12 October 2022 South Shore Bridges

 The ride began at 10 AM with an elite group composed of Ian and Sally, Johanna, as well as a trio of another Ian, Katherine and Steve who reunited for the first time since the multi-day Vancouver Island fixture.  We followed a zig-zag route through Pointe-St-Charles to the beginning of the Champlain bridge on Nuns' Island and eventually to the end in Brossard where discussions resumed about which direction the next leg would take: toward Ste Catherine or to Varennes.  After a straw vote it was decided: Pont Jacques-Cartier and beyond so we pedaled on to a picnic site adjacent to the Marina Daniel Masson in Longueuil where we dined on a shared repast of various condiments.  At this point, Ian and Sally broke off to attend to other duties.  The remaining four soldiered on past a very luxurious, circular overpass over Route 20 and to another more onerous one a few kilometres further east.  The ladies scampered up the steps and Birdie was about to when he noticed the grimace on Louis' face.  The vigorous training and inevitable wear and tear from earlier days of figure skating championships, one notably in St-Petersburg in the (18) nineties had rendered Louis unable or unwilling to scale that stairway  So the foursome became a 3 + 1 some. A though both sections  ventured to the St-Lambert lock, Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and the Canal from downtown to the MUHC they curiously never met again.  Approx 60K, temp 18 degrees - a fruitful excursion.

Louis Rubenstein