Today, as it was a holiday, I was able to take advantage of a little extra free time and go for a bike ride with Val. Though when I left my apartment it look a little overcast, it brightened up shortly after we started. From Val's apartment we headed North, our goal was the St. Lawrence.
I did not really know how far away the St. Lawrence was, it turns out it is a good few kilometers away. All in all it wasn't too bad except that the right pedal on my $50 bike was acting up and kept flipping over as I was peddling, it was also on a slightly odd angle.
Anyway, we continued up North. We stopped along the way to visit Val's old apartment. This apartment is obviously much larger than mine and the rent significantly less, though it is a bit too far away as far as I am concerned.
Eventually we could see the river, and the death trap city of Laval on the other side. Apparently this was not our final destination. We continued on for what was a few kilometers until we reached a bridge, which we crossed, and then an island. Here we stopped for a while and had lunch. I climbed down the rocks and put my foot in the water, Terry Fox style, though because the water look a little unhealthy I left my shoe on.
We then began the trek back. Instead of taking the bike paths as we had on the first half of our journey we took main arteries to save on time and distance. One such main road we took was Berri. Near the beginning of our time on Berri my peddle seemed to be getting just a bit looser. I looked down to see that my pedal was falling off. I quickly tried to signal Val to stop so that we could deal with my pedal situation, but I wasn't fast enough. My pedal fell off right on Berri. Fortunately a greasy little peg remained. With this little peg I was able to get home. The bad part was that because the peg was greasy my foot kept slipping off and I would then have to readjust my foot, my max speed was greatly reduced.
We stopped at Jean Talon market where Val purchased a few items, including ten lemons for $2.50. We also had some really nasty coffees. They were so bad that neither of us could finish them. From their it was back to Val's place. I believe that our trip left us both a sense of accomplishment.
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2 comments:
Hello,
For those of you interested by Cameron and I's bike ride, look at the following link: http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/divers/pdf/voiescyclable2004.pdf
We basically started at Park Lafontaine, head north and follow the red lines on de Brébeuf, Boyer and Christophe-Colomb, then we turned left on Gouin up to the Pont de l'ile Perry (our final destination).
Also, you should know that the water between Laval and Montréal is called Rivière-des-Prairies. As Montreal is an island, the St. Lawrence stream divides itself there; the southern part keeps (partly, as you will notice on the map, there is a huge 'lake' called Lac St-Louis) the name St. Lawrence, but the north part is called Rivière-des-Prairies.
Cameron, it's Laura! I'm dying of laughter right now! I love your sarcastic description of your pedal...you should publish a book someday, I'm not kidding. If you do, I'll travel across the country with you on a book signing tour. It would be amazing fun!
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