In the phenomenal evolution of bicycle touring in Quebec over the past quarter-century, the creation of Grand Tour Desjardins in 1994 now seems like a turning point. Inspired by Australia's Great Victorian Bike Ride, founded in 1984, and Cycle Oregon in the U.S. in 1988, the first Grand Tour hoped to bring 1,000 people on bikes to our roads for a week.
For the Vélo Québec team, this project presented its share of challenges, both logistical - how to eat well at 1000? Where to sleep and wash? - and, of course, commercial - were so many people prepared to ride daily between 90 and 140 km, where the main accommodation was camping?
The response was spectacular! No fewer than 1,150 places were taken in five weeks, and on the morning of August 6, 1994, the merry caravan left Montreal, stopping successively in Joliette, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Thetford Mines, Victoriaville and Tracy, before returning to Parc La Fontaine on August 13, the day the Maison des cyclistes was inaugurated.
Among the participants, two-thirds of whom rode mountain bikes, the Sainte-Marie couple and their children Anne-Sophie, 4, and Thomas-Alexandre, 7, quickly became the darling of the tour. They were even applauded after completing the Trois-Rivières-Quebec City stage in eleven hours, Thomas-Alexandre having ridden all 130 km!
And while the weather was fine, with only one shower on the last day at 4pm, and everything went off without a hitch, journalist Pierre Foglia, a cycling enthusiast and Tour de France regular, pedaled the event and wrote a daily column for La Presse, depicting this bike-holiday life in his inimitable style: «Two-thirds of participants are out of shape. Half of them ride mopeds. But they go all the way. To the end of what? Only they know. At the end of their own little desert. [...] The Grand Tour confirms what I've suspected for a long time. The desert is not a geographical space. And adventure is at the end of oneself. Thank you, Suzanne.»
Following the success of the first Grand Tour, Vélo Québec decided to pursue the development of bicycle touring, and in 1995 launched a travel agency that would soon become a benchmark in its field. In 1996, the Tour des Cantons was created, with some 800 participants on two occasions, as was the ever-popular Petite Aventure, aimed at the whole family and attracting some 1,600 people each summer, a third of them under 18.
In 2011, the Grand Tour added Desjardins as a sponsor, bringing together between 1,400 and 1,800 participants who, year after year, travel the roads of Quebec, with occasional forays into Ontario, New Brunswick, Vermont and New York. The 2017 edition will visit the beautiful Chaudière-Appalaches region from August 5 to 11.
In addition to marking a turning point in the evolution of bicycle touring, the Grand Tour Desjardins helped democratize road cycling in Quebec. Since then, numerous one-day or longer cycling events have sprung up, and this type of bike has found its way into every store. And mountain biking is back on the trail!
