40k bike

For my 40km bike ride a weeks ago, I decided to head east from my house to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. I picked one of the hottest and most humid days this year. It was already 28 degrees by the time I left the house at 8 am. It’s a fairly steep downhill from NDG to the Lachine canal, but early in the morning it isn’t quite as harrowing as it could be. When I got close to the canal, I could see that there were movie trailers set up in the parking lot and lots of people setting up. Of course, it being breakfast, the food trailer was wafting bacon and eggs. Sure beat the granola and yogurt breakfast I just ate. Heading east along the canal was pretty quiet, there were a few construction detours off the canal and onto the grass. Construction in Montreal? Who would have thought?! Under the Bonaventure and passing the Maltage Canada smells (not quite as appetizing as the bacon at 8 am), Farine Five Roses and the silos and then on the way to Ile Notre Dame. The whole way, I had something in my left eye that made me sniffle and tear. I had to stop once or twice when I got something in the other eye too, to flush things out. Having Old Montreal spread out on my left, the sun rising, everything still fairly quiet and the most enormous yacht I have ever seen (turns out Roman Abramovich anchored his yacht in Montreal for Grand Prix. So, in fact, it IS the biggest yacht in the world) and a few other boats was quite breathtaking and peaceful.

The wind picked up on the jetty out to Pont de la Concorde and I tried to pick up my speed to around 30 km/h. I took a few wrong turns off the bridge, but finally got to the track. I had already done 10 km, so had to do 30 km worth of loops before heading home. The track was pretty empty save for the security telling me I was on the wrong side and the few other die hard cyclists and the construction workers dismantling the grand stands. Each loop is roughly 4km and it is relatively flat save for a slight uphill just past the start line. It was getting quite hot and as I started sipping my water, I remembered that it was more of a squeeze bottle than a suck bottle, so I squeezed. The lid popped off and I proceeded to squeeze the entire contents into my face. A nice sticky water juice combination – and I was still parched.

Coming around the north side of the track there were swarms of shadflies – and besides hearing them thwack against my helmet and face, they were now sticking to my face too, thanks to the juice. At the very east side of the track, the construction workers were taking great delight in getting the cyclists to slow down and restart so that they could drive all willy-nilly on the track to move the grandstands. Honestly, with only the half dozen or so of us on the track, you would think they could wait until the whole gaggle of us moved on. So this is how I made my way around – along the basin trying to pick up speed, around the north side battling the shadflies and then the stop/slow/turn at the grandstands. It was just too hot for this. Not to mention the sunscreen that kept dripping into my eyes making them burn.

After my 20 km, I hopped off the circuit, back onto the bridge, past the malt smell and back along the canal, with the wind now squarely in my face. I couldn’t manage to go faster than 20 kph no matter how hard or fast I pedaled. I seriously need to work on my biking. I feel like I am at a standstill compared to the other cyclists who fly past me. Passing the Atwater Market I could still smell the bacon wafting at the movie trailers ahead. The final brutal uphill to de Maisonneuve was almost unbearable in the heat and humidity, but thankfully, I didn’t fall off my bike at the red light halfway up like I did last time (I couldn’t get my foot out of the toe clip quickly enough). I was just pouring buckets of sweat and spent the rest of the ride home sniffling from the dust still in my left eye, wiping flattened shadflies from my face and the sunscreen dripping into my eyes.