Mountain biking in Gatineau Park

Spring blossoms in Virginia

Ok, so we are roadies, except that we bought mountain bikes one year to enjoy the trails in the nearby Gatineau Park. We have been members of the Ottawa Bicycle Club (OBC) since moving to Ottawa in 1992. In fact, Ray spent four years as president.

What we like best is bicycle touring. We have taken advantage of and helped organize several of the OBC road trips. The season begins with a casual get together for keeners in March in North Carolina and follows closely with a popular Inn-to-Inn tour in Virginia. We have enjoyed the early spring in both these areas.

The biggest event for the OBC is the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour (RLCT), a two day back-to-back century ride from Ottawa to Kingston and back. It is a lot of fun with over 1,000 cyclists participating each year. For the novices or those who like a more relaxed week-end, there is a metric century option.

Summer finds us in Vermont for a week long Inn-to-Inn tour. We get to climb hills and explore the numerous backroads in Vermont and the neighbouring states of New Hampshire and New York. In August 2001, we took our bicycles to Prince Edward Island. We had five beautiful days, staying in Bed and Breakfasts and exploring the rural country roads and almost deserted beaches.

For more information on OBC rides and tours, see their web site: Ottawa Bicycle Club

We have explored several other parts of North America and Europe by bicycle. We have taken our bicycles to San Fransisco and toured the Napa Valley. We travelled to Portland, Oregon spent nine days bicycling down the Oregon coast. We have toured four times in France, the last time in 1998 when we stayed in Limoux, at Le Monastère and explored the land of the Cathars south of Carcasonne with Chris Georgas (highly recommended).

For more information on Chris Georgas trips see: Le Monastère

April 26, 2001 we left Canada for four weeks bicycling in Italy. We flew to Venice and bicycled down the coast to Rimini, where we met up with our friends Joan and Ric Potter. The four of us headed across Umbria and Tuscany, ending in La Spezia on the west coast. Yes, we carried all our clothes in panniers and made our own route. If you wish to learn more about our adventures: see Italy.

In May of 2013 Jeanne explored the Netherlands for two weeks on a guided bicycle tour, staying on a barge each night, with Bike and Barge company out of Seattle, Washington. It was well organized and great fun. Read about Jeanne's trip with photos on Netherlands.

June 2015 found us biking down the Danube from Passau to Budapest, with our friends Marg and Jack Dunphy, from Calgary. We did a self-directed tour with our hotels booked and luggage taken from town to town. We highly recommend biketours.com who arranged our trip. Read about our tour with links to photos on Google on Danube by Bike.

Two years later, in 2017, we took advantage of plans to join a group of our friends in Italy to arrange for a week of bicycling in the heel of Italy, theprovine of Apulia. Read and see an album of photos of our trip on Apulia Bike Tour.

Another two years and another group get together, this time in Portugal. Rather that bike in Portugal, we arranged to stay in Alcudia, Mallorca, Spain, rent eBikes this time and take day trips from our villa. Read and see an album of photos about this trip on eBiking in Mallorca.

We have gained quite a bit of information from internet writeups of other people's trips and we hope to be as good an inspiration for other prospective bicycle tourists.