bijan

Long story short, I made it all the way to Ottawa and got a lift home.

Pictures:
Pictures of trip on Dropbox

Details:
Total distance: 246km
total time on bike: 14hours 40 minutes
average speed: 16.7 km/h
max speed: 46 km/h

final point reached: spider statue in Ottawa

Detailed description of trip to follow.

djb

just to mention, that 16.7 kmh average.....that is just about what my aver. speed was on all the long trips I have done.
I rode both sat and sun and seeing your shots of early morning show it was at about 0c. You looked well dressed, hope you had good gloves etc, and that your feet were alright.
Look forward to reading more, interesting to see that it was 250km, quite a bit more than by car on the 417 isnt it? Did you start in St Anne as on your route map? You know, from NDG to my folks place in the east end of Ottawa, its only 180k, so 70k more is quite a bit isnt it? Oh, was that the 417 in the shot with the highway? May do this trip one day, so will be interested to see the route and your impressions of the roads. I guess youdid cross at Hawksbury? and then hit the 148 all the way down? And where did you stay half-way?

cheers

bijan

Hi djb,

Thanks for the post. You brought up every single point I wanted to talk about in my description. I will get to them. For now here is my route on the first day:
Day1 Route

or:
https://tinyurl.com/montreal-ottawa-2010-day1

A is where I left, B is where I had breakfast, C is where I had lunch, D and F are the location of the Hostel where I stayed the night and E was the point a little further along I cycled to, in order to make it a century. Note that I took a more roundabout where through Ile-Perot (1km extra) and one part of the 148 where the route verte makes a detour due to lack of shoulder (I'm guessing that and other minor stuff makes the 2km difference).

Edit: And here is my route on the second day:
Day2 Route

or:
https://tinyurl.com/montreal-ottawa-2010-day2

This time the extra km vs the map come from me getting lost in Gatineau.

bijan

I have found that too. Though this time it was a short trip, but it was my first time with these larger panniers and it was like dragging lead parachute

It was around 0c in those shots. But on Saturday I left at about 3 am and by sunrise it was -3 in Montreal and probably a little colder off the island. At 6am everything was covered in frost and I even passed a road near Hudson where there was salt and ice on the road. I was warm enough for the trip except for that morning. I was fooled by the weather report that said low of -1, and didn't bring wool socks. My feet were cold from 4:30 until just after sunrise (about 2 hours), but I had no other discomfort the rest of the ride.

I left from Pointe-Claire. From there the driving route through the 417 would be 181km, and the direct version of the route I took (through Rigaud into Ontario, crossing the 417 and crossing back over into Quebec at Hawksbury, and riding along the 148 through Gatineau) would be 185km.

Yes that was at the overpass at Chute-a-Blondeau provincial park

Definitely a fun trip. My impression of the route may be skewed because I left so early and didn't see much traffic until I hit the 148. The shoulder on the 148 is pretty decent, what isn't so much fun is the speed of the traffic. It took me a while to get used to it. There was one section maybe an hour after Hawksbury/Grenville without a shoulder but the route verte took a detour that was pleasant. I would probably recommend crossing over in Thurso or something like that, because from there through until the bike path in Gatineau near Ottawa the 148 wasn't too interesting.

I stayed in the HI Hostel at Saint-Andre-Avelin. It was 14km north of the 148. I also rode an extra 20 km there to complete my "century" the first day. Up until Saint-Andre-Avelin that northwards road has shoulders only about half the time, and it hilly, nothing ridiculous but consistently climbing. Not so bad, but it took me a while before I was confident enough not to pull off into the gravel shoulder each time a car would pass by. On my just for fun ride past Saint-Andre-Avelin is where I saw the only other cyclist outside of a town or city. She was a female road cyclist who passed me going uphill. I saw her riding back the other way a little later.

I think I'll do the trip again next summer but maybe on the Ontario side trying to stick to the river as much as possible.