First solo trip: Montreal to Couturier (nowhere Quebec) – 515km

2019.06.26 – 2019.06.30 (5 days)

Day 1: I leave home (Montreal) around 10 AM and head to Trois-Rivières where I rented a room for the night through airbnb. 156km and 10 hours later, I’ve arrived. I’m exhausted.

Day 2: Trois-Rivières to Lévis: 160km. I stay at a cute airbnb by the St Lawrence River. The night of sleep is simply delicious.

Day 3: Lévis to Saint-Jean-Port-Joli: 104km. I stay at a great hostel, Aubergélit, where I enjoy a dip in their exterior spa. I then go for food and a drink at a nearby terrace overlooking the river, where I’m spoiled with a sunset.

Day 4: Saint-Jean-Port-Joli to Rivière-du-Loup: 99km. The last leg of this segment was rough. I had to battle with my mind to convince it to convince my body to keep pedaling. I had to whisper words of encouragement to myself, out loud. It worked; I made it to my hostel (Auberge Internationale Rivière-du-Loup).

Day 5: Rivière-du-Loup to Couturier: 37km. My mom and brother were meeting me by car to pick me up. We ended up meeting on this road very much in the middle of nowhere. There was a nice trail in the forest getting there from Rivière-du-Loup. I was completely alone, so I decided to listen to some Bob Dylan out loud on my phone in celebration of the last kilometers of this first solo trip.

5 days and 515km later, I had done it. There were moments of exhaustion, moments of having the wind sometimes completely against me and feeling like I was moving at the speed of a turtle, moments where my right knee hurt, and of course, the butt. Let’s talk about the butt for a minute, please. It hurts: the bones in that area get sensitive when they’re getting used to the saddle. Also, I have sensitive skin, and so the skin that rubs against the saddle also gets sensitive, very sensitive. I later found the combination of things that work, for me, in order to feel comfortable for long distances on the saddle, which I’ll talk about in a future post.

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