Loop of La Seigneurie Des Plaines Bike Path

Your ever-faithful Amos G. Batchelder woke with the sparrows on this fine day in July to join the fixture outing to loop the new Seigneurie Des Plaines Bike path.  With only one coffee in the gut and rushing out as usual, I zipped down de Maisonneuve bike path to the Vendome station in time for the 7:00am train direction Ste. Jerome.  Batch, having not realized there was a simple pedestrian access to platform 3 from the road, proceeded to carry Jake the Snake up and down stairs in the station and had the usual technology fight with the AMT’s famous “user-friendly, automatic ticket booth”.  Upon reaching platform three, I saw the ever-relaxed A. T. Lane and Dorothy Cole chatting away beside the platform.  The EXO 2 train arrived on time and the three of us loaded up, with masks, into the now typical empty train.

At Montreal West, we were joined by Louis Rubenstein and Karl Kron. 

Disembarking at Ste. Therese on time, we were skillfully escorted out of the station area by A.T. Lane, crossing over the local construction which blocked access to the bike path.  I made a motion to propose a coffee stop – OVERRULED.  Batch would have to contend with only one injection of caffeine that day… 

 

Several of us were digging deep into our recent memories of our reverse tour of the Ste. Anne-des-Plaines ride on xxx to try to assist in navigation.  Many sights were familiar to Batch but backwards rewind navigation isn’t his forte.

We had a about a 20 minute deviation into the residential bowels of Blainville having taken a wrong turn.  The endless and mostly new suburban “Mini McMansions” were all quite pristine, but as usual, only houses and cars – no people to be seen.  It didn’t help that the temperature was climbing quickly despite the early morning start.

Heading between Blainville and Terrebonne, we found the unique and charming parts of the path, meandering amongst the forests, complete with some interesting chicane turns and surprise hills around corners.

The best part of the path is the section going through the woods and over wetlands with well-built wooden bridges.  They have done a good job on the path in these areas. 

 

Plenty of convenient rest stops as well.

Lots of interesting scenery…. wetlands…

And the odd eye sore, “fixer upper” house:

On the circle back from Terrebonne, we passed the now famous microbrasserie Ruisseau Noir but without the eagle eye of G. T. Bishop and the motivation of “Mile a Minute Murphy”, we passed on by…  (Note to file – it wasn’t open anyway….).  No coffee, no beer on this ride.

We also hit the famous “green brick road”.

With our detour in Blainville, time was not on our side to hit the planned 13:00hrs return train from Ste. Therese so we took a hard left-hand turn at Bois-des-Filion to get on the bridge to Laval.  The idea being to find a train as soon as possible for Louis! 

Temperatures were above 34 degrees Celsius at this point and any stop had to be made in the shade.  Water supplies and energy of the crew were dwindling.

After a quick “fake” stop at the Vimont AMT station, we road on to De La Concorde station and all took the Metro back to base camps. 

Another great day out on the road with MBC.

Yours faithfully, Amos G. Batchelder