62.5 mi / 5:04:55 time / 12.3 mph avg. / 434 ft. climbing
Staying at The Tree House AirBNB

We couldn’t see any incredible sunset last night since the miles-wide river had switched from our west side to our east side, boo!  Oh, but wait, that meant we could see an incredible sunrise instead over our morning coffee and cream cheese-iced cinnamon rolls. Fair trade! We were up early enough to see it because we had a longish day and wanted to beat the chances of afternoon rain in the forecast. 

Yesterday just after we came off the bridge into Canada, we stopped briefly to check for directions for a grocery store. A guy saw us, came over and offered actually-helpful directions. Then this morning, as we stopped on the side of the road to verify the location of the restaurant we were heading for, a woman walked up and asked in French what we were looking for (or at least I assumed!) Even though she didn’t speak English, she still tried to help,  and successfully communicated the location of a different restaurant for us to go to. These were our first two such encounters of the whole trip, so apparently the “Friendly Canadian” is more than just a stereotype! 

We might start needing to push the “Drunk Canadian” stereotype a bit more though, since the two other parties in the place were both drinking beer at 9:30 in the morning! We just had coffee ourselves, and a good breakfast while inferring some new French words on the menu.  

We got some lunch at the cute touristy riverside hamlet of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellvue, where we quickly took care of some Quebec requirements: Unibroue beer, and poutine.

Before breakfast we were on an empty highway frontage road with a wide shoulder/bike lane, and after we picked up a bike trail running along an old canal. After a couple of bridges we hit the outskirts of Montreal, where we were on a riverfront road with more bicycles than cars (it was almost the exact equivalent of Sheridan Road on Chicago’s North Shore). And then back onto a canal bike path through the heart of Montreal (the equivalent of Chicago’s Lakefront Path), where we saw increasing numbers of Bixi rental bikes (the equivalent of Chicago’s Divvy bikes) as we neared the center. 

But forget Chicago. I’ve been to Portland, Oregon many times, and I’m pretty confident in stating that Montreal beats it as the most bike-friendly and bike-focused city in North America. The only reason we even routed up north through Canada to get to Maine was because Google Maps suggested it, and I’m pretty sure that Google Maps suggested it because of all the excellent bicycle facilities that fill the entire region. 

Now if only they could get some of those facilities smoothed out. The river road south of Montreal was particularly brutal with the cracks and bumps, and the jarring took quite a bit of fun out of the ride. Also the strong crosswind was wearing on us, but since it was the first non-tailwind we’ve had since the first day, we couldn’t complain too much. A couple of young couples on the Montreal canal path said something in French to which I replied “sorry I don’t understand but I assume it was positive!”, and they confirmed in English that it was, and invited us to a nearby brewpub they were heading for. That interaction lifted our spirits quite a bit for the final stretch, though sadly we decided to skip the brewpub (of course mobbed with bicycles when we passed), since we wanted to make it to our accommodations before the rain got to us. 

We succeeded, arriving at our AirBNB rental, a huge quirky loft space in the Plateau district. We’re both excited to explore this city, sleep in a bed, and enjoy a day off!  

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2016 at 8:00 pm and is filed under 2016 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.