To say the least we were very sad to leave Montreal. Scotty had found his love for Jazz music, Ry had found his love of early 18th Century architecture and Neville had found his love of the EVERYTHING that Montreal has to offer. As we biked away from the City I looked back and saw Neville all teary eyed. This was honestly the first time I have seen him upset since Scott kicked his tooth out when he was in Grade 7.
Over our trip many people have asked us how good of shape we’re in now from biking this whole way…. I will be the first to answer this question and say that we aren’t in good shape at all. We have all developed what Neville calls “peanut butter bellies” and our aerobic capacity is very minimal. See, the thing about long distance biking like we are doing is that we pedal all day long, but I swear we never raise our heart rate to over 120BPM. We are in good biking shape, in terms of we can sit and pedal all day, but other then that we aren’t in good shape. Our main foods of Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches, Subway, granola bars and trail mix have not been the calorie friendly to us haha. I honestly don’t know how Jared from Subway lost all that weight from his Subway diet haha. Scotty has claimed that he is in the worst shape in his life, claiming that his 6 months of crossfit training prior has gone for nothing.
So leaving Montreal it was no surprise we were VERY sluggish. We grinded and battled for every kilometre today, hoping to blow past Trois Riviere, and end up a measly 80km from Quebec City the following day. It is crazy to see the size of the Churches in every small community along the way. The first couple Churches we seen, we would all be pumped up about them and pull over for some photos. But by about the fifth Church the novelty wore off and we realized that they aren’t as rare as we thought and there was no need for Paparrazzi Scotty to snap 200 different shots of us in front of them. As we pulled into Trois Riviere at about 6pm, we stopped off at a Mcdonalds in town, killing some time before it got dark, as we planned on throwing up our tents at some random field.
One of the things over the trip I have noticed that Ryan takes pride in is what he calls a “mainsy”. A mainsy, as Ryan defines it, is energetically snapping your fingers in unison while going down the main street of any village, town or City. He has done this in large Cities like Regina and has done this in small towns like Indian Head. No matter what the place is Ryan will get this excited look on his face and start doing a Mainsy. We were all very hesitant at first to follow in this odd entrance Ryan would do, but it slowly grew on us. We have had mainsys that have had people look at us very oddly and mainsys where we received honks from cars and cheers from passing pedestrians. Ryan never let’s any reaction arouse him. He will do it the following day no matter what.
So this leads us to today. It was about 8:30 entering the City of Trois Riviere when we turned onto Boulvarde Des Forge the main street of the City. Without any hesitation a huge smile arose on Ryan’s face, snapping his fingers and waving his arms in unison. However, it took Ryan about 3 seconds to realize that a massive music-fest was taking place right center of the street. This did not deter Ryan as he continued pedaling around the thousands of festival lovers mainsing the whole way. Scotty and I were laughing hysterically behind him, while Neville, who had been so upset about leaving Montreal, was all of a sudden in his element again! Ryan had claimed afterwards that “in his 2 years of mainsys that was the best mainsy of all time”!
We are stunned about how much is going on in Quebec in the summer. There is always live music, street vendors, shows, you name it and they have it. I am fearful that we are going to lose Neville to Quebec and there may only be 3 of us dipping our bikes in the Atlantic! It was a shame that we could only hang around the festival for an hour, as it was getting late and we still hadn’t a clue of where we were staying. Leaving Trois Riviere it was quickly getting dark and you could see captain Scotty getting nervous. As the sunset we continued biking into the night, looking frantically for a place to set our tents up. That’s when we saw a motel and Scotty made the decision to go talk to the manager. Scotty has always claimed to be the most cultured Mackinnon, so he figured he had the ability to use his 6 words of French he knows to try and swindle a deal. He talked to the lady for a good 5 minutes or so, before he walked out with this big grin on his face. He then told us that we could camp for free in front of the motel. What we didn’t know was the Lady was rounding up shovels, rakes and gloves, as she had told Scotty that we could stay for free if we removed all of the sawd, grass and weeds that had been removed from the entrance way of the Motel. So here we were at 10:30pm for an hour clearing out weeds for this French lady for a free nights stay. I, being an experienced landscaper, delegated jobs for the boys and pretty much made sure everything was in order. Halfway through the job the lady had Neville, the only capable handyman, changing showerheads in 3 different motel rooms. After we finished we all laughed about Scotty cutting a deal with a lady without even knowing what it was!
Anyways, Quebec City tomorrow! Bon Voyage.
Over our trip many people have asked us how good of shape we’re in now from biking this whole way…. I will be the first to answer this question and say that we aren’t in good shape at all. We have all developed what Neville calls “peanut butter bellies” and our aerobic capacity is very minimal. See, the thing about long distance biking like we are doing is that we pedal all day long, but I swear we never raise our heart rate to over 120BPM. We are in good biking shape, in terms of we can sit and pedal all day, but other then that we aren’t in good shape. Our main foods of Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches, Subway, granola bars and trail mix have not been the calorie friendly to us haha. I honestly don’t know how Jared from Subway lost all that weight from his Subway diet haha. Scotty has claimed that he is in the worst shape in his life, claiming that his 6 months of crossfit training prior has gone for nothing.
So leaving Montreal it was no surprise we were VERY sluggish. We grinded and battled for every kilometre today, hoping to blow past Trois Riviere, and end up a measly 80km from Quebec City the following day. It is crazy to see the size of the Churches in every small community along the way. The first couple Churches we seen, we would all be pumped up about them and pull over for some photos. But by about the fifth Church the novelty wore off and we realized that they aren’t as rare as we thought and there was no need for Paparrazzi Scotty to snap 200 different shots of us in front of them. As we pulled into Trois Riviere at about 6pm, we stopped off at a Mcdonalds in town, killing some time before it got dark, as we planned on throwing up our tents at some random field.
One of the things over the trip I have noticed that Ryan takes pride in is what he calls a “mainsy”. A mainsy, as Ryan defines it, is energetically snapping your fingers in unison while going down the main street of any village, town or City. He has done this in large Cities like Regina and has done this in small towns like Indian Head. No matter what the place is Ryan will get this excited look on his face and start doing a Mainsy. We were all very hesitant at first to follow in this odd entrance Ryan would do, but it slowly grew on us. We have had mainsys that have had people look at us very oddly and mainsys where we received honks from cars and cheers from passing pedestrians. Ryan never let’s any reaction arouse him. He will do it the following day no matter what.
So this leads us to today. It was about 8:30 entering the City of Trois Riviere when we turned onto Boulvarde Des Forge the main street of the City. Without any hesitation a huge smile arose on Ryan’s face, snapping his fingers and waving his arms in unison. However, it took Ryan about 3 seconds to realize that a massive music-fest was taking place right center of the street. This did not deter Ryan as he continued pedaling around the thousands of festival lovers mainsing the whole way. Scotty and I were laughing hysterically behind him, while Neville, who had been so upset about leaving Montreal, was all of a sudden in his element again! Ryan had claimed afterwards that “in his 2 years of mainsys that was the best mainsy of all time”!
We are stunned about how much is going on in Quebec in the summer. There is always live music, street vendors, shows, you name it and they have it. I am fearful that we are going to lose Neville to Quebec and there may only be 3 of us dipping our bikes in the Atlantic! It was a shame that we could only hang around the festival for an hour, as it was getting late and we still hadn’t a clue of where we were staying. Leaving Trois Riviere it was quickly getting dark and you could see captain Scotty getting nervous. As the sunset we continued biking into the night, looking frantically for a place to set our tents up. That’s when we saw a motel and Scotty made the decision to go talk to the manager. Scotty has always claimed to be the most cultured Mackinnon, so he figured he had the ability to use his 6 words of French he knows to try and swindle a deal. He talked to the lady for a good 5 minutes or so, before he walked out with this big grin on his face. He then told us that we could camp for free in front of the motel. What we didn’t know was the Lady was rounding up shovels, rakes and gloves, as she had told Scotty that we could stay for free if we removed all of the sawd, grass and weeds that had been removed from the entrance way of the Motel. So here we were at 10:30pm for an hour clearing out weeds for this French lady for a free nights stay. I, being an experienced landscaper, delegated jobs for the boys and pretty much made sure everything was in order. Halfway through the job the lady had Neville, the only capable handyman, changing showerheads in 3 different motel rooms. After we finished we all laughed about Scotty cutting a deal with a lady without even knowing what it was!
Anyways, Quebec City tomorrow! Bon Voyage.
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