We’re heading North today and this involves jumping on the metro at Sherbrook. No lifts at the station, but the escalators help.
We’re heading up to metro station de la Concorde to pick up Route Verte 1. ( Route Verte are a network of 5,000km bikeways criss-crossing Quebec )
I’m amazed to find that the bike path has been brought right into the heart of the station, we don’t even need to cross a car park.
And so begins the battle with the wind. I’m convinced we are heading in to a headwind all the time, Stuart says some of the time it’s a tail wind, but whichever way you look at it, it’s damned hard going. We hardly see any other cyclists today, and I don’t blame them!
The cycle pathways are really impressive, separated from the roads for much of the time, and if you do need to cross a road, there is usually a designated bike crossing, so you can get the cars to stop and let you cross.
Although, I’m delighted with the quality of the track, it’s not the most picturesque of routes. Of the 30km route on our outward journey, I would say that 25km was cycling though suburbs and 5km was through greenery.
Only when we get home and google “Herbe a puce”, do we discover that the plants in this wooded area are poison ivy. Glad we didn’t stop for a picnic!
We had been planning to cycle all the way to St Jerome (45km), but depressingly, it takes 3 hours for me to cycle 30km to St Therese. We grab some lunch there and turn around to head back. The return journey is only slightly quicker, average 13km /hour rather than 10km per hour.
I’m shattered when we get back, and more than a little anxious. Only 7 more training weekends to the ride!
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