55 km 3 hours, 45 minutes.Again, we departed late, shortly after noon. We had a nice breakfast at a local $2 special greasy spoon. It provided a nice opportunity to visit with Kirstin prior to leaving.
We made our way to the bike path and followed it into downtown Montreal. Again, the drivers were very nice, keeping well back and passing slowly as we made our way down to the Lachine Canal path.
Throughout the day, my GPS started to randomly turn off. I’m not sure why this is happening. I did a firmware upgrade before we left with the theory that the new firmware draws less on the battery. I haven’t noticed a significant difference. I’m going to have to email Garmin to see what’s up (I have a Garmin Edge 305).
It seem to take forever to ride across the Island of Montreal. The path was nice, but I wasn’t feeling great. Shortly after we started riding, I began to feel queasy. I didn’t have any appetite. When we stopped for lunch, it was very difficult to find something appetizing. Eventually I settled for a couple of croissants, an orange, and a V8. Scott had a Big Mac meal for lunch, and wasn’t feeling much better.
At one point, we lost the path and ended up riding on Notre-Dame, which was a little busy. It wasn’t difficult, but also wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as following a path. At one point a girl fell (she was looking back at us) and her chain fell off. Scott stopped to see if she was OK. We then asked her where the trail was. She didn’t speak much English, so the request was made in a combination of broken French and English. She fixed her chain and guided us to the pathway .. I’m so glad she had to stop or we would likely have not found the pathway for quite some time.
Neither of us were feeling great, so perhaps it was something we ate. In any case, we knew we were not going to be riding for too much longer. We decided to call a motel in Repentigny, just off the Island of Montreal, and make a reservation. It being a Friday, we were concerned we would find anything. We wanted a room for 2 nights; however, they were booked on Saturday, so we reserved the room they had available for the one night.
When we arrived at the motel, they had had a cancellation, and so had a room for two night; however, it was a suite. For an extra $10 per night we got a large room with a kitchen. I took a look and was delighted. We found a nice place to stay for two nights … It had laundry and Internet although we need to go to the patio to check it.
I’ll be happy for the break …
Scott says:
It was neat to ride through some areas of Montreal I’ve never seen before. The Lachine Canal path was particularly nice, and had some impressive-looking loft conversions on the North side. They looked quite new, and were among many nice looking condos. I would have liked to spend a bit more time in Montreal as a tourist, but we can always do that when we get back.
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Montreal is certainly worth visiting when you have more time. Be sure and check out the Latin Quarter and the Gay Village.