Last Train to Deux Montagnes

MBC Minute Book October 2019

25 October Last Train to Deux Montagnes
Present : A.T. Lane, Dorthy Cole, Birdie Munger & Louis Rubenstein *  Minutes by Birdie Munger
Length of ride 54 km
* Louis took a later train and missed riding with the main group
Photos
Route 

On Friday, October 25, 2019 three riders boarded the 08:55 exo 6 train at Gare Centrale to Deux-Montagnes; A. T. Lane, Dorothy Cole and Birdie Munger (Louis Rubenstein took a later train and missed riding with us). We hung our bikes up on the big hooks located mid-car and sat down to enjoy our 40-minute trip. Bikes ride free and our fares were modest. It was 7° C and overcast when we started cycling east at about 09:45 – perfect cycling weather we thought.

We meandered through Deux-Montagnes and crossed the Rivière Mille Îles on the cycle path of the Grand-Moulin dam to Île Jésus, the City of Laval. We continued east (mostly on la route verte 1) and stayed close to the river until our route turned south near Ste-Rose station on the exo2 - Saint-Jérôme train line. We rode on the segregated route verte 1 bike path for most of our ride south. We stopped for lunch in Laval at Barbie’s Resto Bar Grill near la route verte and shared stories of cycling, hiking and skiing trips. We cycled on toward Rivière-des-Prairies and over the Île Perry train bridge to Montreal. At that point we decided to take a more direct but mixed traffic route home via O’Brien Avenue through Cartierville and Saint Laurent. We dipsy-doodled through TMR and The Triangle/CDN-NDG and said good-bye to each other at Côte-Saint-Luc Road and Earnscliffe.

The sun had come out by then and it had warmed up. We arrived at an immediate consensus that it was wonderful ride. A.T. Lane was a friendly and knowledgeable ride leader. Dorothy Cole drew on her own wealth of route-finding skills to seamlessly stitch our route through TMR, The Triangle/CDN-NDG. I thoroughly enjoyed my first MBC ride and I’m pleased to report that A.T. Lane passed the leadership test – I had a flat tire in the wilds of Laval without a spare tube and 15mm wrench and A. T. pulled both items from his pannier!

Respectively submitted, Birdie Munger

PS

     The Mont-Royal station  is currently combined with the Canora station and construction cones and barriers made it difficult to access.  Nevertheless after descending a steep flight of steps I clambered aboard the 9:05 and was confronted by 2 burly exo cops.  I had forgotten to have my ticket scanned.

    Remembering what happened to G.T. Bishop in St-Anne-de-Bellevue I elected to disembark straight away to the avoid an onerous fine.  Next train was less than a half hour later so I advised AT, by phone, text, email, twitter etc that i would be slightly tardy.  There came no reply so I only went as far as Bois-Franc and then zig-zagged down Marcel-Laurin and visited my old work buddies at the corner of Alexis-Nihon and Cote-de-Liesse. 

Louis Rubinstein