Biking the Gaspe' Peninsula

[Edwin Kay]

This coming week my wife and I will be visiting the Gaspe' Peninsula. What is biking like on the peninsula? We have heard it can be quite hilly.

Edwin Kay

[Denis]

I rode the Gaspe Peninsula in 2016, riding from Quebec to Boston.  You can check out my trip report.

I had the Gaspe Peninsula on my to do list for many years before finally riding it.  I remember some worrisome reports about impossible hills and I was expecting/fearing I would have to do some pushing.  As it turns out, the climbing wasn't as scary as I had feared and I never had to push my bike.  However, I did ride clockwise and I remember that one really steep hill was somewhat easier because I had a strong tailwind.  I seem to recall that riding clockwise was the best from a wind perspective but I doubt the strong tailwind I had that day was typical.

The other really steep section I recall was the descent into Perce.  It is hard to really judge steepness when descending but I was really glad I was descending that hill.

RideWithGPS can really be useful for checking out elevation profiles.  I put together a Gaspe Profile that shows this area is not flat.  From this profile it is really hard to see how steep some sections may be but you can highlight a section of this route by clicking on a point in the profile and dragging the cursor.  If you do this for the miles 350-370 (day 7 in my report) a window pops up that shows a maximum grade of 12.8% and 1,900 feet of climbing so it was certainly helpful that I had a strong tailwind on that climb.  Similarly, you can highlight miles 480-490 which displays the descent into Perce.  Unfortunately, this doesn't show the maximum descent.  When I made a temporary route for just this section RideWithGPS was showing 10-13% grade.  I also see my ride report (day 13) says there was a sign warning of a 17% descent.

Hopefully this will give you some insight into how challenging this may be for you and your wife.

Denis

[stev...@gmail.com]

I did a counter-clockwise circumnavigation ride of the peninsula in 2017.  Beautiful.  But there were some big hills.  Also, I ran into a lot of westerly headwinds combined with climbing.  Plenty of work! 

For my particular project, the starting/ending point was  Riviere-du-Loup and total distance for the ride was 700 miles.  But you can make it much shorter loop but starting further up the St. Lawrence Coast.

Here is a link to my ride:

 https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/CanadasGaspePeninsula2017 

(page 13 has photos of the hills, countryside and flags in the wind)

Good luck!

Steve O'Rourke

Baldwin, Wisconsin

My Crazyguyonabike Bike Touring Site: cgoab.com/ScoutSteve 
Blogspot: https://scoutsteve.blogspot.com

 

"When I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money — booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” Begin it now!

              --- The Scottish Himalayan Expedition by W.H. Murray

On Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 2:07:43 PM UTC-5 Edwin Kay wrote:

[GMX]

I really enjoy reading these journals, I wish we had more posts like this.

One of the details that struck me about this one was the motels that charged a higher price if the guest paid by card. Where I live, card payment is standard, it is cash that is weird. And in some of the countries I travel to frequently, like Denmark, there are more and more businesses that no longer accept cash.

Cheers,

Nathan

Nathan Wajsman

na...@gmx.es

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