The last day. I was a little sad knowing that this was the final day of riding on this trip, but on the other hand, I really wanted to get to Montreal. There were two reasons for this: 1) To complete the trip and know that I accomplished what I had set out to do, and 2) To hang out in Montreal; it’s been a couple of years since I was there and it’s always fun.
Others had similiar ideas; some riders left shortly before 7 a.m. I don’t know what they did for breakfast because it wasn’t scheduled until 7-7:30. I wanted to get going, too, but I learned my lesson from the previous day and got to the designated breakfast spot (a greasy spoon called Donnie O’s) around 7:30, and hoped to have eaten and be on the road by 8 a.m.
And that was pretty much what happened. I politely declined an offer to ride with one of the groups because they were going to stop at the place where another one of us was staying and I saw that taking probably an hour, so I headed out by myself, around 8:05.
Early mornings became my favorite time to ride – traffic was minimal, the weather was cool and the sun wasn’t too bright. I hit the border around 8:45. I was a little disappointed; I was hoping for a huge Bienvenue Quebec sign that I could park my bike by and take a photo of, but there wasn’t. There were actually two signs, but both were equally anti-climactic. The first indication that I crossed the border was a small sign indicating the change in the name of the highway. And I would have missed it if it wasn’t for the notice spray-painted on the road by the Friends for Life Bike Rally people. A couple of kilometres later was a sign that said, simply, Quebec.
Side Note: The directions spray-painted on the road by the Bike Rally saved my bacon more than once on this trip.
The cue sheet gave us a choice just after we passed through St Zotique: go through some little town I didn’t learn the name of, or take a bike path and connect with the route again at Pointe des Cascades. I wasn’t sure which one to take as the directions on the cue sheet seemed equally confusing, but when I got to the decision point, the three amigos were there taking a break. They were asking me which route I was going to take and I said I wasn’t sure, whichever one has the least chance of getting me lost is more ideal. Jules, one of the three, pointed to the bike path and said “you can’t get lost on 20 km of bike path”. Fair enough. Onward.
And it was a nice ride. It was almost entirely along the Soulanges Canal, with some interesting -looking abandoned locks and such. It was disappointing when I had to get off the bike path and get back on the roads, cuz damn, it was confusing until I got on Lakeshore Blvd, which was the road that goes into Montreal. In fact, it goes through all the towns and communities along the way, changing names depending on what town you’re in, until it becomes Boul. Lasalle, which means you’re on the outskirts of Montreal.
But as much as I learned about the importance of eating and resting while on the road, neglecting these lessons came back to haunt me in my race to the finish. I didn’t take my first proper break until I was 75-80 km into the ride, and boy was I bagged. I had run out of water and stopped at a convenience store in Beaconsfield to refill and get a sandwich for lunch, and when I stopped a couple of kilometres later to eat and re-hydrate I fell asleep on the grass for a few minutes. I ended up sitting under a tree for a half-hour before getting back on my bike and saying to myself “Let’s get this over with.”
But after a half-hour or so I found a new wind and felt pretty good as I went through the beach communities near Montreal. Lasalle goes right into the city and I pretty much took it to the Lachine Canal, which had lots of weekend riders, roller-bladers and such, which was irritating, but at that point I was so close I thought I was about 15 minutes from the end.
Until I missed Place Jacques-Cartier, and I rode around Old Montreal raging at the directions to the hotel (“Left on Notre Dame? I can’t go left, it’s a fucking one-way street! Grrrr”). I finally found the place at 3 p.m. and while I didn’t like finishing the trip in a foul mood, at least I finished it.
There was some mix up with where my bag was, but after that got straightened out I showered and snoozed and met my fellow travellers for a small reception before we went out for supper at Dunn’s on St Catherine. The highlight of supper was this guy on the ride, Clay, who was from Maryland and had never heard of poutine before, but agreed to try it with his monster Montreal smoked meat sandwich. It was probably best they screwed his order up and it came with regular fries instead of poutine because he looked like he would have been sick if we made him eat anything other than the ginourmous sandwich he had going.
After supper I thought about going out but I was really tired and like most of the group, headed back to the hotel. I watched the second quarter of the Sask/Hamilton game and went to bed.