On the first run of the year on Leonardo

I was prepping Leonardo for its first ride of the year. The plan was to go to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and back. However, when I dug out my rear saddle bags, I discovered that the shock cord on the right one had broken. Given that I bought them in 2006 and got tens of thousands of kilometers out of them, a little wear and tear is to be expected. I looked on the MEC`s website and discovered that replacement "MEC shock cord and J hook assemblies" are available so I decided to incorporate this errand into the trip. It was not the easiest trip I have made to MEC. I kept getting shuffled back and forth between the bike repair department and customer service. I eventually got my hands on two them. I bought two because I figure that after nearly twelve years of usage, chances are, the shock chord on the left is probably ready to give up the ghost, so why not do some preventative maintenance?

While I have biked around the Western tip of the Island of Montreal several times, one constantly inconstant factor is the route on the Northern side of the Island. The problem is not a lack of bike paths. Rather it is a surplus of bike paths which lack an overall pattern or consistency to them. I got on one which, after many twists and turns, dumped me in the middle of the Bois-de-Liesse Nature Park which is very nice but wasn't really where I wanted to be. I worked out a route to Gouin Bouvelard Ouest and stayed on it until it ended in Senneville. In some ways, it was very interesting as unlike most roads in the West Island, it wasn't laid out as a suburban road. Rather, the gentle curves and the old buildings along it revealed it to be an old rural road which had once served villages, now consumed by suburbia. It later hit the shore of Lac des-Deux-Montagnes where I saw large, smooth shelled turtle sunning itself on a log.