St. Eustache – Montreal

By Deanna on October 11, 2013 • ( 1 )

Today: 60 km

To date: 5,958 km

To go: 1,842 km

The ride into Montreal was not very enjoyable. Part of it was due to Alex’s & mine different navigational styles – I like to plan out a route, whereas Alex just wings it. I don’t mind winging it – but I do not like leading without a plan – and if Alex is ahead of me, I cannot keep up… it’s just generally a grumpy affair. Montreal was confusing because there is no specific bike route and traffic was nasty. Anyway we eventually made it to a coffee shop and the caffeine fix restored my mood.

Next on our list of things to do in town was a bike shop – Alex had switched his pedals but still had a creak. We ended up at a little hole in the wall bike shop where the one attendant did not speak English – Alex seems to be doing much better with French as he managed to convey his problem. The guy took everything apart, greased it all and put it back together again. There is no more creak! Hope it lasts!

We saw a lot of the city sights during our bike shop search, but we were told we must go up Mont Royal to see the view. Turns out this is a very steep hill! And we of course approached it from the harder of two ways. It was quite amusing to me – being fully loaded and plodding up this hill, being repeatedly passed by local cyclists doing their hill training. I must admit it made me feel really good when some people had to get off their bikes and push…. aaahh hello ego.

Alex’s photo from the lookout

We were in Montreal on a Saturday night and it was fantastic, but perhaps it’s always this fantastic?! We found a pedestrian street to have dinner – delicious Mexican – and watched this lively city in action. From our table you could see an outdoor Salsa dance class and later a band on Dr. Seussical contraptions rolled by!

We wandered down the closed off street following the music and a few people chatted us up about our bikes – got an invitation to follow some people home across town, but opted to continue exploring the city. We came across a large movie screen playing a movie as part of the World Film Festival, but unfortunately could not see it…..

Somehow we thought it was about midnight at this time so we decided to have a blizzard for dessert and find somewhere to sleep. We ended up down by the water in some industrial land. There was nowhere to put a tent, so again we just got our mattresses out and slept under the stars. After settling in, we realized it was actually only about 9pm!