625 Miles on 20" Wheels
December? Let’s talk summer.
Jen and Maia’s Canadian Cycling Adventure
As their bike mechanic, I’m in the lucky position of always getting to hear about Jen and Maia’s latest adventure, or the next one they’ve got lined up, or both. And so naturally I’d heard of a BIG one planned for this summer—got to hear them be excited for it, got to tune their bikes up before it, and finally, FINALLY, I got to corral them around the shop’s coffee table to hear their tale of how it went. Spoiler: it was awesome.
625 Miles on Folding E-bikes
At the mouth of the fjord
One day, early in the summer of 2025, two travelers pulled into the town of Tadoussac in the Canadian province of Quebec. Their foldable e-bikes were laden with the telltale panniers, sleeping bags, and roadside produce carried by bike tourists, all nestled atop the bikes’ deceivingly demure twenty-inch wheels. They were a bit more than halfway through their 625-mile journey…and didn’t yet know it was going to be a couple hundred miles longer than they expected. But we’ll get to that.
Tadoussac is situated where the Saguenay River flows into the enormous St Lawrence: this is whale-watching country. French is the dominant language here. And here, at the bottom of a delicious lengthy and picturesque descent, a ferry makes its way back and forth across the mouth of the fjord, taking passengers and their vehicles to its southern bank. That’s where our two travelers were headed.
Jen and Maia have been cyclo-touring together for nearly three decades.
30 years ago, finished with college, Jen hopped over to France and toured all over by bike. She’d heard the riding was good over there. It was. She traveled the country by two wheels, self-supported (what was the other option?), stopping along the way to pick up work in renovation or trail maintenance. She only got off the bike to take a train through the Pyrenees mountains.
There was no looking back; Jen’s enthusiasm for touring got Maia hooked on it too, and they’ve been regularly taking trips ever since, many of them in Wisconsin’s Driftless region.
The descent into Tadoussac, where a ferry crosses the Saguenay.
The Riviere Saguenay is North America’s southernmost fjord–a sea inlet carved by a glacier. It cuts west from the St Lawrence and has an average depth of 690 feet. That’s a fjord, not a typo. Despite its jaw-dropping depth, from the top it looks like a perfectly normal stunningly beautiful river, flanked by steep rocky cliffs peppered with conifers. The fjord ends in a lake about 65 miles inland, Lac Saint-Jean. That is, 65 miles by water. Google’s shortest overland route from the mouth of the river to the lake is twice that.
It had taken 19 hrs of driving for Jen and Maia to get from Madison to the Quebec town of La Baie, on the southern bank of the Saguenay. There they ditched the car and headed west on their bikes, following the river some 50 miles to reach Lac Saint-Jean. The Veloroute des Bleuets, or The Blueberry Trail, is a 160-mile bike route that circles the lake, traversing 15 townships. Think Door County vibes: French-trained chocolatiers, dreamy lodging in a converted church, nice lake views and good pastries aplenty.
After departing the lakeshore and making their way east along the north edge of the fjord, the bikers had to go for much longer stretches between towns.
“We were in complete wilderness, but we could be on a bike,” says Jen. The two both rave about their Tern e-bikes.
Maia climbs a hill along the northern edge of the fjord.
It’s worth a mention that Maia and Jen have done the majority of their long-distance bike touring on what we in the biz like to call acoustic bikes. (There’s nothing fun about saying “regular bicycles.”) Annually for about 15 years, the duo would ride to Maia’s folks’ farm in New Richmond, WI. “My mom was very against us riding on the roads,” Maia recalls. As Jen puts it, rather than a warm welcome upon their arrival by bike, “Her mom would just be shaking her head.” Nevertheless the visits were as enjoyable as the riding was beautiful, and the tradition continued. Add to this countless trips out to Paoli and more Driftless touring.
As the years wore on, Maia began to encounter difficulty keeping up with Jen on the hillier segments, and found the weight of her equipment was holding her back more and more.
“I like to bring lots of comfort clothing,” Maia says, to Jen’s knowing laughter. “I didn’t have the fitness level anymore to go on these fifty- to sixty-mile rides over hilly terrain.” She began to look into e-bikes. After taking one of Madison’s electric B-Cycles for a spin, she knew she was on the right track. Maia eventually landed on the Tern Vektron, a folding e-bike with smaller wheels than most, and a Bosch pedal assist system. It also has a rear rack with a 60lb weight capacity.
“I knew that I could take whatever I wanted and I no longer feared overloading my bike…. I needed something to continue the joy of bike touring and this was the perfect solution.”
Triumphant!
On their last night before reaching Tadoussac, they stayed in a hostel in the petite sanctuary-like village of Sainte Rose-du-Nord. The staffers at the town’s tourist bureau were amazed to see the two travelers arrive by bicycle in what was still technically the off-season. Maia and Jen handed out some of the soap and zinnia seeds they had brought to give to people they met along the way.
“The guy who was there was 74 and he saw me take off my helmet and said ‘NO WAY,’” reports Maia, a reference to her own grey hair and the mammoth hills in the surrounding area. “I told him, ‘well, I’ve got this phenomenal electric bike.’ Then he admitted he had one!”
Breakfast is fuel for travelers.
The next day was, by some metrics, the biggest: the ride from Ste Rose to the ferry crossing at Tadoussac. This segment brought the most dramatic elevation change of the trip, in an upward direction. A seemingly endless ascent on paved switchbacks, each one revealing another climb, another hairpin turn, another climb…. There were no towns between and no opportunities to recharge an e-bike battery.
“I was in the lowest gear and the highest assist mode a lot of the time, but it always came through.” Maia says she never doubted her bike. Such confidence requires knowing their batteries have enough range to finish the day even without a power outlet between towns. The secret? They each carry a second battery, swaddled in protective padded bags and strapped to the top of the rear rack when not in use.
In Tadoussac, Jen and Maia encountered a music festival: there was music everywhere, including, they were told, on the ferry across the fjord. As it turned out, the band must have been on break…and this wasn’t the only surprise. The bikers had planned on Tadoussac being the end of the bike portion of their trip; they’d figured they would ride the ferry back and forth across the fjord–just to do it–then take a second boat from Tadoussac up the river to La Baie, where they’d left the car. Despite being on the early side of the season, the boat was supposed to be running. It wasn’t: an ongoing dock repair was holding things up. And so, Jen and Maia enjoyed the dramatic view up the glacier-derived crevasse during their passage over its waters to the port at Baie-Sainte-Catherine, knowing they would simply remount their bikes and continue forward, glad to have the extra oomph of their Bosch motors.
Here’s what happened: Jen and Maia kept riding the bikes that they love. They made it back to their car. Ultimately, they speculate that the trip may have turned out for the better this way. After all, the two were in a gorgeous area full of breathtaking panoramas, great libraries, and enchanted little towns.
“We would run across these places that were like, is this real?” Jen recalls. It turns out that even the dependability of a great e-bike doesn’t dim the magic of the unexpected when bike touring.
Jen’s Vektron Q9, loaded with touring gear
A few more notes on the Vektron, by Zach
Jen and Maia have each made some key additions to their e-bikes that have been game changers:
-They each use a high-quality suspension seatpost, the Cane Creek Thudbuster.
-Both Vektrons have had their stock handlebars swapped out for a different Tern handlebar with more backsweep.
-Each rider has chosen her own saddle in place of the stock saddle.
With these changes, both riders claim these bikes fit them as well as or better than any other bike they’ve owned.
Don’t take my word for it:
“Beside the whisper quiet beauty of the ride, we both love the geometry of the bike, and prefer a more upright position while riding. This is especially enjoyable when you want to look at the awesome scenery while going effortlessly up the steep terrain….
“When I am starting out on a tour, with both batteries fully charged, I cycle along on my Vektron with the euphoric feeling that I can take on the world.”
—Maia
By the way, our Vektron S10 demo is for sale.
In fact, every e-bike in the store is currently on sale, some for $500 off MSRP.
Big, big thanks
…to Maia and Jen for giving me their time, their trust, and their stories. And for a wonderful batch of mini pumpkin muffins. I’m honored to be the one tuning up their bikes, and it’s so great to live vicariously through my customers’ rides, whether near or far.
