Quebec City to Fredricton, NB: updated

This orginal post was written at about 5am since I couldn't sleep. Having reread it now a few days later, I obviously wasn't quite awake either as the computer seems to have changed things around a bit....I've tried to fix it by remembering what I was thinking....

We're in New Brunswick. Woohoo. From Quebec City we continued along the north shore of the St. Lawrence crossing at Saint Simeon into Riviere du Loup. For the most part, I loved Quebec. It's quite scenic and the route we took toured us through many small, very old towns. I would like to say, however, that the hills are ridiculous. Apparently the idea of blasting for roads is beyond thought.

I know B.C. is a long time ago now, but really, the Rockies were often more doable than some of these steep climbs. The second day out of Quebec City we managed 71 km before I kicked the bucket. I was mentally and physically so drained from standing on the pedals to get up repeated 16-20% grade hills or on the flip side madly trying not to die coming down 10 and 11% grades that I finally couldn't manage to get up a hill. Yup, I went SPLAT.

According to Warren, I needed about 3 more pedal strokes (which translated into about 4 feet of road) to reach the turn where we could stop for a moment. I didn't quite make it, and when I realized I wasn't going to, I put my foot down. However, due to the steep grade and my road shoes having less than any traction at all...down I went and slid slightly backwards, ending under the guardrail. (Still off the road and a bit away from the drop-off, no worries). I know all this sounds fairly dramatic, but given the slow speed at which I was going...it was all pretty minor. A really sweet couple in a car behind us saw me go down and stopped to make sure I was ok. Which I totally was, aside from a slightly scraped elbow and a blow to the pride.

Anyways, so from there all we could see was up. I decided to walk. Warren gallantly walked with me. Up, up, around the corner and up. Around another corner and up...you get the point. When we realized we were still about 20 km from where Truck was parked with obviously more ridiculous-ness therebetween, we ended the day by calling Randy on the cell phone with a "please come get us -- we're done."

We continued along the north shore to Saint Simeon where the real fun began. We'd been having electrical problems with Truck since around Quebec City and despite many efforts of many mechanics, the problem wasn't solved, and was only getting worse. While waiting for the ferry, the batteries died. Completely. Two people tried to start us with portable chargers, but no go. A call to CAA and a big diesel truck later, and we were started. We drove up the hill to a garage and spent the next few hours there garage while they looked at it. Unfortunately, they couldn't fix it and charged the battery enough to get us across the ferry where we might find help in a bigger center. The problem was, the charge didn't hold on the 65 min crossing.

That's right. There we are sitting at the ferry docks, on the ferry, in Riviere du Loup, with a full ferry, and we can't start. Oh and none of us can speak or understand the French language (this has been the bane of our existence since Truck began having problems). So, after what must have been the whole ferry crew coming by to see what they could do, we ended up getting pushed off the ferry. That's right folks. Pushed. About 10 men PUSHED all 11741 lbs of Truck, plus us and our gear off the ferry. Then they left us on the loading ramp. We had about 2 hours to get ourselves off the ramp before the next ferry came in. Oh the excitement.

Another call to CAA and we were off. Oh, did I mention this was the long weekend too? Heh, yeah, so nothing was open. More calls to CAA in the mornings got Truck started so that Warren and I could bike and Truck could limp to Edmunston. We spent about 48 hours there at a garage before leaving, problem still unresolved, and now Warren and I had only 8 days to ride 840km. We could do it, but that left no room for error.

From Edmunston, we stopped in Perth Andover at a lovely little campground on the St. John River. The next morning, we were able to get Truck started, so Warren and I left amid a strong headwind and cold, pelting rain to head to Fredricton...152km away.

About 36kms in (and 2 hours of riding...eek), we saw Truck stopped along the side of the road. We were soaking wet and Warren was cold. Truck was dying and needed help again very soon. The decision was made to drive to Fredriction to another garage.

We didn't make it. We ended up pulling over in Kings Landing at the information center with not much power and the air brakes beginning to fail (meaning the spring parking brake was coming on and thus we were going no where). Another call to CAA and Truck was being towed into Fredricton. We're currently in said town awaiting news on what's up.

An adventure is what we were looking for on this trip. An adventure is certainly what we're getting.

At this point, we're not sure what's going to happen other than we have to be back in Ottawa by the 13th...