FJRiders.com

6/18/25

Rain forecast for most of the day, so we slept in a bit and I made an extra cup of coffee. I took some time to start studying the area and look for places to ride (FJR, DR, Road Bicycle, MTB). I've got some stuff in the cue - one day at a time.

Late morning I went downstairs to put the final touches on the garage. This is a sweet setup!



This little shelving area in the back has a bunch of hardware and tools. The host told me that I was welcome to use anything, but to please replace anything I break No problem!



The radar showed some improvement for late afternoon/evening, so I cooked early in the afternoon. I just threw some port chops and chicken leg quarters on the gas grill, made a box of rice a roni, and a nice garden salad for us.

Then I decided to try fishing from the kayak.



It's not as easy as it looks (to me anyway). My homemade anchor (1 kg. workout plate on a piece of rope) worked good. My "soft" tackle box did not - the storage area behind my seat gets wet and so did my tackle. I'll have to figure something out.

I tried a couple of places that our host suggested and at both locations, the fish were jumping all around me. I got one bite and wasn't able to set the hook. This is not as productive as I hoped. I guess I'll start walking the neighborhood looking friendly, and see if I can get some local intel.

More rain forecast tomorrow and Friday. We'll see....

Stay thirsty, my friends....

Psst.. a big northern pike will pull you and your kayak around. Roll vidya!

Do not keep a small pike intending to eat it. Full of bones. Bigger ones can be fileted leaving the bones behind. Good eating. Learn how to pick up a pike unless you really enjoy ripping your hands to shreds.

If your lucky, you'll get a walleye. My personal fav.

6/19/25

Rain forecast for all day. My phone app even posted an "Excessive Rainfall Alert". When I opened and read it, it warned against "50-60 millimeters" of rain - potential floods, etc". 2 1/2 inches of rain? Pfft....

Tammy suggested the Aquarium in Quebec City. Terrific - a nice inside activity. We get there late morning - only $20 USD to get in.

The jellyfish display was quite impressive.



Living lava lamps!



Seahorses are just too cool for school, man.



The petting zoo was nice!





What we didn't realize was that the multiple displays were all in spaced buildings! We got drenched!



White Sturgeon are caught here, but I'm not equipped to fish open rivers.



Who doesn't like a lionfish?



Tammy decided to bail on the 200 meter soaking walk to the polar bear display, but I couldn't be any wetter, so... why not?



They don't mind the rain.



I've never seen a polar bear before.

Back at the truck, still soaking wet, we drove to and around the Old Town, just to get a lay of the land. It's very quaint and reminds us of Europe (as expected). We will be coming back here to explore often, hopefully during better weather days.

Heading out of town, we found this brewery/cafe' with ample parking just outside the front door, and had lunch. The local IPA was hoppy - very good.



Tammy's lobsta sandwich was drenched in mustard and cumin. That was definitely different She ate it but said she wouldn't again. My shrimp sandwich had raw onions in it. Not the way we make it. Oh well - when in Rome....

I worked out with my home gym (really nice) and late afternoon, the rain let up just enough for us to take a walk around the lake. This is turning into a daily ritual of sorts. More rain forecast tomorrow. It's a bit early for cabin fever. I may have to get creative.

Stay thirsty, my friends....

I've always found it funny. In Canada, a torrential downpour is an inch over night.

In the southern U.S. 4" per hour is a hearty drizzle.

In sopchoppy one night they called for up to 8" of rain overnight. Being 6' above sea level beside a tidal affected river i thought it best to get out of Dodge. You know what I'm of. I spent the night on a Bass Pro parking lot in Tallahassee. Ya. It. Came. Down.

Driving back to the campground the next day it was all business as usual despite the water authority stating the up river dam was several feet over flood stage.

Good fences make good neighbors. So do good dams.

6/20/25

More rain this morning, so we took care of some housekeeping and did a little shopping.

Later in the afternoon, the rain stopped, so I loaded the MTB in the back of the truck and set out to do some riding. The first place I went to was a gravel road about 10 minutes away. The climbs were not too bad, and my bike is geared pretty low.





I found this one single track trail with no signage, so I gave it a shot. Uh... nope - this is a bit much.



AFAICK, these people don't have electricity, other than what they run from solar panels charging batteries.





Nice and peaceful out here.



I get to the end of the gravel and it continues a bit as a single track/hiking trail.

I'm not so sure about this.





Soon - I was met by a hiker and he told me that bicycles are not allowed on this trail. A sign would have helped. Oh well - I turned around and went back to my truck.

Then I found a small parc that had a bicycle dirt trail on it - it was only about 2 km, so I rode it twice and re-loaded up again.

Then I remembered this trail area I found while riding my road bicycle earlier in the week. I drove over there and this looks more like it!



I could ride to this place straight from the ABB.

It was getting late, so I just took one trail and rode up the mounting. The switchbacks are not too steep and they have made these really nice bridges to go across the creeks.





At the top of the mountain, I got a bit confused. Now about 7 pm, with still plenty of light, but I felt a little nervious about an adventure this late. So I broke protocol and went back down the way I came - the trail is supposed to go one way to prevent accidents. I took it slow going down (for multiple reasons) and lucklily, I didn't come upon any other riders.

This place looks real promising as a "workout" area for me.

Stay thirsty, my friends.....

6/21/25

A beatiful blue bird sky day - 50 degrees when I woke up, enjoyed my coffee on the patio. I poked around Google Maps and Gravelmap.com and came up with an idea.

Today, the Bush Piggie gets the duty.

I chose to go south and east. That was a bad idea for reasons I'll get into shortly.

I run up to the village of Saint Brigette, gas up, and then run to the first bridge over the Montmorency River and stop to check it out. We've had some rain over the past few days. The river looks swift.





I start moving south on my "planned route" and when I got to this area, I was surprised to see a few 4-wheelers and dirt bikes.



I fumbled my way with some french to ask a local if I needed to buy a pass to ride here, and he said no. I didn't see any signs saying otherwise, so I took off. I ran this really rocky trail (baby heads) down to this gorgeous suspension bridge.



Down here, the river looks a bit more tame.



Up on the other side of the river, the baby heads stopped, but the trail was mostly this semi-wet sand that sank the tires about 2" down. Hard riding. These trails are made for 4-wheelers and SxS machines. After a few minutes, I turned around and went back to the road.

Back on my route, I get the St. Lawrence River and took a left. I rode this delightful curvy paved road that ran from village to village. A lot of people are out playing with toys of their own. Bicycles, all kinds of motorcycles, jeeps, etc. It's busy, but the traffic was flowing pretty good.

I get to the next road that my sources said was unpaved, and turn north. Indeed, it was nice gravel and I started climbing. But after a few minutes, I get to a gate with all kinds of signs: Rue Privee (Private Road).



So I turned around and went back.



This happened twice more and I started getting frustrated. So I found a parc on the River and stopped for lunch.



PB&J to the rescue. Rule #1 in Motorcycling: When things go awry, eat.



I decided to try on more area that I hoped was not private propery. It was a power line area with LOTS of side trails and 2-track roads. The country side sure looks nice.



And I found shade every now and then.

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I rand about 10 miles of this and it was OK - but when I got to the bottom of the first big hill, I was greeted with a HUGE swamp. I didn't feel like getting wet, so I just turned around and went back. OTW out, I met a guy that was on a Triumph Tiger, and we talked about Dual Sport riding. He gave me a suggestion to try, but it was at least 60 miles away. Maybe a bit much.

So I decided to punt and start heading back. I did take the bridge to the Isle of Orleans back and forth over the river just to check it out. Lovely.

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I got back to the ABB about 2:30 pm. I took a short nap, and then started poking around the laptop trying to find the place my new friend (Tiger) suggested. I was able to locate it, about 40 miles to the west.

WTF - no point in sitting around wondering about it. So I plotted a route on my XT and took off. I rode straight to the town of St. Raymond, which is close to the Pontneuf area that everyone rides on. By this time it was about 5:30 pm, but I did find a couple of good D/S roads to ride. It looks like they double as snowmobile trails in the winter. I rode about 10 miles of it (no pictures - time was short), just enough to be confident that this is a place to explore for future rides.

I rode back to the ABB encouraged. I guess one option would be to just trailer the DR to this area early one morning, and then ride from there. We'll see.

It ended up being about 175 miles total for the day - that's a big day on the DR for me.

Tammy and I went out to eat for a late dinner. She loves those tuity fruity drinks - You can bet your arse whichever one she picked had the most words in it.



Tammy ordered the lobster sandwich and this time, it was more familiar in preparation - cold with a mayo based dressing on a fancy hot dog bun.

I ordered spagetti sause with mushrooms. You may recall my new method at restaurants: I order the cheapest entree that has meat in it. The waitress asked me if I wanted Mozerella Cheese on top. "Sure", I replied.

I wasn't expecting this.



It was very good. The meat sauce did not have a lot of tomato in it. I actually took the last 1/3 home for a snack.

Another good day.

Stay thirsty, my friends....

6/22/25

Nasty drizzly rain when I woke up - my how 12 hours changes things here.

Tammy is devotely Catholic. I am not, but I can certainly take this one for the team. She asked me earlier in the week to take her to church today, and I was happy to oblige. We picked a small church in the village of Saint Brigette, about 15 minutes from our ABB. We were about 35 in attendence, and Tammy enjoyed practciing her prayers in french. After the service, they have coffee and bisquits and the parishoners welcomed us very affectionately. Many of them were interested in our adventure.

Late morning, the weather passed and the roads dried. I took a short nap after lunch. That's getting to be a habit - the sun sets so late down here that I find myself staying up longer than at home - off to sleep around 11 pm. So a 30 minute power nap after lunch is refreshing.

I loaded up the road bicycle and drove 30 KM to a bike path I saw yesterday on the Bush Pig. Now this is nice.



It's so nice not to have to worry about vehicles. This reminds me of a Rails to Trails path in the States, whereby they cut the grade down pretty good to accomodate the train (all climbs were less than 4%). I got some heat in my legs, and settled in.



The infrastructure here for bicycles is truly impressive.



After about 5 miles, the path turned to this smooth gravel. At first, I was a little concerned with my skinny (28 mm) tires, but it seemed to roll well, so I continued. The path diverts into the woods and soon, it's just me and the trees.



I went about 13 miles and decided I was a little less than 1/2 done - so I turned around and headed back, leaving a little in the tank for reserve. The ride back was generally with the wind, so I wicked it up a bit and sailed back.

We got our own bridge across the Jacque Cartier River, so I stopped momentarily for a selfie.



This was a terrific workout!



Back at the truck, I took a closer look and it appears that the paved path runs farther the other way (towards Quebec City). I may even be able to park the truck much closer to the ABB (maybe 20 km) and then I could ride mostly smooth pavement. The other alternative would be to try and fit some gravel bike tires to my road bike. I'll try again and then decide.

I get back to the ABB about 4:30. Tammy was up for a paddle, so I grabbed a refreshment and off we go!



Some of the locals at our lake have these cute little party barges. They are powered by a trolling motor.



It's a beautiful afternoon for this.





Another day in paradise!

Stay thirsty, my friends....

And now a programming note:

I've sent the link to this thread (which is "Public", and therefore not requiring an account to access) to all of my family at home. Kind of using this as a rudamentary "blog" site for them to read about Tammy and I's adventure. Particularly for my parents, it's real easy for them to just "click the link".

I appreciate your understanding.

British Columbia Canada has a some interesting rail trails. On some trails it is legal to ride a motorcycle, much to the chagrin of the bicycle community. The Kettle Valley rail trail is nearly 500km long. Here is another link to the Kettle Valley rail trail. Just something to think about on the next rainy day.

fontanaman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 23, 2025 10:20 am British Columbia Canada has a some interesting rail trails. On some trails it is legal to ride a motorcycle, much to the chagrin of the bicycle community. The Kettle Valley rail trail is nearly 500km long. Here is another link to the Kettle Valley rail trail. Just something to think about on the next rainy day.

4500 kilometers each way - not gonna happen this year.

But.... next year?

6/23/25

Sunshine forecast for today, but I got an alert for a Severe Thunderstorm watch for later this evening. That came out of no where - the weather forecast changes here frequently.

I hoped on the FJR and rode toward the national park. Let me say something about the riding here:

- In general, the major highways and primary 2-lane roads are well maintained and in good shape.

- But the secondary and munipal roads are terrible, laden with pot holes, heaves of all kinds, cracks, and in some cases, DEEP track depressions that if not alert for, make the motorcycle do some funny things.

- Everywhere, the speed limits are woefully low, ridiculously low, even. But it seems that everyone ignores the speed limit anyway - running 10-ish KMH over minimum. At 10 kph over, it's tolerable - barely.

- The use of speed tables and stop signs is quite effective as a speed control method. That can be frustrating for motorcyclists - kind of reminds me of urban bumper to bumper traffic, sort of.

- There are a LOT of motorcyclists here, of all kinds and types. Cage drivers seem to look out for us, and even yield to us when it suits them.

I don't think this is going to be a peg scraper kind of summer. Rather, more like a "sniff here, sniff there" type of riding.

Regardless, riding is riding, so I took the FJR to the National Park to do some hiking. I got in with my annual pass and stopped at KM 3 at the Eperon Trail Head. This one appealed to me because it is considered "moderate" by All Trails and the N/P Guide. I figured I'd ease my way into this, and not hurt myself on Hike #1.

The view from the trail head is not too shabby!



This is a loop trail that goes up one of the mountains in the Jacque Cartier River valley. It has a nice mix of variety for the terrain.



Unusual growth on some of these trees.





Surprisingly on this Monday, the trail is kind of crowded. Every few minutes I come upon other hikers. We exchange a greeting and continue on.

As I climb the mountain, everyone once in a while I come upon a little glimpse of the view. Kind of like a picture window, Mother Nature style.



And then it's back into the woods I go, still climbing.



We don't seen this kind of sign anywhere on the trails at home.



The farther I climb, the better the view gets.



The forest is a mixture of conifers and hard woods. The oldest trees here look to be 75-ish years - I guess this was clear cut similarly to the United States some time ago.



This is fun!



After about 45 minutes, i get to the top, and to the victor goes the spoils!





Another surprise for me today is the bugs. There are a LOT of bugs here, including mosquitos, which I wasn't expecting. The other bugs (flies, gnats, etc) land on me, but AFAICT, don't bite me. The mosquitos are biting a little, but they sting and don't leave a welp like at home. Next time, I will need to bring bug dope.

Every time I walk in the woods, it never ceases to amaze me at what a tree will go through to get what it needs.



As I start descending, I checked my phone app and I've only climbed about 800 feet. This trail was easier than I expected. I should be able to walk just about anything in this park.



Halfway down, I found this little pond with a nice cut tree stump. Lunch!



I'm a lucky man, ya'll. Blessed beyond my finest words. Days like today remind me to stay humble, and dismiss the bullshit in this world as the nuisance it really is.



I get back to the motorcycle, and it ended up being about 4 miles and 900 feet of climb - a good day walk. It's getting warm. So I broke protocol just a little. I folded my riding pants on my seat and sat on top of them. Then I put my jacket on, but left it unzipped. Put my boots on, helmet on, and gloves on, and I rode 10 kms or so on the 30 kph N/P road toward my next stop to cool off.

I found a secluded parking spot on the river, and continued my "cooling off" exercise.



Refreshed, I left the park (all geared up, of course), and rode a bit north on the highway. I climbed up over the next pass (at about 2500 feet) and as I was going, I was paying attention to the side roads, looking for gravel or dirt that is public. I did find several options to try on the dirt bike for future reference.

I got back to the ABB about 3 pm, and it was very warm - like 83 or so. Tammy and I decided to take a dip in the lake. I estimate the temp of the lake to be about 68-70. The first few seconds were chilly, but we drifted into the sunshine and it was very refreshing.



That cooled us off quite nicely. Last week, I bought a couple of HUGE ribeyes on sale at the grocery. This evening, I grilled one of those for Tammy and I. She likes her steak basically burnt, so I cooked the whole thing medium, and then cut off a piece and burnt it for Tammy. We had a good meal last night.

About 8:30, we are watching a movie when I get an alert for Severe Thunderstorm in our area. This can't be - the skies are clear. I check the radar and sure enough, a line of strong stuff is heading right for us. The wind was high and it rained hard for about 15 minutes. The power flicked on and off a few times, and then the internet stopped.

Oh well - grab a book and head to bed early. Tomorrow is another day.

Stay thirsty, my friends.....

6/24/25

Hot today. Forecast high is 87, and early in the morning, it already feels a little sticky. It's going to break tonight, we can handle 1 day of this.

I had so much fun on the bicycle the other day, I wanted to explore that bike path some more. Now that I can identify a Bike Path on Google Maps, I looked for a section that was fully paved. That turned out to be a little bit closer to our ABB, so the drive to the parking lot was faster and closer.

Going out, I'm in the sun, but it looks like I'll be shaded coming home.



The strong thunderstorms last night have left some small trees and branches down across the path in places. I'm being mindful of these hazards so as not to get a flat tire.



I run about 10 miles and stop at the River for a quick break. Look at how nice this bicycle bridge is!



The ride back was fast, as it was mostly downhill, with the wind, and in the shade.



I went past the truck a little ways in the other direction to check it out. Now it's getting hot, so I turned back and called it good enough.



Using Google Maps, I can now get to a place to park the truck right off the highway (quicker), and that should leave me with 28-ish miles of pavement out and back, with maybe 2,000 feet of climb. That's going to be my "workout ride".

Stay thristy, my friends....

Love it.

You motivated me to get the bicycle out. It's been a long winter of chips ahoy and ice cream.

I really should invest in a proper mountain bike instead of this hybrid.

Carry on my friend!