I rode my bike 650 kilometers this week. What did you do?

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.

Part of the tour included a pass to Upper Canada Village. I’m not normally interested in touristy things, but I had a good time looking at all the old stuff from the 19th century. I’m slightly embarassed to say that I was one of the first in the group to arrive and one of the last to leave. I took a bunch of pictures and had a ham sandwich for lunch. This last part was a mistake. I should have eaten more because later on in the day I had some problems, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

After Upper Canada Village I rode a bunch of bike paths, including a nice one called the Long Sault Parkway, but it was pretty bumpy. When I got to the bike paths going through Cornwall I wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction, but I figured as long as I stayed along the water I should be ok. Where I got really worried was where we were supposed to get off the bike path and on to Route 2 for the last stretch into Lancaster. I either missed it or was on the wrong path because I had no idea where it was. I saw a sign on the road beside me that said Lancaster was in that direction so I got off the path, walked my bike up a hill beside the highway and got on. I had no idea where I was going, to be blunt. I wasn’t sure if the road I was on was Route 2 (for the life of me I could not see any signs) or if it was going to take me where I needed to go in Lancaster. To make matters worse, I was down to one granola bar and almost completely out of water. And did I mention it was stinkin hot? Well over 30 degrees.

I ate the granola bar and drank the little water I had left and hoped I came across a store or chip wagon – anything to get something cold to drink. Several kilometres later I came across an oasis in the form of a chip wagon and got a cold Pepsi – I really needed the sugar. I also found out that, yes, I was on Route 2 and Lancaster was only a few kilometers away.

The motel we stayed at was a run-down fleabag place called the Impala but the air conditioner in my room worked and the water coming out of the faucet was cold so I was more than happy.

I got in around 4:15, which was largely because of the two hours I spent at Upper Canada Village, so it was a pretty long day.

Next: On to Montreal.

I hit Rockport, the half-way point of the day, a little earlier than I thought I would, around 11:15, and the cue sheet said that it was a good place to stop for lunch, and being sick of granola bars, decided to stop and get something nice to eat. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it had a nice deck that overlooked the water and I had a club sandwich, garden salad and a glass of coke. When I got the bill I was a little annoyed to find out that one glass of coke cost three dollars (damn tourist trap restaurants), but hey it was better than warm water and a granola bar.

I got to the motel around 2:15, which was way earlier than I expected and only the three amigos were ahead of me. I made a mental note to take my time more and look at more things along the way.

In the evening, a bunch of us rode our bikes into Prescott and had some mediocre Chinese food and called it an early night.