GNBR East Day 12 - Saint Raymond to Quebec City

45.2 miles, 961’ climbing

Sept 3, 2026

Moose sightings: 0

Hilton Quebec

It rained a couple of centimeters overnight, and it was still coming down in the morning, so we took our time packing up. We had a continental breakfast in our hotel which consisted of toast, banana and coffee. Finally we put on the rain gear and headed out.

Today’s route was supposed to take us on some local singletrack which we were looking forward to. On the other hand, puddles and mud on loaded bikes didn’t sound fun. Finally we made the decision to skip the single track and roll into Quebec City on the rail trail. It continued to rain all morning, sometimes hard, so we probably made the right call for ourselves.

As we pulled onto the rail trail, we saw a plaque describing the 1915 visit of then ex-President Teddy Roosevelt to Saint Raymond. He was pictured with a moose. Today was probably our last chance to see one with the likelihood decreasing as we roll thru more urban areas, but we kept watching. The only wildlife we saw was a soggy and slightly befuddled grouse who was trailside.

After about 7 miles of forest, the rail trail passed beside a large lake. To our left were floating docks, and to our right were beautiful homes with terraced, landscaped paths leading down to the docks and the rail trail. There was more forest, then more and more neighborhoods on the outskirts of Quebec City. We passed a preserved train car from the old railway and afterwards rolled onto the paved path, Chemin des Cheminots, which may be part of the rail trail too. It was cold, and we stopped for lunch at a burger joint adjacent to the path. When we came out, the rain stopped and the sun came out. 

Because our bags and bikes were mud splattered, we made our way to a nearby self-service car wash to spray everything off. We would be on pavement the rest of the way. We didn’t book our hotel until 2 days ago, and the only place we could find we decided would be too nice for mud encrusted bikes.

We wound our way into town, first weaving our way through detours and road closures, then taking paths through parks alongside a canal. The route took us all the way to the waterfront at old Quebec. It turned out that our hotel was on top of the hill blocked by a cliff. We laughed when Google Maps directed us up a very long steep staircase to get there. Instead, we pedaled west and found a steep path up the hill, undoubtedly our biggest elevation gain of the day. At our hotel, we locked our bikes in storage for a few days while we explored the city a bit. The old city is very European looking and somewhat touristy with many shops, restaurants, old buildings, public art, and some old town walls.