Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to Montreal

August 11, 2010

Today's ride was one of our favourites in the Eastern Townships. In this region, the Route Verte trail is called Piste Cyclable Canal-de-Chambly. We followed the river and canal for miles encountering about 9 locks, pleasure boats and many cyclists.

What's this? A vehicle on the bike path? It's ok, it's an ingenious way to water the hanging baskets along the path.

It was interesting watching boats go through the locks - all maintained and run by Parks Canada - some automated and others run, the old way, by hand.

We met Pascal,a local rider, who rode a Dutch low racer bike "Optima Raptor". A beautiful recumbent mostly made of carbon. As recumbents are so rare in Quebec, we mutually stopped and got acquainted admiring the other's bike. Since it is difficult to buy a recumbent in Quebec, Pascal had ordered his from France. Mary Ellen explained that she also had ordered her single Bacchetta Giro 20 from Colorado, Angletech Cyclery.

Enjoyed a picnic lunch at a park in Chambly under the shade of the trees - an increasingly hot and humid day.

We were entertained by the kids at a day camp who were getting instruction from the local firefighters who then turned on their hoses and the kids went crazy. We were tempted to join them!

We now know what route closed - detour looks like in French!

Barry emerging from our first bike carousel in Longueuil.

As we were approaching Longueuil, the weather suddenly changed: the sky became black, the winds increased and the humidity was unbearable. We were so close to Montreal and we decided to press on to avoid the approaching electrical storm.

Thanks to Route Verte, we had a fairly easy ride into one of Canda's largest cities, Montreal. We rode over another bridgeand through Parc Jean Drapeau, the site of Expo 67.

We even rode a lap of the Molson Indy car racing track which helped to get us hopelessly lost in the Parc.We had an interesting ride through Old Montreal. We made a note that when we return to Montreal after our week of cycling around Lac St. Jean we must return and walk around this area.

Cycling in Montreal - note the bike lane separated from vehicles by a median.

When we got to our B&B we had the task of taking apart the bike and putting it into its travel bag for the train ride to Hebertville Station tomorrow. Ephraim and Yves, the hosts at Gingerbread Manor have kindly given us a safe place to store our bike bag while we have been travelling. We really appreciate this service as it has made it possible for us to travel without worrying about the safe storage of our bag and it gave us a good spot for dis/assembling our bike.
It felt good to be back in Montreal. We love the location of our B&B, adjacent to a park and interesting neighbourhoods. For dinner, we went to the nearest Depanneur, bought calzones and ice cream and sat on the street taking in the incredible vibe of Montreal - so different from the countryside we have been enjoying for several weeks.

Almost finished - we're hot and tired and looking forward to a shower and dinner.

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,130 km (702 miles)

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