Bixi bikes

Bixi stations in Parc LaFontaine

In 2008 the city of Montreal implemented the Bixi bike system with 3000 bikes at 300 stations, making shared bikes available for short trips within the city. Access is by monthly subscription or a temporary access code paid by credit card at a pay station, before a bike can be removed from a locked rack. The charge is $1.50cdn for the first hour; $3 for thirty minutes more; then $6 for each half-hour beyond ninety minutes.

The payment and docking stations have software that monitors the supply and location of bikes, so managers can restock empty stations, or remove bikes from stations that are full.

The system was adopted in other cities in Canada, the US, Australia and England, but in 2014 the private, non-profit company filed for bankruptcy, in part because some US cities had withheld payment because of problems with the system's software. However, the Bixi program continues to operate in Montreal (and elsewhere) because of its popularity, and because so many people have come to depend on the bikes for regular transportation.

Bikes have to be transported between stations, so that all
locations have bikes available, and open spaces to park returned bikes.

Though I didn't try riding one of the Bixi bikes myself, I'm told they are heavy and clunky. They have large fenders over the rear wheel, bearing advertising for companies that support the system. But the bikes are designed for comfortable, upright riding for short distances in city traffic, and geared low for the hill-climb up from Montreal's city center. And they spare commuters the worry of finding convenient, safe parking, and the risk theft or vandalism of a pricey recreational bike.

All week in Montreal I saw people of all ages and physical types, flocking to and from work at rush hour on Bixi bikes, or their own cruisers, hybrid, road or mountain bikes. During the hot weather I noticed many women wearing gauzy, fluttery, floral print mini-dresses with sandals, ballerina flats, even high-heeled shoes, and I particularly wanted to get photos of women biking to work in nice outfits and cute shoes. I had planned to catch a Friday morning commute to take photos, but unfortunately there was a thunderstorm the night before. The temperature was more comfortable in the morning, but there were puddles on the streets, so instead of pretty summer dresses I saw a lot of sensible shoes with khaki, black or navy blue pants and shorts.

Payment station

Bixi parking in downtown Montreal

I also got some little video clips of bicycle traffic patterns at an intersection of two-way bike lanes on a major street, which would be thrilling to a traffic engineer. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to download the clips to Google Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, or anywhere else, in a playable form. But I have more photos for another post . . . . .

Le Jardin Botanique and Parc Mont Royal

The B&B was situated close to three of Montreal's best-known parks - Parc LaFontaine, Parc Mont-Royal, and Le Jardin Botanique. My hostess had told me "you must visit the Botanical Gardens" and so on my first day in the city, I did. I spent most of my time in the Chinese and Japanese gardens, though I also walked through a restored native forest, with exhibits of First Nations camps. This area was shady and cooler than the more open pathways. After a couple of hours walking around I began to feel sunburned, and stopped in to the gift shop to buy a scarf to protect my shoulders, neck and face.


The Japanese tea house housed a very somber memorial for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Survivors' narratives were posted next to child-like drawings and paintings of remembered scenes, touching because any still-living people who survived the bombing would have been children at the time.

In another room were some gorgeous scenic photos from rural Japan and seaside or mountain villages, very colorful and tranquil, and different from my limited knowledge and imagination of Japanese life.

The Chinese garden

Where bananas come from -
these were only about 4" long

Gingko leaves and nuts

Gingkos are an ancient and fascinating species of tree, though I think technically they aren't really even a tree, they are so unique. Most of what I know I get from wikipedia, so I suggest anyone interested go do a Google search. But I will say that gingkos thrive in disturbed ground, and in Hiroshima and Nagasaki some trees that survived went through growth spurts after the bombing, sending out new roots, shoots and branches, blooming and producing lots of fruit. Gingkos are a symbol of life, recovery and resilience.







A panorama of Montreal from le Chalet du Mont Royal
 

I quickly discovered relief from the city heat and humidity at the cool and breezy top of Mont Royal. The mountain is really only about the size of some of the hills that US west coast cities like Seattle and Bellingham are built on. According to the natural history exhibits at Maison Smith in the park, the mountain is the remains of a pre-ice age volcano; glaciers formed and receded, stripping away thousands of feet of top soil and leaving an outcrop of black marble that was used in construction of many of the city's early buildings.

The park and path are an Olmstead design, and were meant to be left simple and natural as much as possible, but Montreal city leaders couldn't leave things in their wild state. They built a stone chalet and observation plaza, which are rustic but impressive enough to use for royal receptions.

Chalet du Mont-Royal

The hard-packed gravel pedestrian-bicycle path is wider than many city streets. It's a fairly gradual uphill all the way, with a couple of steeper switch-backs, and enough foot-traffic that you can't cut loose and go fast on the downhill trip. Some people ride Bixi bikes to the top, and I did it easily on my Surly. From my B&B it was only about 3.5 miles to the top, but I did manage to get a little lost. There is a curving path up to the Chalet, then a loop around the peak of the mountain, but the first day I visited there was - guess what! - construction work in progress near Maison Smith, with big trucks, bulldozers and orange netting obscuring the turn-off to the loop. I rode up the hill, wandered around the cemetery and a small pond, the Lac aux Castors, and then, without realizing it, got on the loop around the summit, riding around at least three times before I finally stopped in at the Chalet to find a tourist map that would point out the turn-off to get back down the hill.

Monument in Mont-Royal Cemetery

Cross of St. Joseph

Le Petit Hotêl on rue Laval

The B&B on rue Laval was comfortable, convenient and cheap. The interior was decorated with tasteful art and shabby-chic antiques, and painted a pale blue-green that gave the place a cool feeling, despite the heat and ineffective air conditioning. I chose a room on the sunny, street-side, with a sink in the room and separate shower and toilet rooms down the hall. After a little experimenting I found it was best to leave the window open, shades down and ceiling fan on high; then I could sleep well enough on top of the blankets, wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

One night I was awakened around eleven by a spectacular thunderstorm, which cooled the city down overnight. I got up and sat by the open window in the parlor to watch the rain, and enjoy the moody, romantic, film noirish look of the street.

But I don't want to mention the name of the place because my week there came to a disappointing end. One afternoon I came in tired from walking in the heat, and decided to read and nap a bit, then go out for an early dinner. A couple of hours later I woke up to find my left arm, shoulder and ribs were covered with itchy red welts about a half-inch around. There were even a couple of spots on my face. Bedbugs.

An artsy alley near rue Laval

Disgusted, repulsed, angry and itching, I washed down my skin with cold water from the sink, then rubbed lotion on the blotches.

By this time I only had one full night and day, then a short night before I had to get up early to get to the airport. I'd been so contented with the place for almost a week. I decided to say nothing, just tough it out for thirty hours. I pulled the blankets and pillows off the bed, rolled them up, and stuffed them in the closet, and made sure all my clothes and shoes were hanging up, or inside my bags on the table, off the carpet. Then I went out to walk a bit and find dinner.

l'Eglise d'Enfant Jesus

I walked up and down and back up again on rue St-Denis, then down and up blvd. St-Laurent, two busy, upscale streets of boutiques, restaurants and night spots, enjoying the colorful and quirky street scenes, stopping to rest by the cool, shaded fountain in front of l'Eglise d'Enfant Jesus.

After dinner (taco salad at a Mexican place, I think) I wandered in to Renaud & Bray's bookstore. They have a couple of stores in Montreal, which I believe are going through some sort of reorganization. Anyway, they had lots of discounted books, souvenirs and kitsch.

There I found "Soudain dans la forêt profonde" by Israeli author Amos Oz. It was translated from Hebrew to French (obviously) but was described as "a parable for children and adults" so I thought with a dictionary at hand it might be about my reading level, and a good distraction from my itchy spots.

Can't imagine how the graffitists got up there

Bienvenue - Montreal

Leaving Quebec City

I rode my bicycle down the cobbled streets of the old city to La Gare du Palais in Quebec City, which was sleepy and uncrowded at 6am on a Monday morning. At the station I pulled off my panniers and turned the bike over to the ViaRail attendants, who wheeled it away to some safe and secure compartment before I boarded. The passenger car was sleek, modern and clean, with a single row of seats on the right and a double row on the left. I got a comfortable single seat by the window. I’d only had time for coffee in my room before I left, and was already hungry when I arrived at the station, so I ordered a yogurt parfait, a bit pricey as usual with on-board meals. But it was satisfying enough to make me sleepy and I ended up napping for most of the three-hour trip, until the train neared Laval, I think.

A café on rue Rachel Est

The train station in Montreal was big, busy and a bit confusing. After retrieving my bicycle I wheeled it through the crowds to the food court area - always trying to stay ahead of my appetite - where I had a hearty deli sandwich and more coffee, while consulting my city maps to figure out how to get to the B&B where I’d made a reservation. There was street construction going on around the station and I chose the wrong exit, circling the block before I could get going in the right direction. The city traffic was intimidating and I walked my bike on the sidewalk until I got away from the downtown core.

The B&B was on a quiet side-street on The Plateau, between the lively neighborhoods of the Latin Quarter, the Village, Outremont, Parc Lafontaine and Parc Mont Royal. It was close to La Maison des Cyclistes on rue Rachel Est, the headquarters of VéloQuébec, the organization behind the development of La Route Verte bicycle route system, which is what inspired my interest in travelling to Quebec several years ago. (I’ll devote a post to that later.)

rue Laval, Montreal

Parc Lafontaine

Unfortunately, or maybe I should have expected it, there was street construction in progress on rue Rachel, and the little cross-streets nearest the B&B weren’t continuous, dead-ending and reappearing a few blocks farther on, instead of connecting to main thorougfares. With the constantly changing street detours during the ten days I stayed in the neighborhood, I frequently overshot my turns and had to back-track and circle around before I could get back to my home-base. Ten days was just long enough to begin to get oriented, and then I had to leave.

But at least it gave me lots of chances to canvas the area, and I burned more calories walking than bicycling, so I was able to eat heartily three times a day and still lose weight.

The city was hot and humid in late August. My first night there I got take-out grilled chicken from a Portuguese place and had a picnic at Parc Lafontaine, which became my preferred dinner spot.

Logistics

Back at the Hotel Universel, I was informed that I would have to move out of my basement room. When I pointed out, in my fractured French, that there were several vacant rooms near mine, the lady at the desk said those weren't made up yet, but they might have a room on the top floor. The young man working with her said, "Yes, but it doesn't have a window . . . or, it does have a window, but . . . you'll see . . . " And so I got another clue to the hotel's shady past.

I hauled my bicycle and baggage in the elevator from the basement to the third floor, to a large, decent-enough room - a little shabbier than the others, a little stuffy, with a ceiling fan but no AC, and no wifi signal. There were picture-window-sized curtains at the end of the room, but when I opened them, the window looked in to a shallow, cement-walled storage room holding some old aluminum ducts and a washing machine and dryer. It looked like a perfect set-up for a private dancer, or an S&M dungeon, or a peep-show into the room. I wish I'd thought to take a photo.

I only needed a place to sleep well enough to get up early for a 7am train, so I closed the curtains, rinsed out some t-shirts and underwear, and hung them on my bicycle to dry.

For dinner, I walked to a neighborhood pub kind of place, with a nice outdoor dining area. I greeted the waitress and ordered my meal in French - fish & chips et limonade, s’il vous plaît, how hard is that? I think I was passing for a native, until the waitress came by and noticed I'd put ketchup on my fries. Real Canadians use mayonnaise.

My next priority was to use the desktop computer in the lobby at the Universel to find and book a room in Montreal, and to finalize arrangements to ship my bicycle back to Bellingham from Montreal at the end of my trip. This turned out to be the last time I had very workable internet access on my trip. (My provider had jumped from AT&T to Rogers back in Vancouver.) I could sometimes get wifi in coffee shops like Starbucks (they're not as ubiquitous as in the US), or in the lobbies or food courts of downtown office towers, but it was usually only good enough to check my email and Facebook, and (sometimes, very slowly) to post photos.

I was getting a little frustrated with BikeFlights by this time - the customer service person apparently didn't plan to worry about problems until they happened. I wasn't sure where I could have them pick up my bike, since I didn't plan to stay at LeDauphin again - I would have loved to, but I'm sure their rates were way out of my range. Also, I would need to complete some customs documents and print out a shipping label, once I knew where my bike would be, but probably wouldn't have internet or printer access in Montreal.

Finished, in under two hours

The wonderful people at LeDauphin assured me they would store my shipping box, let me pack up my bike on site, and have it picked up there, which was a relief. But trying to communicate with BikeFlights got to be a little comical after I left the Hotel Universel. They emailed me a long US customs form, which was impossible to read on my tiny phone screen. When I mentioned this by email, they replied "oh, sure, no problem, we'll send it again!" This became their standard reply, until I had three or four emails with multiple attachments, none of which I could read, on the infrequent occasions when I had a good enough connection to open them.

Back in Montreal, a few days before I meant to schedule the pick-up, I found a FedEx store in the Place Ste. Marie, an office tower downtown, but it turned out to be just a pick-up/drop-off location, which didn't provide other services, and they wouldn't let me leave my boxed bike there for an international pick-up. Finally I went to the Tourist Information Center, which directed me to a nearby shop that offered FedEx services. This turned out to be a little hole-in-the-wall tobacconist/candy shop/magazine stand/Western Union/FedEx store, where the capable and versatile shop-keeper had me forward BikeFlights' emails so he could print out the attachments. It turned out BikeFlights had sent me several pages of blank forms, along with five copies of a completed set, plus the FedEx labels. But it was worth paying for the scrap paper, to compensate for the friendly, pleasant service from Pat Tobacconist.

I was trying to transact all my business in Montreal in French, but my community college classes didn't really give me a lot of vocabulary for dealing with technical internet issues, or shipping and customs documents. Still, everyone was very patient and helpful, and happy to speak English when I got over my head trying to speak French.

Quebec City - Sunday

My original plan had been to spend a couple of days in Quebec City, then bicycle alone back to Montreal on the north side of the St. Laurence River. The CycleCanada tour took a 300-mile-long, curving route southeast from Montreal to Quebec City, but I figured that the distance would be about half that if I rode closer to the river, and I could ride it in three stages, maybe allowing for rest-days to explore the towns I stayed at along the way. Back home I had gone as far as identifying towns that seemed interesting, looking up some affordable places to stay, and printing out Google maps. But I didn't print out directions and details, find a good road map, or make any reservations.

I had also upgraded my AT&T pay-by-the-month phone plan to an international plan that gave me phone service in Canada, and also 4G wireless, but I soon discovered I couldn't count on getting internet access. The motels we stayed at gave us a wifi password, but access was slow on my phone, with its barely 2x4 inch screen. This meant I probably couldn't research my route or make arrangements on the fly.

Besides, after seeing the amount of road construction underway, and our experiences with detours along the tour route, I wasn't sure the routes I'd sketched out would actually be there. I suppose suddenly finding myself alone shook my confidence, too. Although I did feel physically able to ride back to Montreal, I decided to abandon my adventurous plan.

My first errand on Sunday morning was to visit La Gare du Palais, the central train station in Quebec City, where I made reservations for me and my bike to ride back to Montreal. My ticket was $90 Canadian, and I paid another $25 cash for my bike when I boarded early on Monday morning, for a three-hour return trip.

I still had one day to explore Quebec City, anyway, and I spent it riding around the port and marina near the train station, walking-touring the open-air market of the Old Port, and the Lower Town, a village-like network of cobbled streets lined with small cafes, boutiques, galleries and souvenir shops. From there, I bicycled along the new bike path that curves around Cap Diamant beside rue Champlain.

Once I was alone, I kind of went camera-crazy and took lots of snaps. Looking at them now, I regret not spending more time in the city, and chickening out on the solo-ride to Montreal. But that gives me good reason to return soon.

Lower Town shops

Trompe l'oeuil mural in Lower Town

This is for all those Fashion Vigil-Aunties out there

Overpass with pull-out space on the Champlain bike/ped path

Wild horses along the Champlain Path

Recycled-plastics art

Marche du Vieux-Port

Quebec City - Saturday

Friday evening we rode the bus into the old city for one last group dinner, a long evening of conversation, red wine (or sparkling water) and rather loud jazz. Returning to the hotel after dinner, as I looked at my companions, tired and quiet in the back seats of the city bus, I began to get an odd sense of déjà vu, as if I knew these people from some other place and time in my past.

Gateway to the Old City of Quebec

Our room on the third floor of the Hotel Universel had a view of more ordinary city neighborhoods, or possibly suburban sprawl, but I never visited that part of the city, only the picturesque, historic area.

My roommate, Kelly, planned to meet a friend Saturday evening, then return to Montreal early the next day, while I meant to stay on in Quebec City for a couple of days, but we lost our room that morning. After a little tension, the lady at the front desk was finally able to move me to the bottom floor, below the lobby (and on my own tab). I had to squeeze between laundry carts with my bike and bags to get to the room, but it was handy to take my bike straight out to the back parking lot.

Changing of the Guard

Me, guarding the city wall

On Saturday morning people began drifting away, heading back home, or off to further adventures, but four of us caught the bus back to the old city for a walking tour of the historic Citadel. I started out wearing a light rain jacket, but summer heat and humidity had returned in the city, and I was sun-burned by lunch time.

In the afternoon we did more walking-touring, and checked out a very cheap auberge I thought I might want to move to. It had a perfect location on the wall of the old city, but there was a building under construction across the street. The place had a very disreputable feel that reminded me of a motel back in Bellingham that was recently condemned by the city because of criminal activity. I decided to stay on at the Universel, even though that would cut short the number of days I could afford to stay.

(Two views of the Chateau Frontenac.)

We also checked out the lobby of the magnificent Chateau Frontenac, though a room there would be far beyond my means. There was a ritzy wedding reception going on, and a window display of moldy, rindy hams, sausage, bacon and cured meats – regional charcuterie – made an odd contrast to the elegant surroundings.

Kelly and I had one last dinner with John, the last ones remaining from our group. Then she left to meet her friend while John and I walked around the Laval Université campus. As usual, there were buildings under construction, and the campus has a huge new athletic complex and sports fields. One of the women in the tour group had told me that the departments of art and architecture had been relocated to the old city, where they played a large role in revitalizing the city. She said many of the international students who come to Laval, especially from Africa, suffer from the cold winters and culture shock.

Cathédrale Holy Trinity

There was a sad feeling that the party was finally, really over when we said good-night in the lobby on Saturday evening. But when I went down to my basement room, where my bicycle leaned against the wall, it suddenly felt so normal to be alone in my room, on my own again.

The ferries from Lévis - we could have crossed this way
instead of using the bridge, but there was a big, steep hill climb,
and we couldn't find the landing anyway.
Or something.