A great thing about home exchange is the access to sports equipment one's exchange partners often provide. The Montreal swap family sent us an email before they left inviting us to use their two bicycles. Of course we would not have touched them had they not offered in advance. Just because an exchanger leaves something in her own house doesn't mean the swappers who stay there are free to use it. In fact, I read one article about home exchange where a guy said "I'm not above wearing the exchangers' shirts." That is one dude who should stick to hotels.
In this case, we were happy to have permission to use the exchangers' bikes. Montreal has miles and miles -- well, actually kilometers and kilometers -- of off-street bike routes. In fact, Quebec has thousands of kilometers of bicycle touring routes, known as the Route Verte.
Before heading to the Canal path we stopped at the Maison de Velo. This amazing cafe-bookstore-travel agency is the headquarters of the Quebec bike route planners. They publish dozens of books on bike routes across Quebec and Canada. Helmeted riders parked their bikes in the plentiful racks and relaxed with a coffee and snack. We picked up a detailed map of all the local bike paths, as well as an English guide to the Route Verte network, which now extends into the province of Ontario.
Wheeling through Old Montreal towards the port we were thrilled to see courteous drivers give way to riders on the well-marked bike lanes. We passed art cars with air conditioners mounted to their passenger windows -- part of the Just for Laughs festival currently going on.
Crossing the Jaques Cartier bridge was challenging, especially while pulling two children in a bike trailer. We had to stop when the bike lane narrowed to avoid hitting what looked like a tiny beaver munching the greenery beside the path. We asked the next cyclist what this creature was called and were told it was a marmot. I had never heard of this so I asked the following rider what the animal is called in English. "Marmot" came the reply.
It was cute as could be, but didn't look especially non-rabid, so we gave it as wide a berth as possible and kept rolling. Later I discovered that marmots -- not rats -- are now considered by historians to be the animal responsible for spreading the bubonic plague, so it's just as well we treated it with care.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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