8/9/23. Week 3. 218 miles (5days)
A short walk to get some supplies in town today. It is a paper mill town. One here in Edmunston and a big one across the St John River in Madawaska Maine.
New/Noveau
It is not our plan to do much exploring in Edmunston today. We have some chores to take care of today. Laundry was the first most important task and took care of that immediately when we arrived in the motel. Literally ALL of our clothes needed to be washed! Hung out in a tank top and running shorts. Those seem to be the only 2 items I don’t wear during the week. Not warm enough!
As I ride during the week my mind can wander in so many directions. One of the topics I’ve been mulling for the last couple of weeks is..
Bicycle Trail Culture….
This is our first time being on an extended bike trail route. With that, we’ve had to adapt to the rules of the road… the difference between metropolitan trail riding and country trails. As you enter the urban trail system you need you to go into “full alert” mode.
Full alert means: 1. When you stop you’d better get fully OFF the trail as there is a swarm of bikes behind you. 2. Before you re-enter look both behind and in front of you for bicycles, judge your timing before re-merging into traffic. 3. Never ever, ever, go around a mid post found at street entrances to the left, always stay to the right. Especially in Montreal… they are nasty about breaking rules. 4. When passing always check behind you that the it is clear to pass. 5. Fast riders are bothered if you disrupt their “flow”… they’re timing every ride! 5. Use hand signals whenever you turn right, left or intend to stop. It’s just like driving a car… seriously.
Most interesting thing… in Quebec City there was a guy who’s bike handlebars had right and left blinking turn signals. None of us had ever seen that before!
Country trail riding. This is much calmer, more relaxed. After 10am the riders begin to come out on the trail. There are many, many couples on e-bikes. Plenty of women solo riders on their e-bikes too. They do not get upset if you don’t pull completely off the trail to stop. They just smile and go around. They have their dogs in baskets or kid trailers. Couples groups ride to coffee or lunch together. If there’s an illegal small motorbike on the trail, no one makes a fuss as long as they aren’t going too fast. Remember.. the e-bikes go pretty fast themselves.
Dogs are not allowed on busy urban trails!
I’ve mentioned all the different types of trail transportation we’ve seen. The gamut of e-bikes, motorized scooters for elderly. Some of them look like little cars… they are enclosed for all weather. We’ve seen a few tricycle recumbents, two- wheeled recumbents, but no full size wheeled recumbents like our friend Curtis’s (at least not yet!)
Good as place as any to learn something I guess
Quebec is a wrap. Our route for 3 weeks
Week 4 ahead… the goal
We are hoping to get to St John’s before our next layover day. There’s a strong chance that Hurricane Lee will mess with our travel in Nova Scotia. We are also expecting some rain this week. Monday looks like it could be pretty wet.
cinnicrew 