For the longest time I have set up my daily driver bike so I could ride just about wherever I want. Whether it was the Space Horse for a few years or my current main bike, the Crust Bombora, I generally keep the wheels wrapped in a “fast gravel” kinda of tire. Fast rolling on pavement, but enough useful tread that I could hit some single track or a rough gravel cut if I want. But truth be told I ride about 90% on pavement, and I have wanted to see how it would feel to ride something specifically set up for road riding. I’ve had road bikes before, but after over 32,000 miles I have more particular requirements. If I was in the “buy a new bike when I feel like it” tax bracket, I would just build up a Rivendell Roadini in Sergio Green. It fits plush tires and it’s designed with a “comfort road” geometry. And it looks sweet! But no, can’t swing that (yet), and I _have_ been spending a lot of time building up bikes from Facebook Marketplace finds lately. So here we have Swhween, my chubby tire road bike. It’s built from a 1991 Schwinn Crosscut (_nota bene_ : the 1990 and 1991 Crosscuts looked nearly identical, but I was able to place mine in ‘91 because of the extra eyelet near the fork dropout and the position of the eyelets near the rear dropout). This is the top of Schwinn’s pre-bankruptcy “cross bike” line, or what we now just call hybrids. That’s fantastic for me because it originally came with 700x38 tires and room to spare. The bottom bracket isn’t too high, and while the head tube angle is a little slack it is manageable. I got mine off Marketplace for a $45 because it didn’t have pedals. It was dirty, but otherwise in solid shape. Nothing stuck, no cracks or dents, threads and steel clean on the inside where it counts. I have, however, put nearly every salvageable part in my collection except for the wheels and seat post. I keep the wheels because they are some super sick gray anodized Arayas, and the seat post is 26.6 which I am not paying to replace (yet). Otherwise it’s a mix of parts from my collection, eBay, and a few special purchases. The sun has yellowed the paint and I’ve dirtied it back up again, but look at those wonderful lugs. I got this bike in June but the parts that really motivated me to move ahead with the build came from an unexpected gift. My pal Ross offered me his dad’s old road bike. It was too twitchy and aggressive for him and he knew I would probably find a use for its parts. The bike itself was a 2013 Motobecane Immortal Team. This isn’t some classic French bike; it’s from long past the time when the brand had been sold to Yamaha. For years now they are sold as discount bike with premium components on Bikes Direct. The premium components on the Motobecane are a complete Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 group. This was from the 10-speed Dura-Ace era with some carbon fiber and titanium mixed into a few places to keep it feathery. I need a big cassette in the back so I wasn’t going to use the rear derailleur (already sold it), but the front derailleur and brifters would be perfect. I already had a 9-speed XTR-M952 set aside, and I had read that Shimano 10-speed road shifters would index their mountain 9-speed derailleurs just fine. And it totally does—I’ve only had to use the barrel adjuster a couple of times as the cable housing and ferrules set in place with use. I had intended to stick with friction shifting as on my Bombora, but once I had these free components I had to give them a try. And they RULE. Anyway, here’s the rest of it! ### Cockpit * The aforementioned Dura-Ace 7900 brifters. Very comfy, snappy, a little beat up. * Nitto Noodle Bar, 25.4 clamp diameter and 52cm wide. That is quite wide, but if I hold them up to my chest, the ramps are about as wide as my shoulders. I kinda wish I had flared these out just a little (and I may still try), but these are otherwise terrific. They’re wrapped (poorly) in a single layer of black Newbaum’s bar tape. Corks in the bar ends. * Nitto X Crust UI quill stem, 26.0 clamp (shimmed down) with 15º rise. * Haute Bike’s Twisted T-Bar with quill stem adapter as a bag stand-off. * Hungry Big Lunch v2.69 (the one that still has the magnetic closure) mounted as an expandable handlebar bag. * Crane Bell, generic computer mount. * Berthoud Aravis saddle, but with replacement stainless steel rails (titanium rails broke, then free replacement rails broke…so I went with steel which continues to hold up). This is the third bike for this one saddle and it has finally found its home. It’s on the post that came with the bike, but someday I want a Thomson in black to match the stem. * Lil’ Roadrunner tool pouch on the back and that fine Jimothy reflector, too. * King Cage Iris titanium cage ### Drivetrain * Dura-Ace front derailleur. This is when Shimano still had simple front derailleurs with sensible cable routing. It’s super light and does the job. * XTR-M952 rear derailleur, still my favorite for fewer than 11 speeds. * Sakae SX crankset from eBay. I don’t know if these are any good, but I polished them up a bit, and they hold Spa Cycles 42t and Sakae 28t rings. I like ‘em. * Crust North Bank pedals: they’re no MKS, but they work great, look great. I think they suit the build. * Some whatever Shimano HG 10-speed cassette, 11-36. Works fine! * 10 speed KMC chain, waxed, natch. It may look a little short, but it shifts fine all the way to the biggest cog and its quiet the whole time. ### Stopping * This was one of the special bits; I got Paul MiniMotos so I could still use short pull levers without the fiddling of setting up cantilever brakes. And, uh…the brakes are maybe more powerful than my Klampers or Growtac Equals? Holy crap, these brakes are incredible, and the feeling of braking is gentle when I want it and immediate when I need it. ### Circles * I used the original wheels here because they look awesome, but they also spin well. The brake track is a bit work on these Araya VX-300 rims, but they still have some life left. I did, however, replace the freehub body so I could go from 7 to 10 speeds. I re-dished the wheel, and it has been incredible. The freehub is so quiet that, combined with road-ish tires and a waxed chain, there’s nothing but the sound of wind rushing by. I love it. * The tires are Ultradynamico Cava, 42.?? in their new Rozzo casing. I have not had the greatest luck with their tires in the past, but these have been excellent. I’m okay with the race compound because it isn’t my primary bike, and this new casing is both comfortable to ride and has so far not punctured the TPU tubes in over 300 miles of rough city roads. They fit tight in the bike with just 1-2mm at a few spots, but no rubbing so far. * The skewers are Ringle replicas from Improve Part. They’re super light and look great. * Ass-Savers WinWing 2 on there to keep my butt tidy. This thing just wants to move fast. Even when I’m taking it easy it’s noticeably faster than all my other bikes. But I didn’t build it for speed; it’s also comfortable and fun to ride. Other than an eventual seat post replacement, I may put on a slightly longer stem in the future but there’s no rush. It’s pretty great in its initial form.

Alright alright alright, here’s the proper post on my latest bike project: a 1990 Diamond Back Apex resto-mod that I like to call Rattle Can. I got this bike earlier in the year for $25 on Marketplace. The listing was for “3 kids bikes $25 each”, and this bike was in the back of the single photo behind the other two bikes. I could tell it wasn’t a kids bike, but I think that error in the description kept this thing unsold for a while. But this thing was closer to the upper end of Diamond Back’s line at the time and was made with some nice Tange MTB double butted tubing all over, and looked like a great platform for my idea. My vision for this thing was a fun little street-ripper - something with agility for getting rowdy around town, but comfortable enough for the multi-hour rides that are my daily bread. There is ultimately nothing original on this bike except for the front derailleur, but the rest is a mixture of parts bin, eBay, and some new items that fit what I was going for. The outside of this bike is beat to hell, but the inside of the frame and fork looked clean and rust free after I stripped it all down. So I used rust converter on a few exterior spots, rust prevention spray inside the frame, and some hard core 2K clear coat to protect what’s left of the outside. The result is a stable if battered paint job that I don’t feel bad about sticker-ing up a little bit. Before I get to the build specs, here’s a few of the known sins: * at some point the cable end popped off the front-D cable. Need to dig through my bins and find another. * the rear brake cable looks a little jacked between the v-brake arms; I originally tried setting this up with ratio converters so I could use these totally sick NOS Suntour XC Pro brake levers (SO. SICK.), but it was wonky. I had plenty of cable length left after switching to XTR levers, and didn’t want to waste the existing one so I kept it. It looks weird but works fine. * Yeah…black rims wth non-machined sidewalls and rim brakes. You can see the paint wearing. Not ideal, but they’re the rims I had. * Poo-brown sidewalls on the tires. Sorry Garry—I have bad luck with flats and I need the endurance casing. * Non-matching wheel set and skewers. I built these, but I’ll get to why they don’t match down below. * The red pedals…Valerie likes them but I think it’s the wrong red. But they were cheap and they’re at least Race Face. This is probably the…3rd…resto-mod I’ve wrapped up at this point? But I’m super stoked at how this turned out. Pretty much exactly the feel I was going for with some unexpected surprises along the way. Number one? I have a tool that I use to help see what size tires will fit in a frame, and it looked like this frame could fit some fat meats. The 26" wheels that came with the bike were 1.95", but my gauge made it look like I could fit some 650b tires up to 48mm. Whoa! A 650b conversion? This thing already had a higher BB since it’s a mountain bike, but raising it more with larger wheels? And what about the brakes? So I built a custom set of 650b, rim brake, quick release wheels. I already had a new-old-stock SunTour XC 9000 front hub (sealed bearings!) and really wanted to use it here. But not only would it have been difficult to find an appropriate SunTour rear hub, my options for one with a wide gear range—let alone a cassette—would be limited since they’re out of business. So I used a Rivendell Silver hub and went 9-speed Shimano. The rims are Velocity Cliffhangers, 32-spoke, and the tires are Rene Herse Switchback Hill. I already had one of these as a spare for the Space Horse for the past couple of years, but I found a match at Outpost in their clearance tire bin for TWENTY-FIVE BUCKS a few months ago. And stopping? I had a set of XTR BR-M952 v-brakes, and there is juuuuuuust enough vertical travel in the pad adjustment to make these work on 650b rims. And they’re not angled up, either! I was shocked, and had a pair of some cheaper v-brakes with a ton of vertical adjustment on standby. No need. The last pleasant surprise before the rest of the specs: this bike’s fork has mid-blade mounts, which as far as I can tell is pretty uncommon for MTBs of this era. But it made it possible to use this rack from Hyacinth that I previously used on my Space Horse. Now for the rest - mostly a list, but with a little commentary here and there. * first headset I ever pressed in! This bike has a 1-1/8" threaded steerer, so got the Tange Falcon with sealed cartridge bearings. It’s simple, but it’s really smooth and adjusted fine. * stem adapter from Origin8 for 1-1/8" threaded steerers to 1-1/8" threadless stems, with a black Nitto stem spacer I picked up from Crust. * Thomson cockpit; 70mm stem (angled up) and a 26.8 straight seatpost. I actually reamed out the seat tube a tiny bit to make this work since it came with a 26.6 post. I figured I should be safe with only 0.2 removed and more than enough post in the seat tube. * the stem is holding on to the Crust Shrike Bar in black. This is the 800mm wide-boi with 31.8 clamp diameter. This is my third handlebar from Crust (Nullabar on the Bombora and Ron’s Ortho Bar on my old Trek cruiser), and I feel like they have some great ideas for bars that balance comfort, utility, and aesthetics. These are the craziest, widest bars I’ve ever used, but my shoulders are already about 52cm wide. Coupled with a short stem, these end up being just right. Perfect amount of sweep, total control, and enough rise to work with this old frame. * the saddle is a nice, simple Brooks C17. In this riding configuration, it’s more comfortable than the one on my Space Horse which makes me want to rethink my saddle position on that bike. * grips are my third attempt at finding the right comfort level, but I keep a lot of grips around. These are Wolf Tooth Fat Paw lock-on grips. Simple, but just right for my meat hooks. * brake levers are the XTR levers to match the v-brakes. I was lucky to find the stand-alone levers without integrated shifters because… * …I have my beloved SunTour Power Thumb ratcheting shifters to pull cable. If you like friction shifting (and I really do), these have well earned their reputation. * shifting up front is the original Deore DX derailleur. It’s in kinda crummy cosmetic shape, but it works great and suits the character of the bike. * rear derailleur is every alt-bike-kid’s favorite XTR M952. I got this one on the cheaper end because of a split jockey wheel and got some low-price sealed bearing replacement wheels that still made this cheaper than the usual asking price. The rest of it is in great shape and it works perfectly. * I’m running 3x9 here with a cheaper 9-speed 11-36 Shimano cassette in the rear and a lower-end-but-still-pretty-nice SunTour XCE triple in the front (48/38/28). The drivetrain is clear because you know I’m waxin' and relaxin'. * miscellaneous: cheap Lezyne bottle cage, Ultradynamico bottle, Wolf Tooth bar ends, Topo Designs stem bag, Fab’s Mini Chest on the front, Ass-Savers Win Wing 2 fender, and a Crane bell (that I wish was black, but at least it sounds fantastic). And you know what? This thing rides GREAT. I’ve put 125 miles on it so far and it’s as fun as I’d hoped. It’s nimble, and I don’t notice the high seating position after I’m rolling. That’s the long and…long! of it. Peep the gallery for more detailed glamor shots. I’d like to some day make a simple bike-check video for this bike (and all my others), but video editing is a whole other thing.

Alright alright alright, here’s the proper post on my latest bike project: a 1990 Diamond Back Apex resto-mod that I like to call Rattle Can. I got this bike earlier in the year for $25 on Marketplace. The listing was for “3 kids bikes $25 each”, and this bike was in the back of the single photo behind the other two bikes. I could tell it wasn’t a kids bike, but I think that error in the description kept this thing unsold for a while. But this thing was closer to the upper end of Diamond Back’s line at the time and was made with some nice Tange MTB double butted tubing all over, and looked like a great platform for my idea. My vision for this thing was a fun little street-ripper - something with agility for getting rowdy around town, but comfortable enough for the multi-hour rides that are my daily bread. There is ultimately nothing original on this bike except for the front derailleur, but the rest is a mixture of parts bin, eBay, and some new items that fit what I was going for. The outside of this bike is beat to hell, but the inside of the frame and fork looked clean and rust free after I stripped it all down. So I used rust converter on a few exterior spots, rust prevention spray inside the frame, and some hard core 2K clear coat to protect what’s left of the outside. The result is a stable if battered paint job that I don’t feel bad about sticker-ing up a little bit. Before I get to the build specs, here’s a few of the known sins: * at some point the cable end popped off the front-D cable. Need to dig through my bins and find another. * the rear brake cable looks a little jacked between the v-brake arms; I originally tried setting this up with ratio converters so I could use these totally sick NOS Suntour XC Pro brake levers (SO. SICK.), but it was wonky. I had plenty of cable length left after switching to XTR levers, and didn’t want to waste the existing one so I kept it. It looks weird but works fine. * Yeah…black rims wth non-machined sidewalls and rim brakes. You can see the paint wearing. Not ideal, but they’re the rims I had. * Poo-brown sidewalls on the tires. Sorry Garry—I have bad luck with flats and I need the endurance casing. * Non-matching wheel set and skewers. I built these, but I’ll get to why they don’t match down below. * The red pedals…Valerie likes them but I think it’s the wrong red. But they were cheap and they’re at least Race Face. This is probably the…3rd…resto-mod I’ve wrapped up at this point? But I’m super stoked at how this turned out. Pretty much exactly the feel I was going for with some unexpected surprises along the way. Number one? I have a tool that I use to help see what size tires will fit in a frame, and it looked like this frame could fit some fat meats. The 26" wheels that came with the bike were 1.95", but my gauge made it look like I could fit some 650b tires up to 48mm. Whoa! A 650b conversion? This thing already had a higher BB since it’s a mountain bike, but raising it more with larger wheels? And what about the brakes? So I built a custom set of 650b, rim brake, quick release wheels. I already had a new-old-stock SunTour XC 9000 front hub (sealed bearings!) and really wanted to use it here. But not only would it have been difficult to find an appropriate SunTour rear hub, my options for one with a wide gear range—let alone a cassette—would be limited since they’re out of business. So I used a Rivendell Silver hub and went 9-speed Shimano. The rims are Velocity Cliffhangers, 32-spoke, and the tires are Rene Herse Switchback Hill. I already had one of these as a spare for the Space Horse for the past couple of years, but I found a match at Outpost in their clearance tire bin for TWENTY-FIVE BUCKS a few months ago. And stopping? I had a set of XTR BR-M952 v-brakes, and there is juuuuuuust enough vertical travel in the pad adjustment to make these work on 650b rims. And they’re not angled up, either! I was shocked, and had a pair of some cheaper v-brakes with a ton of vertical adjustment on standby. No need. The last pleasant surprise before the rest of the specs: this bike’s fork has mid-blade mounts, which as far as I can tell is pretty uncommon for MTBs of this era. But it made it possible to use this rack from Hyacinth that I previously used on my Space Horse. Now for the rest - mostly a list, but with a little commentary here and there. * first headset I ever pressed in! This bike has a 1-1/8" threaded steerer, so got the Tange Falcon with sealed cartridge bearings. It’s simple, but it’s really smooth and adjusted fine. * stem adapter from Origin8 for 1-1/8" threaded steerers to 1-1/8" threadless stems, with a black Nitto stem spacer I picked up from Crust. * Thomson cockpit; 70mm stem (angled up) and a 26.8 straight seatpost. I actually reamed out the seat tube a tiny bit to make this work since it came with a 26.6 post. I figured I should be safe with only 0.2 removed and more than enough post in the seat tube. * the stem is holding on to the Crust Shrike Bar in black. This is the 800mm wide-boi with 31.8 clamp diameter. This is my third handlebar from Crust (Nullabar on the Bombora and Ron’s Ortho Bar on my old Trek cruiser), and I feel like they have some great ideas for bars that balance comfort, utility, and aesthetics. These are the craziest, widest bars I’ve ever used, but my shoulders are already about 52cm wide. Coupled with a short stem, these end up being just right. Perfect amount of sweep, total control, and enough rise to work with this old frame. * the saddle is a nice, simple Brooks C17. In this riding configuration, it’s more comfortable than the one on my Space Horse which makes me want to rethink my saddle position on that bike. * grips are my third attempt at finding the right comfort level, but I keep a lot of grips around. These are Wolf Tooth Fat Paw lock-on grips. Simple, but just right for my meat hooks. * brake levers are the XTR levers to match the v-brakes. I was lucky to find the stand-alone levers without integrated shifters because… * …I have my beloved SunTour Power Thumb ratcheting shifters to pull cable. If you like friction shifting (and I really do), these have well earned their reputation. * shifting up front is the original Deore DX derailleur. It’s in kinda crummy cosmetic shape, but it works great and suits the character of the bike. * rear derailleur is every alt-bike-kid’s favorite XTR M952. I got this one on the cheaper end because of a split jockey wheel and got some low-price sealed bearing replacement wheels that still made this cheaper than the usual asking price. The rest of it is in great shape and it works perfectly. * I’m running 3x9 here with a cheaper 9-speed 11-36 Shimano cassette in the rear and a lower-end-but-still-pretty-nice SunTour XCE triple in the front (48/38/28). The drivetrain is clear because you know I’m waxin' and relaxin'. * miscellaneous: cheap Lezyne bottle cage, Ultradynamico bottle, Wolf Tooth bar ends, Topo Designs stem bag, Fab’s Mini Chest on the front, Ass-Savers Win Wing 2 fender, and a Crane bell (that I wish was black, but at least it sounds fantastic). And you know what? This thing rides GREAT. I’ve put 125 miles on it so far and it’s as fun as I’d hoped. It’s nimble, and I don’t notice the high seating position after I’m rolling. That’s the long and…long! of it. Peep the gallery for more detailed glamor shots. I’d like to some day make a simple bike-check video for this bike (and all my others), but video editing is a whole other thing.

Montréal travel wrap-up, let’s do this. We all really didn’t want to leave yet. After a scant week in this excellent city we only just scratched the surface. But ah! Isn’t that just the way with standard American vacation allowances? Besides, we had this week between vacation and the start of the school year to reacclimate to our home environs and routines, so return we must. We made one final stop at St-Viateur Bagel for some breakfast and left the city. We hit a grocery store for some final Canadian snacks (and nearly a liter of dark maple syrup!) and a post office so our son’s post cards would have Canadian postage and postmarks. The border crossing was pretty quick and without incident, as was most of the ride down. Home, unloading, decompressing, recovering. I don’t know how many family vacations we have left; both of our kids are starting the last years each of elementary and middle school. So it isn’t only a matter of family travel before they grow up and leave home—I wonder how much longer they’ll each tolerate schlepping around this city and that museum and such-and-such guided tour before they only want to stare at their devices talking to their friends. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’ll take what I can get, but I really loved how much this trip covered all the bases of how well our family can travel together. Hiking around a city? Great! Exploring a natural wonder? Sure! Checking out cool food and beverage spots? You bet—as long as that includes dessert! Museums? Parks? Cool buildings? Yes, yes, and yes. Me and Valerie are pretty lucky on this front. Anyway. Now we focus on school and dream of the next trip…

Shall we continue? Let’s shall. ### Wednesday… …began as, perhaps, every day should have: bagels. Now I’m not a bagel purist. I grew up in New Jersey and have had my fair share of great doughy rings from Jersey, NYC, and some pretty solid options here in Richmond. I don’t have a canonical bagel in my head so of course I was excited to try Montréal’s distinctive style on its home turf. The photo above is the storefront of the original St-Viateur Bagel in the Mile End neighborhood. Boiled with honey, baked in a wood-fired brick oven, these puppies were really dang tasty and my whole family agreed. I really wanted to sample Montréal’s rich coffee scene after breakfast so we walked a little bit up and over to Café Éclair where we had some of the most delicious coffee this year. Micro-lot espresso, a huge list of featured and in-house pour-overs, special iced drinks, and a gorgeous cafe meant a repeat visit the very next day. One of the baristas even brought over the grounds for each of Valerie’s and my pour-overs so we could smell them before she brewed them! Outstanding. The rest of the day included some general exploration and meandering around the old city and port again with a healthy amount of time spent at the excellent Pointe-à-Callière archeology museum. The kids enjoyed it as much as the adults, and we learned a ton about Montréal’s history and its people, including the First Nations peoples that predated colonization. Dinner was early, though, because we found what was supposed to be a high octane Ramen shop (of COURSE it was in Mont Royal just off Rue Rachel!). They recommended showing up right as they open to avoid long lines and we were glad we did. We arrived at 4:45 before a 5:00 opening, and there was already a couple ahead of us. The dining room completely filled within minutes after our seating, but it was absolutely worth the hype. Yokato Yokabai served some of the most delicious ramen we had ever eaten—so good that I need to wait at least a month before I eat anywhere around Richmond to avoid complete disappointment. Valerie wanted to wrap up the day with a post-sunset ride on the city’s massive ferris wheel, La Grande Roue de Montréal. I know it’s a huge tourist trap and it’s overpriced, but we were on vacation and the weather was clear, so pourquoi pas? I brought my tripod with us specifically for post ride photos. ### Thursday, never looking back Our last full day in the city started with another trip way out northwest, but this time to ZAB Café on St-Denis in the Le Petite-Patrie neighborhood. Their coffee looked good, but specifically to Valerie’s interests they have their signature Cafelimo drink both on tap and in can multipacks. Valerie loves coffee lemonade from one of our local shops, so she had to try it. If she liked it she could take home a bunch of cans. She did, and she did! ZAB didn’t have much in the way of food (a few cookies) so we made our way back to Mile End to grab some wonderful pastries from Brioche à Tête on Fairmount. [ominous foreboding] I would return later that day… We caught a bus back toward Place des Arts so we could hit another museum and as we got off the bus our nearly 13-year-old daughter informed us that she’d left her sling pack back at the pastry shop. Heading all the way back out there to retrieve it could scuttle our plans for the day, but I hatched a plan that would both save time and give me an excuse for a final BIXI ride. But first, that museum: MEM, or Centre des mémoires montréalaises, is all about the people of Montréal. Not so much the founding as much as the recent past, the changing fabric of the city, and the people that have come from near and far to make its population what it is today. There was an excellent video exhibit with interviews about the city’s queer community, urban exploration, a man who dances in parks, a woman who grows banana trees all the way up there, and many other slices of life. Most of the museum’s space was devoted to subsections about the 1976 olympics, the history of alley sheds, alleys themselves, immigrants and the stories/objects they bring with them, the utility infrastructure, and so much more. We could have spent twice as much time there if we hadn’t been so hungry. Oh yeah—catch that photo with the supermarket flyer? I dug up a little more info about the now-closed store bearing my surname. So now that missing sling bag. While Valerie took the kids to check out the city’s modest Chinatown in a bit more detail I caught a bike back out to Mile End to see whether the pastry shop still had the bag. They did! Couldn’t hurt to get one more financier before heading back to the hotel, right? With a successful recovery we headed once more over to the old city to visit Basilique Notre-Dame De Montréal. This cathedral looked a little simpler on the outside compared to some I’ve seen in Europe (heck, even in the US), but holy chickens was it ornate inside. Beautiful in that over-the-top sorta way. There has to be some kinda metaphor around the convenience of using a credit card to light up a prayer candle… After the cathedral Valerie wanted a family photo by a “Bonjour Montréal” sign at the port with the skyline in the background, so I indulged. We had our most mediocre dinner of the trip at some forgettable creperie, but wrapped up the night with some pretty solid coffee and wonderful dessert from Le Petit Dep (the Rue St-Paul location). I should have one more post to wrap up the trip soon.

«Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte» or something like that (sorry Pascal). Gonna cover a little more ground in this post, but not likely the last one. ### First Full Day: Stretching Our Legs We took our time getting ready on our first whole day in Montréal, but we eventually headed out past the tiny Chinatown for a late breakfast and coffee before exploring the old city. We were in line forever, but had some decent coffee and great pastries in a unique setting at Crew Café—the public space for a co-working operation in the old Royal Bank of Canada building. The cafe positioned us around the corner from an entrance to Montréal’s Underground City near a section of the Berlin wall! Turns out it was gifted to the city on the occasion of their 350th anniversary. We needed our transit passes for the week and had direct access underground to the Square-Victoria-OACI station. From there we jumped up a couple of stops to Champ-du-Mars near city hall to check out more of the old city and port. The photo at the top of this post is at the start of Rue St.-Amable off of Place Jacques-Cartier. It’s a gorgeous if touristy part of town, but we wanted to return to Mont Royal for lunch at one of the city’s oldest poutine shops: La Banquise. Worth the wait, really tasty, definitely the sort of meal you have maybe only once a year for the sake of your arteries! I briefly parted ways with my family after lunch so I could do a little solo exploration using the amazing Bixi bike share system. If my youngest had been a few years older I think we all would have ridden together, but Valerie was generous enough to let me have my bike nerd time. I alluded to the cycling infrastructure in Montréal in my prior post, but the whole city really has SO MUCH. I posted while I was there: > Richmond hosted the UCI Worlds in 2015 and our bike infrastructure is still pretty spare all these years later. > > Today I rode a BIXI (bike share) #bike around Montréal’s exquisite cycling infrastructure and it feels far more appropriate that they’re hosting the UCI Worlds next month. It isn’t perfect and I’m sure locals want (and deserve) more, but I really felt safer riding around an unfamiliar city on a clunky rental bike than my own city that I ride every day as an experienced cyclist. What a treat! Anyway, after a decent-enough dinner at an Italian restaurant near the arts district, we hit the grocery store to get some snacks for our day trip to Quebec City. And here I encountered the legendary milk-in-a-bag! ### Tuesday Day Trip to Quebec City Valerie loves an organized tour so she had us book a bus trip to Quebec City a few hours up (down? It was northeast but flowing out to sea) the St. Lawrence River. Our rest stop on the way brought us life-sized dinos in the parking lot and the realization that there are still some pay phones up there. Nice! We initially went past the city to stop at Montmorency Falls, an absolutely gorgeous site to behold: Once we were in the city we had a short guided tour around the lower city which Valerie enjoyed and the kids and I mostly tolerated. The self-guided exploration and climb up to the upper city (we did all the stairs up to the upper funicular platform!) was excellent, and we were all utterly charmed. We took the funicular down, because who doesn’t love a ding-dang funicular? We returned to our hotel late and exhausted, but dang. Worth it.

God, what a a fantastic trip. My whole family just returned from Montréal, Quebec in Canada. This was the first international vacation for our children, the first visit to Canada for Valerie and me, and the first international trip for Valerie and me since 20212. I’ve wanted to visit Canada for ages, and Montréal is not a terrible driving distance from Richmond, VA. And in my head this was sort of an “easy mode” version of international travel for our kids: Driving (split over two days in each direction), same time zone, a city where most shop and restaurant employees can speak English, and a (mostly) modern North American city. But! It was still a city where most people spoke (Canadian) French by default, where many menus and signs had no English alternative. With an old city core reminiscent of Western European towns. And it really did work out that way. Travel was easy (for how long it was), the city was marvelous, and while we never had issues related to language differences, the kids found themselves reflexively saying “excusez-moi” instead of “excuse me” after hearing it all week. The kids still felt like they were outside the US, not simply in a different city. But oh! What a city. I found Montréal beguiling, whether it was the old city, the outer neighborhoods (I could live somewhere around the plateau), the variety of excellent food and coffee, or the extraordinary bike infrastructure. I wish I had 4 weeks instead of one to explore the place. The week was chock full of goodness, so I may need to break this into multiple parts. ## The Way Up Like I said, we tend to like splitting long drives over two days, so on the first day we stopped in Troy, NY outside of Albany. Even though it was a single night, Valerie is terrific at selecting hotels and we ended up on the east bank of the Hudson River. We were able to dine on the waterfront and have a lovely stroll back to the hotel afterward. The border crossing at Champlain was easy enough, and the Canadian border agent was patient and kind enough to physically stamp our passports since it was the first time for the kids (and the adults wanted them, too!). We made an obligatory stop at Tim Hortons, and from what I understand there wouldn’t be too many Canadian defenders of the chain’s quality. I didn’t expect it to be any good. I just wanted to do something particularly Canadian shortly after entering Canada, so we got some Timmy’s. Crossing Pont Champlain on our way into Pylon City had me singing “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by my favorite Montréal band, Stars, until we hit the sort of multi-event traffic insanity that many locals assured us was fairly typical. In this case, however, we arrived right after the lunch hour on the final day of both Montréal Pride AND Otakuthon. As it happens, hour hotel was right near the convention center, so we could not actually reach the parking deck due to road closures. We needed a few hours of entertainment before checking in. We decided to head out in the vicinity of C&L Cycles, a shop I’d been dying to visit after learning about it from Bike Breath. They have parts and goods from pretty much every cool alt cycling brand, they are the exclusive Canadian Rivendell dealer, and they also have a house brand (Bassi) with a lineup of fantastic steel bikes. My thinking was that a cool bike shop is probably in a cool neighborhood and, brother, that was an understatement. #### Brief Aside about Mont Royal C&L Cycles is on Rue Rachel in Montréal’s Mont Royal (Mont…réal?) neighborhood—not to be confused with actual Mont Royal within Mont Royal Park. This neighborhood could have been our entire vacation and we wouldn’t have been disappointed. So many great restaurants, cafes, beautiful parks, shops, and enough bike infrastructure to put my entire city’s paltry bike lanes to shame. I would go back to Montréal just to spend more time here. ANYWAY… We were fortunate enough to stumble into what turned out to be an excellent dumpling shop called Le Petit Coin Dumpling (chicken curry dumplings, I love you!), and some fantastic ice cream from Les Tropiques which we enjoyed in the lovely La Fontaine Park. When we wrapped up we were able to easily reach our hotel and check in. We finished up the evening with some casual perambulating around Vieux-Montréal before collapsing into bed. The photo at the top of this post is from our room, an absolutely stellar find from my wife. This has gone on entirely too long, so I think I’ll pick up with some more in (at least) another post. I just had to get something out though now that we’re home. I’ll be insufferable about how much I love Montréal to anybody who will listen for the next week at least.