Brockville to Montreal

August 16, Friday

67.3 miles Brockville to Cornwall        

Awake at 5 and up at 5:20 with the intent to see the morning Via train at the station.  Pack up and ready to leave camp at 6:40 with Jeff and we get to the station just as the train pulls in (6:50), dwells, and leaves. 

  We finish breakfast at the depot (muffins) and are glad to use the station rest rooms (the park where we were camping had only one rest room open – one urinal, one bowl, and one long line).

We leave the station at 7:15 and head east on highway 2.  Brockville is a beautiful old town

with remarkable homes and old estates along the river.   Shortly we stop at Jake and Jane Van de hoef’s who have a place right on the St Lawrence River east of town.  They have fresh cinnamon rolls, hard boiled eggs and coffee.  Beautiful place. 

  Jeff and I ride together for the day at a pretty fast but not pressed pace – the roads are flat, good surface, and a nice tail wind.  We take a short extension from Iroquois to Morrisburg along highway 4 which goes right along the St. Lawrence River – lovely.  It means we miss a sag stop but we stop at the waterfront park in town (mile 40) to eat part of our lunch before pressing on to the camp at the NAV Center on the East side of Cornwall.  It is on the grounds of a large sports facility and convention center which is very nice:  Good public wifi, large showers, sauna, laundry, restaurant and tavern.  this is a great place to camp! While others head to the showers I discover the laundry facility and get all my laundry done.   This is good because I think our weekend outside of Montreal is going to be at a school which I’d guess will not have a laundromat on site.   I go for a beer with Peter at the pub on site here and then enjoy a range of leftovers for dinner.    Peloton meeting at 7:30 and farewells from those leaving the tour.  In bed at 9 with lights out at 9:15 as I can’t stay awake to read. 

August 17, Saturday

72 miles Cornwall to Montreal                          445.9 miles for the week

Up at 5:30.  It is 50 degrees on my bike thermometer this morning, clear and lots of dew and spider webs everywhere.  This far north and east the sun is rising at 6 am.    Leave at 7 with Jeff, led by Peter Wiersma and Daniel Kiel.   The ride begins right on the banks of the St. Lawrence River – it is rather cool, but bright and beautiful. 

  We stop at a Tim Horton’s at 8 and the first sag is just a mile later.  Here seven of us leave with David Geerlings on the point.  I’ve ridden with him before – particularly last week one day when we had strong head winds and he set a 16 mph pace.  He is an experienced endurance rider (does 24 hour marathons).  Today he sets a perfectly steady 18 mph pace on level roads and we ride on his train for the rest of the day.  We do stop again at another Timmy’s and 2 more sag stops, and at the marker indicating we were entering Quebec.  No more English. 

  Approaching Montreal we have to go on a highway through a tunnel – this was pretty cool and gave me a chance to practice ringing the little bell on my handlebars. About 10 miles out we are stumped as the pavement is not marked for directions and we opt to stay on the road even though it turned.  In retrospect this was a mistake.  We rode for several miles eventually the road restricted bicycles and pedestrians confirming our sense that we had gotten off route.  Considering only our direction sheet and no map we asked a couple of motorists for help but they told us they deferred saying they only spoke French.  Really?   We asked at a gas station and the best we could get from them is that we had to backtrack to where we went wrong, which we did, adding half a dozen miles or so.  Later in looking at a map we could easily have saved our backtracking, but alas…  Eventually we arrived at the school in Kahnawake and even with all the stops, traffic lights, stop signs, sections of very rough road, and detour we still averaged 15.7 mph for the day.  The school is 17 miles from downtown Montreal and a 35 mile round trip ride seems too far to me after a 70 mile day and a 446 mile week.  The school does not have wifi or laundry facilities.  I am so glad I got all my laundry done yesterday!  They run shuttles in the afternoon and evening to a laundromat somewhere, others do it in buckets by hand.  After I set up camp and sit and eat my lunch I shower and ride to a Tim Hortons for wifi which works well but they do not have any electrical outlets:  they want you to come, but not to stay!  With no outlets my battery only has an hour of life.   I am on sweep team for supper tonight and for breakfast tomorrow (basically that means we help set up, serve and clean up).   Plenty of food.  Lovely cool, calm, dry evening.  

I can hardly believe I have ridden my bike from Grand Rapids all the way to Montreal.   One of my greatest supports has been that my church Elder Chair, Tammy Baker, had each of the council members write me a card or note for a specific day of the tour.  They all did it!  I have been very disciplined in restraining myself from prematurely indulging in this daily delight and only reading one card a day.  Each day is something to look forward to and to be blessed by.  I have found this to be a great treat each day.  I also find that each morning it is such a delight to be riding in the early cool of the day that two songs ring in my head every day as I pedal: the first stanza of “Ten Thousand Reasons”;

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes
Bless the Lord, O my soul,O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

and the Sea to Sea theme song, "Christ Be Our Light"  

Christ, be our light!  Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!  Shine in your church gathered today.

Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others, shared until all are fed.  

Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others, walls made of living stone. 

  In fact I can ride and sing out loud at the same time! 

Tomorrow morning we will get bused to a church in Montreal and get a chance to walk around a bit before being bused back in the afternoon.