67 km around Île d'Orléans... Here it was our first year to try it, and in the end we had to turn around and go home. There were five of us -- Charles, Robert, Simon, Bernard, and me -- five skaters who aren't in the habit of saying, "I don't feel like skating..." We waited around till the very last minute, half in the hope that one of us would say "Let's do it!", half just to make sure that no one else did after we'd left -- because we were all within an inch of putting on our skates, in spite of the lousy conditions. Nevertheless, our trip to Île d'Orléans gave us a chance to make an inspection of the course and the event as a whole, and the rest of this report is intended to serve as a source of information for the future. We were all of the opinion that we should promote this event among skaters, and come back next year. The Tour de l'Île d'Orléans is a non-competitive tour, a fund-raiser for the Quebec Foundation for the Deaf. Contact numbers are: (418) 663-8687, or 1-800-663-8356; fax (418) 666-0123. You can also write to: Le Tour de l'Île d'Orléans, 3348 boul. Mgr Gauthier, Beauport, QC  G1E 2W2. Despite the fact that this event was conceived with cyclists in mind, the organisers were happy to give us permission to join them on skates. This is a great example of how we skaters can grow our schedule of events: by courteously pairing up with cyclists and runners. A few details about how the tour is run. There are 6 pelotons, defined by their maximum speed: 30 km/h, 25 km/h, 22 km/h, 15 km/h, and 15 km/h on a shortened course (52 as opposed to 67 km). Each peloton is escorted by security vehicles, and is given a whole lane. If you leave your peloton to skate or ride alone, you must keep to the right. There are two 20-minute rests in the course of the tour, which considerably facilitates the task of rolling at a good speed if that's what you want to do. (For comparison, I averaged 25.8 km/h at the 2002 Ottawa Marathon, and intended to do the tour with the 22 km/h peloton. This would have given me a chance to observe the course as a whole instead of watching the road. The slowest peloton would be an easy roll at 15 km/h, perfect for a bit of tourism, and why not?) A look at the course from a skater's point of view: first of all, it's a magnificent course. The north side (which we do first, after starting from the downriver end near St-François) is quite high, providing superb panoramas of the north shore and Mont Ste-Anne. The south side, running along the water, goes through the most touristy sections and is extremely pretty. Most of the course is relatively flat or gently undulating. However there are two significant climbs, the first at the exit from Ste-Pétronille (upriver end, facing Québec), which is long but not terribly high. The second, higher, is precisely before the end of the tour. Between these two climbs there's a very steep one (mercifully short!) at the exit from St-Jean. I mention these climbs just for your information -- good reason to choose a peloton that you can roll with easily for the rest of the course. Climbing implies downhills, of which there are a few, but only two that pose any technical challenge. The entry into Ste-Pétronille descends by easy steps until the last one, which takes a quick short drop followed by a tight left curve. But the slope is neither long nor too steep, so the descent as a whole is easily doable, on condition that you take it easy rather than putting on speed, and be ready to brake a little if you have to. The second downhill is at the entry into St-Laurent. Here we gain quite a bit more speed, and again at the bottom there's a tight left curve -- which you have to take while staying in the right lane. If you're used to the downhill on Île Ste-Hélène in Montréal, or the bigger ones on the Oka trail, you won't have any problem with the actual speed, but -- to be sure of making that curve at the bottom, you should brake throughout the first half of the descent. According to our repeated inspection (in the car), the road surface is relatively good. The few cracks and so on are easy to avoid. There's a good section of new pavement in St-Jean. It's possible that other sections will be prepared for repaving by being scraped -- striated -- as we saw in St-Laurent. Obviously striations are incompatible with skate wheels, but the striated parts would have been easy to skate around. The important thing is to know they're there. On the subject of lodging, on our visit we took advantage of the Camp St-François (418-667-0310 / fax 418-661-6339), which is located just a few hundred meters from the start. It's a real camp with bunkbeds and so on, but very comfortable, and the toilets and showers are modern, numerous, and clean. For one night's sleep plus breakfast, we paid around $20 each! If you decide to go there, you get to it by a little road next to the St-François church (between the church and the school). There's no sign for the camp, so you have to know that this is where to go. You go to the end of the road, turn right, and continue to the bottom where you arrive in the middle of the camp, which is on the banks of the St-Lawrence. It's about 3 hours from Montréal. Summing up, all of us felt that this is a exceptionally well organized event. With registration at $25, and lodging no more than that if you want, the cost of participating is incredibly cheap. The organisers welcomed us -- we weren't in any way excluded due to not being cyclists. And you just have to see how pretty this course is... You don't have to have any athletic goal in mind in order to get a whole lot of pleasure out of this one. I encourage all skaters to consider the Tour de l'Île d'Orléans next year! Rod Willmot