Gatineau Hills Ride - 3. Ride Around the Gatineau Area.

3. Ride Around the Gatineau Area.

Up early this Friday morning.

 I cannot live according to my inner clock on Club rides, this is Club time, we had breakfast at 7.30 am but we were not the earliest risers. The breakfast room at the hotel was over-crowded. People were 3 rows deep, huddled around the 3 toasters, waiting for their toast to pop up. The automated coffee machine took way too long brewing one cup at a time. It took us almost 45 minutes to just have a coffee and a toasted bagel. We even had to wait for a place to sit down.

Our group of riders left the hotel at 8.30 AM sharp, our goal for the day was to ride in 3 groups and then meet up in Mont Tremblant for lunch. Mont Tremblant is about 150 km northeast of Gatineau and taking the back roads and not the most direct route, it took us close to 3 hours to arrive near Tremblant. It was almost lunch time. We had a new ride leader for this day since Martin had already left before us to see the Chateau Montebello on the way. I am told it is a beautiful old timbered Hotel.

Chateau Montebello - Hotel Lobby

After said 3 hours, now around 11.30 am, we actually met Martin’s group just a bit before arriving in Tremblant. We met in a nondescript parking lot in a village we thought was Tremblant but was not and we needed to ride a bit more. I saw our ride leader and Martin coordinating their GPSs for our next stop, the lunch stop.

Martin waited for our small group of just 7 riders, but was waved on and told we would meet him at the lunch stop, a Crepe Restaurant, near the old Tremblant Village a little bit further away.

Something did not go right after that. Martin left and with the lemming mentality a group has, we followed our ride leader. After another 100 km northwest we arrived in Mont Laurier where we stopped for lunch around 1 pm. We never saw or visited Mont Tremblant, but somehow ended up at Mont Laurier. It was now way beyond Midday and we were all hungry. We stopped at a chicken place.

It was not a fancy lunch but a nice place never-the-less. After this lunch we rode again. We did nothing but ride all day. No sight-seeing, just the road and the views we had along the way. And the roads were twisty roads. Not highways, but byways. Some lanes had not been repaved for ages and were very bumpy. 

Now, Carol is a good rider, an excellent rider and she can certainly hold her own but after nearly 8 hours of riding, after about 500 km of twisties, even I had had enough of riding. It takes a lot of concentration to manage rough, twisty, winding roads; roads we don’t really know. At each moment something ‘could’ jump out at you when you ride through woods and fields. Deer are notorious for causing serious problems for motorcycle riders, as a rider you need to be totally alert at all times. You cannot really look left and right or day dream while riding; especially with narrow lanes and bumpy roads.

Well, to make it short, it was a day of hard work. It was too much riding, too many twisties, too much of something we usually like to do. 

We spoke with the ‘other’ folks who rode with Martin and Mike after we got back to the hotel and all had a good time, all had a nice lunch at Mont Tremblant, some folks even taking the gondola up to the top of the mountain, or enjoying the shops in the old town of Mont Tremblant, etc. but something went wrong with our group. We could not ask our leader because after we got back to the hotel, our ride leader had to rush home. 

‘Our’ ride made me feel like a lemming. I guess group rides just are not meant for me any longer. I like riding my bike MY way. I like to ride, but then stop and smell the roses, see the towns, talk to people. I couldn’t care less about the destinations; I like the ‘happenings’ along the way. The farm stands, the vistas, the way the land lies, how the farmer keeps his fields, how dense the woods grow how big the trees are, the way the light reflects off the lakes, etc. I ride a more sedate pace. I guess I am getting old. 

Carol and I like riding together, we are like a team, we kind of know when to stop, when to slow down or even when to have a coffee in a town, etc. 

Waiting For Our Pizza (With a Little Liquid Refreshment)

This Friday ride, this ride of nearly 500 km on twisty, rough roads was not my kind of ride. We were glad when we were back at the hotel that night around 5 pm. It was an especially frustrating ride because we did not see what we had been looking forward to seeing.

Dinner that night was supposed to be a Swiss Fondue place near the Hotel. I told Carol I was going to take her out for dinner to help her get over her aching backside. But of course…. The Club decided to order

Still Waiting

Pizza. So we decided to join them and ate in the parking lot on garden chairs. And… naturally for this day it rained just then, too. We all had to move under the overhang of the roof to be out of the downpour. The Hotel did not want us ‘rough’ riders to spoil their lobby with our noise and pizza smell. I guess we did not look ‘charming’ enough to them. Riding with a Club is like that, I try to do it the Club way yet somehow things don’t work out ‘my’ way.

Rainbow After the Rain

Case in point, just look at the way we had to get gasoline…

It was one bike at the time, all had to wait for the last guy to finish getting gas.

Getting Gas - Only One Pump

Call me whatever you want, but I know there is a better way to travel. I like the camaraderie, don’t get me wrong, it’s just the riding… I like to ride my way.

Taking a Break After Getting Gas

Gatineau Hills Ride - 2a. Riders on the Ferry Pictures

2a. Riders On the Ferry Pictures

Russel Checking Out His Bike

Who is That Masked Man?

BMW Wannabe

Dominique - Cool and Collected

Martin, Our Fearless Leader

Smurf (Remember Them?) Ken

The Dynamic Duo, Ross and Jean

Hard to Tell If You're Smiling Garth - Addy Is Engrossed In?

Jack Speaks French For Us Anglos

Gatineau Hills Ride - 2. Club Ride to Gatineau

2. Club Ride to Gatineau    

A Foggy Start to the Day

We woke up to a very foggy morning. Yet after a while it turned nice and sunny. But riding from the hotel to the breakfast place in the morning was like riding through milk laced air.

Waiting For the 'Gang' at the Bancroft Hotel and Brewery

Our lunch spot was the Brewery Co. right in the middle of Bancroft. Naturally, Carol and I were early, it was a wonderful chilly but sunny morning for our ride from Maynooth to Bancroft and since Mike S. had reserved tables for the whole Ontario Club we just sat inside and waited for their arrival.

I had to smile during lunch, even though we had lunch in a brewery, nobody drank any beer. Most of our riders drank just water. I guess they take the motto don’t drink and drive (ride) very seriously. Good for them. 

Taking Off a Layer (With a Little Help From a Friend)

The lunch spot was kind of a 

collection location, riders met here for our ride in the afternoon. Our group, almost 2 doz. people, was too large to ride together.

Carol and I chose to ride with Martin leading our smaller group of about 8 riders. Martin has a knack for being very organized and calm. He is a good ride leader, technically very savvy, he plans well and had his trip and way-points entered on his cell phone and GPS. It was a pleasure following Martin. 

Ken, Jean and Ross

Riding with a group is very different than riding solo or as a pair. Most people love riding in groups, especially with a good leader. You don’t have to think, you just follow the leader. Even if he takes the wrong turn, everybody follows. If he stops for some reason, everybody stops. Nobody asks the question why are we stopping?  They all stop. While it sounds like we are a bunch of lemmings, I can understand the underlying reasoning. The tempo of the ride, the roads picked, the gas stops, the whole riding atmosphere all depends on the lead rider. 

Great Lunch Stop

There is, in most cases, also a sweeper. The last guy in the group should be in contact with the leader just in case some event happens on the trip where communication is essential. Some groups sync their intercoms that way, the leader can use the helmet intercom to talk to the sweeper. In our case, since we all have experience riding in groups, our sweeper just happened to be a good rider with a cell phone, in case some mishap necessitated him calling the leader.  

Getting Ready to Ride

Martin is very conscious of riding brisk but not too fast. The roads he charted were local roads, twisty, woodsy and he even built a ferry crossing into our route. And yes, when we reached the ferry we picked up Fiona, who had this meeting spot pre-arranged, I am sure. The predicted rains never came. We had a dry ride, a beautiful day, a very scenic experience riding through the local, rural areas of Eastern Ontario and then into Western Quebec. 

Waiting For the Ferry Across the Ottawa River

Our goal for the day was the Hotel Adams in Gatineau, QC.

For folks who do not know, Quebec (QC) is the French speaking part of Canada. All signs are mainly in French. People speak French doing their daily routine, their business talk is French. Every Store, every restaurant, gas station, etc. conducts their affairs in French. Some folks here do not speak English at all. Restaurants for example

On the Ferry

have special staff where maybe a few people speak English, but the majority converse only in French. It is like Europe, you cross an invisible border and the language changes. The signs change, even their mentality, I believe, changes. Other countries think differently. It must have to do with the language or they way they do math.

Maybe it is unconscious but just think about this for a bit; just think about how numbers are ‘thought’ about. 

In English we say:  Twenty Nine:   29

If you look at 29 and say it literally in German it would be: Nine and Twenty.

In French it would be almost like in English… Twenty and Nine.

But now look at the number 99: in French you would say:

Four, twenty, ten, nine.      I kid you not!             quatre-vingt dix-neuf

Thinking like that, using a different language all day, influences your mentality.

So now we are in French-speaking Canada, a totally different world from let’s say Toronto. The housing alongside the roads, the way business places look, reminds me a bit more of Europe. We now come to more round-about intersections instead of traffic lights. Quebec is different.

Gatineau could be called Ottawa, but it’s not. One side of the river is Ottawa the other side is French, is Gatineau.  Our Motel is in Gatineau.  We took a taxi at night to have dinner in Ottawa, a 10-minute taxi ride away, but it was a bit like coming back from a different county once we crossed the Ottawa River, and yet, it is all Canada. At least I felt this way.

Chateau Laurier Across From the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa

I will just mention about the traffic in Gatineau, I guess bottle necks cannot be avoided, especially if you are in an old city like Gatineau (formerly Hull), but it was terrible. The last few kilometers were especially painful. Way too much traffic, the narrow roads could not handle the onslaught of cars. We were stuck in Gatineau’s rush hour. Yuk!   

Our hotel, the Motel Adam, was a busy place, too. When we checked in it was fairly ok, but later on, the parking lot was full. Even 2 tour buses were parked among the vehicles. This hotel is in a good location, there are all the amenities one could ask for around the hotel. Even a local bus stop was just a few steps away.

Old Train Station, Ottawa

Our dinner that night, after riding all afternoon was at the Smoque Shack, the place came as a highly recommended place and our group took up a long table. We had a bit of a wait for the food as we were such a large group but I was disappointed when the portions turned out to be rather smallish. I guess I am used to eating in the U.S. where portions are much bigger, most of the time. What I did not like at the Smoque Shack was that a meal came without any vegetables or side dishes. You could have them, of course but they were an extra charge and quite expensive, too. Our bill that night, for just 2 people, was close to $70. - We just had one beer each and no side dishes. 

It was most economical to use a taxi to go to dinner, 4 people sharing a ride made the one-way fare about $5.-/each.

Group riding is like living in a commune. Whatever the group plans and does, is what you do regardless of your preferences.  

The room at the Motel Adam was OK, we slept well that night.