Take Me to the River

   We felt lucky that the weather panned out for the World Championship race, because the day after, the radar showed that we were definitely going to get some rain. Of course, we didn’t want to be just sitting round the apartment all day, so Sue came up with a plan to do some exploring using a variety of modes incorporated in Montreal’s public transportation system (see map on left; click to enlarge).
   Sue is happiest on or near the water, and she found out that the Navark company provides shuttles, cruises and events in 14 cities all along the St. Lawrence River. We hopped on the Metro (orange line) once again, but this time we connected to the green line, which headed northeast from Montreal. We started our boat excursion from the municipality of Pointe-aux-Trembles and motored south on the St. Lawrence (scroll down to see the blue line marked on the map of our bike route that I’ve included at the bottom of this blog entry).
   Out on the river, we came to a better understanding geography of the waterway in relationship to the city, and saw some of the modern port area, with a large ship at the refinery area and a container ship being loaded. I learned later that the Tailhandier Mudflats to the east were once a chain of islands, but hundreds of years of silt deposited by the river have since connected them.
   We cruised under the Route 25 bridge and around the southern end of Charron Island, which on summer days would host families at the Longueuil Municipal Beach. Also on the island is a golf course and the Boucherville Islands National Park. We passed a birdwatching station on the northern tip of the island and were soon docking at Bourcherville.

   This boat service was free, to provide traffic relief from the tunnel construction, so Sue and I were just doing a quick turnaround. We felt really stupid that we nearly missed the reboarding of the boat when we were caught up reading signs about the city’s history. Well, I was attempting to translate the French, and Sue was patiently providing an assessment of my accuracy (or inaccuracy).
   A welcome break from the misty rain allowed us to take a walk after the boat ride, in combination with a short bus ride, to the green line Metro station end point at Honoré-Beaugrand. Our next stop was at McGill University for a transfer to the city’s new REM line. No Mike Stipe, Peter Buck, etc. were not operating the light rail cars, nor was their music featured on the intercom; it stands for Réseau Express Métropolitain (Metro Express Network). The automated, super-smooth and quiet railway connects the airport and communities to the city and the suburbs across the St. Lawrence River to the southeast.

   Despite the outdated maps on the Metro that showed the line “under construction”, we had caught a glimpse of the trains going over the Champlain Bridge during television coverage of the World Championship races, and Sue investigated it further. While the airport station was yet to be completed, there were currently 23 stations online along its approximately 39 miles of track. We were already impressed by the Metro overall, but this addition to Montreal’s transit system was absolutely wonderful!
   I really enjoyed how the tracks made a long gentle arc high over the freight and passenger railyards to the east of the city to connect with Nun’s Island and the Champlain Bridge. All week we had enjoyed decent weather and wonderfully clear views, but now we could barely make out the outlines of buildings and bridges just a mile or two away because of the low-lying clouds that had now settled over the area.

   We doubled back to the Édouard-Montpetit Station, which is on the University of Montreal’s campus, near the athletics complex (again, view our route, this time in green, included on the bicycle route map). A short bus ride took us close to the Roll’V restaurant, where we could grab some repeat take-out of the bánh mì and spring rolls! On the way, I was able to check out a couple bike shops nearby and gasped to see one of Tadei Pogacar’s Colnago team bikes with a price tag of over $21,000 – why not buy two?

   Beginning our final full day in Montreal, we hopped on our much-less-expensive bikes and headed over to the Cartier Station to board the Metro for the final time. We were again starting at UQAM and duplicating the convenient route into the Old Port, down to the Lachine Canal. However, this time we continued straight after crossing the Atwater Footbridge, rode under the Autoroute 15 and into the Verdun borough.
   I was feeling a little uptight about the directions I had written out, since we were venturing into sections of the city that weren’t a logical grid. I also had it in the back of my head that Sue was totally trusting me, but the pre-ride check using Googlemaps really helped with visual cues and a pseudo-familiarity with the area.
   Making the connection with the approaches to the Autoroute bridge crossing was simple enough, and negotiating Nun’s Island was fairly straightforward, as there was really only one way off – the Champlain Bridge Causeway. Built parallel to and shortly after the construction of the old Champlain Bridge in 1962 (since dismantled and replaced by the current span in 2019), the causeway was erected to control ice formation and movement in the La Prairie Basin, which facilitates navigation to the Port of Montreal. The bikeway was built atop the causeway in the 1990s.
   The bikeway connects with the Riverfront Promenade on the 15-mile-long dike of the South Shore Canal. The canal is the major shipping lane of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Promenade’s asphalt surface is at least two cars wide down to the St. Catherine Lock, which was about a seven-mile distance. We turned around at the lock and rode all the way back under the new Champlain Bridge.

Sue snapped this photo of me at our turnaround...

...and this cool shot of the Champlain Bridge supports.

   Past the St. Lambert lock (the first lock traversed by westbound ships on the Seaway), we pedaled onto the Île Notre-Dame. The motorhead in me was excited to take a lap on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, a 2.5-mile racetrack used for events like the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix. It was wonderful that the site was open for bicycle use, but we weren’t too happy that, despite the generous width of the track, a couple more asshats needed to buzz right off our hips without any warning!

   We began to think they didn’t want cyclists to leave the island, as it was a bit difficult to find the spiral ramp up to the bridge on the Avenue Pierre-Dupuy, but that just might have been because some of the barriers were still in place from the World Championships, since part of the time trial route was on the race course. The bridge touched briefly on St. Helen’s Island, where we could see the Biosphere Museum, designed by Buckminster Fuller, in the distance, before descending into Cité du Havre.

   This neighborhood within the Montreal borough of Ville-Marie, is located on a narrow man-made Mackay Pier, which was largely built to protect the Old Port from the currents of the St. Lawrence, ice and floods. The area has vey modern residential buildings, including the standout Habitat 67, a stack of prefabricated concrete cubes, that was built for the Expo 67 (1967 World’s Fair).

   Not wanting to backtrack through Old Montreal, we instead veered left on Rue Peel and weaved our way over to the Boulevard de Maisonneuve. Along the way, we passed Victoria Square and climbed the short but nasty Côte du Beaver Hall, named for the late-18th century mansion, built by fur trader Joseph Frobisher, once stood at the top. During the 1920s, a collective of prominent Canadian artists established their studio at number 305 on the street. Returning to the UQAM Metro stop and getting the "all good" sign from Sue, we roughly retraced our route from the other day back to Laval.

   We washed up, rested a bit then grabbed some dinner. After organizing stuff a bit for our departure the next morning, we hopped in the car and drove out to an ice cream shop on the other side of Laval. I enjoyed watching some French language coverage of the Canadiens' first game of the season while eating my cup of vanilla soft-serve (Sue had some mint chocolate chip).