Candiac or St Constant

July 06, 2021

Candiac or St Constant

The ride began began at a sensible time of 9:45 AM on the way to Candiac by da sea with Joanna, G.T Bishop, Louis Rubenstein and A.T Lane on board. Louis was the forth to embark and thus had to park his bike at the other end of the car. The 4 were chatting amicably when the announcement came for the next stop: St-Constant. Evidently suffering from a bout of old-timers' disease, Louis headed to the front of the car and descended gingerly from the train expecting to see the other 3 disembarking from the back. "Wait a minute - nobody else got off - they must be playing a trick on me".

Alas t'was not to be - but we eventually sorted it out a half hour later after arranging to meet at McDonalds in Candiac/Delson.

We headed for St-J sur Richelieu and arrived about 12 hundred thirty hours on the bank of the river and the Chambly Canal, hoping to dine at Le Maneken Pis to sample, again, their legendary pie.

Louis out cycling in a field

In spite of the sign saying "ouvert" it was, in fact, closed and 2 of the members went to a nearby bakery to acquire some food. In addition, all four partook of some of Johanna's legendary cookies and ginger.

Luncheon was punctuated by a very long freight train that passed peacefully through town. The only negative being the the extremely , loud and long whistle!

We began again on the legendary canal towards historic Chambly, a site of a fierce battle of the war of 1812. Beautiful scenery, houses, weather and bike path with no clouds being guided masterfully by the legendary G.T Bishop whose experience on the high seas enables him to jog or turn on the bike path. He accompanied Johanna Malcolm and me till about St-Hubert where he branched off to take the short cut home via the Pont Jacques-Cartier, the others taking a very circuitous route via the Dix30 around, under and eventually over the Champlain Bridge. Very capable guidance by A.T but longer - 98.4 k for me. Nevertheless, an excellent route and day.