La Route Verte 8

20th August: Rivière-du-Loup to Dégelis

Odometer: 107 km, Start: 9.00am, Finish: 5.45pm, Avg: 18.5 km/h,
Weather: Sunny intervals, Temp: 14-20°C
Road Conditions: La Route Verte 8, most cinder surface, sometimes gravel, very good condition throughout. Quite smooth. Plenty of stops. Ascent: 450m/350m.

What a superb day! After a short climb out of Rivière-du-Loup, I joined La Route Verte 8 near the Trans-Canada #85 junction and spent the entire day completely away from the traffic on a cinder and gravel cycle-path! About 100km off-road in total.

Last look at the St. Lawrence, Rivière-du-Loup

RV 8 is also a major winter trail that goes across Quebec. So it’s bikes during the summer, snowmobiles etc. during the winter. The trail has its own road style signage, complete with warnings, instructions and distance markers. As you approach a town, the trail also has signage for hotels, restaurants and attractions. It’s brilliant!

I'm taking La Route Verte 8 to Edmundston (with a “d”). It’s all off-road!

The first half of today to Saint-Honoré was slightly uphill. I gently climbed from sea-level to over 400m through densely forested land. It was hard to determine the lie of the land because of the tree cover.

Cinder / gravel cycle-path through the forest. Typical of today’s ride.

Meandering river from the trail

After Saint-Honoré, I dropped back down and passed through the memorably named Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! (exclamation marks are correct) before reaching the very pretty Lac Témiscouata.

Sitting by Lac Témiscouata

For the next 30km, I rode along the lakeshore, passing through two towns, Cabano and Notre-Dame-du-Lac. It was a very pleasant ride and the cycle-path was quite busy with leisure cyclists. I’ve ended up for the day in Dégelis, at the end of the lake, a little short of the New Brunswick border. I continue tomorrow, off-road all the way to Edmundston!