Montreal and Véloroute Gourmande – Day 9

Breakfast was included with our hotel last night. It was the best hotel breakfast we have had so far. We stayed at the Days Inn Berthierville. It was excellent – whimsically decorated and with lots of thoughtful touches.  They have five parking spots for snowmobiles with chain in a box so that you can chain them up. They also had a barrel of washcloths and towel towels for cleaning your bike or snowmobile.

Here we are ready to go.

It was cool, but sunny, and with a mild tail wind or crosswind the entire day. It was mostly flat, as we were riding along the St. Lawrence river, until we got into Montreal. Most of the day the riding felt nearly effortless. The pavement quality wasn’t as good along Vélo Route 5 in many places, which we followed much of the day, as along Vélo Routes 1 and 3.

I saw so many lovely homes today. I’ve decided to put them all in a slideshow.

This is the view of the St. Lawrence.

We continued to enjoy autumn foliage.

We were making really good time, and then Cindy got another flat. She didn’t have a new tube anymore, and I discovered that I left my repair kit somewhere, so I didn’t have a tube, either. Neither did David and Dayle. The first tube that we repaired failed when we pumped it up. We succeeded with the second. The first time. It delayed us an hour.

We’ve seen a number of these signs along the Vélo Routes.

Lanoraie had a lovely street of homes overlooking the St. Lawrence, and a beautiful church. 

They also had a short stretch of bi-directional cycle track through the town. Most of the time we were travelling on a good size shoulder outside of the towns.

Lavaltrie had an even larger church.

It had a beautiful park beside the church.

We stopped at a bakery in town and Cindy got a couple pastries. They didn’t have any tables inside so we just quickly snacked and then continued onto our planned. Lunch spot 10 km ahead.

We determined that there was a bike shop in town, and Cindy wanted to pick up a new tube, David and Dayle set off towards our lunch spot while Cindy and I stopped at the bike store. She got a tube, and we both pumped up our tires.

Lavaltrie also had cycling infrastructure through town.

We stopped at Tim Hortons for lunch in Saint-Sulpice.

Repentigny is an off island suburb of Montreal. There was a lot of new construction of mid-rise housing there.

We saw a number of these huge, fun map pins in Repentigny.

We crossed over two bridges from Repentigny to the island of Montreal. Both bridges had separated cycling infrastructure. On the first part of the first bridge the cycling infrastructure was under construction, so a lane was taken away from motor vehicle traffic for bikes.

Once we were on the island, we had cycling infrastructure most of the rest of the way back Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal where we are staying for another three nights.

There was a really fabulous by directional cycle track through Parc de la Traversée. It consisted of a 4.25 km-long pedestrian path and a two-way bicycle path, as well as four themed rest stops.

At one point there was a choice of an on road bi-directional cycle track or the one in the park.

This is an example of the ubiquitous Montreal outdoor staircase to a second floor apartment.

Five years ago Av. Souligny  had one lane in each direction for cars with parking on both sides, and a narrow curb facing sidewalk on one side. It has been reconfigured to be only one way for motor vehicles, and has a bi-directional cycle track . Most of the parking was retained.

This was our first sighting of Olympic Park. Unfortunately, the incline elevator is being renovated. It was also being renovated when I was here in 2022. It was supposed to open for the 50th anniversary of the Olympic Games in 2026, but the work will not be done by then.

We rode through the Olympic site.

Adjacent to the site there were cycle tracks and a wide sidewalk.

We rode along Rue Rachel’s bi-directional cycle track and Mont-Royal taking roughly the same route as we did on day two of this trip when we explored Montreal by bike.

When we spotted the dome of the auditory, we knew we were almost done.

Here’s our finishing picture for the seven day, 520 km self supported part of our trip. It was a wonderful week and just flew by. I’m kind of sad it’s over, but grateful that we still have another two days to explore Montreal.

We returned to a restaurant we ate at last week and had sushi for dinner. Tomorrow we will ride along the LaChine Canal.