We made the paper!

THE NORTH RENFREW TIMES - AUGUST 18, 2010

Back to school, the

long way around

Cyclist trio pedals through Deep River

on way to classes in Maine

Three cyclists on route from Oregon to Maine made a pit sare scheduled to finish their 65 day trip this week

BY STEPHANIE BUTLER

Three cyclists making their way

from Oregon to Maine made a pit

stop in Deep River last week.

Tamara Perreault, 20, Lucia

Cowles, 21, and Claire Ellwanger,

20, are on the last days of a cycling

trip that has taken them across the

United States and into Canada.

The three women flew out to

Oregon in June in order to cycle

back to Bowdoin College, in Maine,

where they attend classes.

Cowles said the group is cycling

“to see the country and the conti-

nent.”

“A lot of people in the US do

routes that are preplanned,”

Ellwanger said.

“We wanted to get off the beaten

path, so to speak.”

According to Perreault, hospitali-

ty has been excellent on both sides

of the border.

“I’ve been amazed by how friend-

ly people have been... we’ve been

taken in multiple times.”

At the start of the trip, the cyclists

were part of a larger group of five.

According to their blog, the group

split into two factions at the end of

July due to “artistic differences.”

Some of the funding for the trip

came from a $1,500 fellowship the

students won from Bowdoin.

“We’re definitely gonna try and

bring a lot back to the school from

this trip,” Ellwanger said.

A multimedia account of their

cycling trip can be found online at

http://biketobowdoin.blogspot.com.

They don't mess around with roads here

From Tamara, Claire, and Lucia.

This post is a summary of our days from Montreal to the Canada-ME border, an exciting trek over the Appalachian mountains.

We start the morning in Montreal at a reasonable hour, (8:00) but it takes forever to get out of the city and start going east. Since my uncle JC had kindly picked us up a bit south of his house the day we had arrived, we are determined to start biking out of the city from that exact spot. Unfortunately in order to get there we first had to navigate through a maze of bike paths that seemed to be taking us in circles around the city. It is almost lunch when we finally start biking on a road that we are sure is going directly east, so we stop at a lovely Artisan market and snack on fresh bread and delicious French cheeses. Biking out of the city there is a strong cross wind that threatens to blow us into the road and in the early afternoon we are caught in a massive downpour and completely soaked. But, the rain actually feels good and we have fun riding through it. Free shower! We stop at a DD to eat our lunch out of the rain and then continue on on the amazing bike path we had discovered. If bike paths had ratings, this one would be five star. It is well marked, paved, and every so often we pass by a picnic area with a water spigot and some kind of interesting sculpture. The trail ends in the town of Waterloo, the self proclaimed, "biking capital of Canada." We bike down the road until it gets dark and we have to stop in the small town of Eastman. The tortellini we have purchased for dinner is delicious.

The next morning we plan to get up early, but sleep through our alarm. So, after a breakfast of cereal from a local gas station store we get a bit of a late start. Down the road we have to go around two traffic circles, the first ones of the trip! We pass by a couple cute towns with touristy streets filled with small shops. There are many beautiful blue lakes in this area, dotted with boats, and bordered by well-maintained bike paths. After we bike past Lake Magog we are suddenly faced with a HUGE hill. It is as if the road has turned into a wall in front of us. Everyone gets a bit nervous on the approach, but we all bike all the way up successfully, despite the fact that there are two extremely steep sections that force us to stand up in our granny gear. The road continues hilly and windy, but the sun is shining and the weather is excellent. For a snack we stop at a roadside stand with fresh baked goods and fruit. We enjoy a veggie pot pie, a large peanut butter cookie and raspberry-blueberry muffins. After our snack we continue into the nearby town of Lennoxville and buy food for lunch and dinner. In the early afternoon we pass through the very small town of Cookshire-Eaton, which was not notable at all, except for the fact that I love the name. We stop in another small town for lunch, and get a bit wet in the afternoon rainstorm that passed through. As we continue biking we realize that the road we are on is called "Le Route de Sommets, translated in english as "the Summit Drive." I could not believe that was the name of the road. It heads straight east, and it goes straight over every mountain that is in its way (which happened to be quite a few.) This offers spectacular views of the surrounding mountain ranges, but is rather tiring as a biker. Each hill has a steep part roughly equivalent grade to that of the first big hill of the day- we think about 11%. But everyone biked every hill, and arrived in high spirits at the border late in the day. There we meet three friendly cyclists who started their trip 3 days ago in Portland ME and are heading to Montreal. We wish them luck on the road we have just biked. Surprisingly the border guards are quite friendly and inquire about our trip. We all get Twix ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches in the first US gas station to celebrate. About 5 miles down the road we stop at a beautiful campground by a lake because the sun is starting to set. We have a team meeting and decide that tomorrow we will attempt to bike the 140 miles into Brunswick and the Atlantic ocean. The prospect makes me extremely excited and a bit nervous.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us along the way and who followed our blog! Hope you enjoyed it. :-)

-Tamara