were doing and take a look. When I explained I thought I needed grease, they told me that the hub was basically destroyed and we should be breaking spokes any minute! Thankfully, they had another (cheap, but better quality) wheel to throw on there.

Amazingly, just as we were climbing the hill, we broke a rear spoke. First time we’ve ever broken a rear spoke in 5,000+ loaded miles. These guys were able to fix the spoke, touch up the tension on the other spokes, and tighten up a new front wheel We were in and out of the place in an hour (thanks to their amazingly fast and competant help and a little help from the credit card). Chandra waited outside with the bags and trailer and I had a nice chat with the mechanics while they worked. We also took a minute to call my folks and wish them a happy anniversary!

So . . . feeling relief of dodging a bit of a bullet, and happy to be rid of that horrible sound (and pending disaster!), we returned to the other bike shop (not too far - just down a big hill) to return the grease. Then I realized I forgot my helmet (somehow neither of us noticed as we rode down the hill!) at Plein Air so we made another trip up the hill and finally were on our way.

The bike path along the water in Rimouski was gorgeous but, having consumed our spare time (and noting the 20kph headwind forecast), we skipped the garden and, after a nice lunch on the St. Lawrence and bidding farewell, headed towards the mountains!



After another nice 10 or 15 km along the sea, we encountered a gravel road that would lead us to the beginning of the main climbing section of the day. Right away, this gravel road kicked up to a 13% grade (!!!) which we ran up huffing and puffing but without issue.

Then . . . . . .DISASTER!!!! This gravel road was less well packed than most we’ve been on so far this trip, so the large, sharp rocks are spread more apart. It’s impossible to miss them, so we were riding over them and - bam! - we got a flat. We had no idea until we took off the wheel that we had absolutely shredded the rear tube with at least four pinch flats! This is probably because we couldn’t feel the flat right away (the bumpiness of the gravel, honestly, felt like we were flat anyway).

So, we patched the ones we saw, put the tube back on, but it still didn’t hold air. So, found a couple more, then finally decided to put on a fresh tube. Once we loaded up, we realized the front tire was flat too! We fixed the front, and made the call that, with about 2 km left of this horrible road, and back down to zero fresh tubes, we would walk until the pavement. Chandra shot some video so I’ll let past us tell the story.

It’s not easy pushing the loaded tandem, and it’s pretty demoralizing to not be riding the bike, but we just couldn’t risk another flat on this horrible road. Having lost another hour or more dealing with flats and walking, we were seeing gray storm clouds and looking at the radar and realized a storm was coming in. We still had the big climb ahead - and the massive headwind. So, what was meant to be a short day was now feeling a little bit desperate and we started pushing on the climbs - hard!

After another 2km climb with grades up to 10%, we unbelievably got another rear flat! It seemed like a slow leak, so we pumped it up at first, but then realized there was a hole for sure. While we were working on it on the side of the road, a guy in a massive pickup truck stopped and asked if we needed help. We told him we were ok, and I have to say that many more guys in pickup trucks have stopped to ask if I need help when biking (all over the US and now here!) than people in Prius or cars with bike racks. I like it when prior assumptions don’t line up sometimes. :-) In any case, we got it going, made it about 50m,

. . . and flatted again! You can see the joy leaving us a bit as we photographed each subsequent repair, and I started wishing the pickup truck would come back and offer to drive us the finaly 40 km to camp!

We got it sorted, though, and then pushed hard to try and beat the rain. The only saving grace was, we knew there was a grocery store walkable from the campground tonight, so we didn’t have to make any more stops. It was frustrating to get these subequent flats, but my suspicion is that the last tube we used was big for the tire size and probably got pinched. As Chris in Montreal said at dinner, flats tend to come in clusters, partly because of pinches reinstalling the tube, or a patch that doesn’t hold, or in this case, maybe a little gravel got between the tube and tire (it was messy out there on that road). In any case, it happens and seems to happen with the worst timing.

The last kms were the hardest I think we’ve pushed biking in a long time. Long stretches of downhill with a 20 km headwind meant pedalling hard downhill and still going slower than we can on flat stretches without the wind. I know I talked earlier about embracing the conditions and not fighting them - if you have a headwind you go slower. Well, today, with the storm approaching, we had no choice but to fight it and push hard. We barely talked that last couple hours and just gave it all we had. In the distance we saw the spires of a church and reckoned the campground was close to it. We had no idea how close - here’s the view from the picnic table in our spot…

Chandra did the shopping (including a couple well-earned beers!) and we managed to cook quickly, eat, and clean up, retiring to the tent just as the rain started. It was a longer day than we thought, and hard, with big ups and big downs, but we worked well together. I’d still rather be out here struggling sometimes than pretty much anywhere else right now - especially with the amazing stoker I’m with! Going to sleep hard tonight.