Day 2

Venise-en-Quebec to Knowlton (58 miles)

Tuesday morning it was still raining a bit, but there was no serious discussion about whether or not to ride. After a hearty breakfast (indoors) we headed out in the rain. The route jogged northeast for about five miles, then turned south on Rte. 133, to Rte 237, which runs eastward close to the US-Canada border to the town of Abercorn. The elevation profile for the day warned of a steep, hard hill-climb somewhere after the town of Frelighsburg, and I was dreading it all morning.

By this time we had split into a sight-seeing group, a fast group, and a middling group of people who didn’t want to stop for every photo-op but didn’t want to race all day, either. I was in the middle group with two others when we got to Frelighsburg. Damp and chilled, we had talked about stopping to get some hot chocolate, but took the wrong branch of the road through town and never saw a promising place. Instead we stopped in a driveway, still in a drizzle, to snack and wait for the others. I’d forgotten to pack my Clif bars and had to make do with mooching some trail mix and jelly candies. And so, when we finally came to the big hill outside of town, I was cold, tired and hungry, and bonked instantly when the road got steep. The legs wouldn’t do it, I had to walk my bike almost the whole way up. Luckily there was a big downhill, and only gently rolling roads after that.

Sutton - the dry-out place

We finally stopped for lunch after forty miles, in the town of Sutton. It had been raining hard off and on but we found a lovely, welcoming, country inn with a big covered terrasse where we could leave our bikes and rain gear while we ate inside.

Still trying to stick to my semi-vegetarian diet, I ordered la salade Niçoise, which is always good for a vocabulary lesson in beginning French language classes: de la laitue, des tomates, du thon, des olives noires . . . It was huge, I could barely finish it, and I don’t recall anything about les sardines, slimy, limp black things with bristly hairs on them. I picked them out. They had an excellent pureed vegetable soup, too, and we tried to guess the ingredients, or get the waitress to tell us, but she protested, “I am not the chef!” and wouldn’t tell.

Our cycling shoes leaked big puddles of rain-water under the table, but we left big tips in gratitude for the hospitality and good food.

From Sutton we rode on, still in the rain, to Knowlton, where we stayed at l’Auberge Knowlton, a nicely restored stage-coach inn with a handsome, wide second floor balcony over-looking the street. There are many up-scale boutiques and art studios in town, and the area is known for raising ducks at Lac Brome. Duck is the house specialty at l'Auberge Knowlton, and the rest of the group enjoyed it, but I was still full of salade Niçoise. I ordered tomato soup with bread, then shared someone’s huge chicken Caesar salad.