On the 2018 Tour de l'Île

I volunteered again as a Bénévélo Méchano this year. For various reasons, my friend J.-P. didn't do so. The weather was about ideal. Coolish, but warm enough for T-shirt and shorts and very sunny. The wind was out of the East (mostly) which was about ideal. 

I took the Metro to Sherbrooke Station and headed to the Sun Youth Building to pick up my stuff from Vélo-Québec: a red t-shirt, inner tubes, various bits of paper and lunch. The Sun Youth Building was formerly the Baron Byng High School which is most famous for having been the Alma Mater of Mordecai Richler. After 30 minutes of waiting, my team set off for Parc Avenue to await the start of the Tour. 

While I waited, I stood around occaissionaly waiving my pump, hoping to attract customers. A couple of them came. I was dealing with one man with a bike featuring inner tubes with Schrader valves (i.e. the common ones). There seemed to be oil in the valve for some reason. As I was filling out the tires, the valve stems inflated, which was odd. As I was finishing with the second tire, the valve exploded, to my consternation and that of the rest of the team. The decision was made to replace both the inner tubes.

Not long after the start of the Tour, I was flagged down to help a someone with a flat tire. He was apologetic about the bother. However I assured him that A. it was my job for the day and B. owners of Devinci Toscas had to stick together!  Like me, he was riding a Devinci Tosca! Quite possibly the same model year! The problem turned out to be the failure of the rubber at the base of the valve stem. 

A few kilometers later, I heard a bang and a hiss from the bikes in front of me. I saw someone veer towards the sidewalk followed by some friends and then myself. He was pleasantly surprised by my rapid appearance, making favourable comments about the high level of service! His Schrader valve stem had blown apart much like the one at the start. I replaced his inner tube with a Presta valved one. It was a bit weird as all the flats I encountered that day involved stem failures.

Nearing the back river, some firemen had extended a ladder over the road as well as a sprinkler. While on Gouin Boulevard, a first aid Bénévélo flagged me down to ask me to raise the seat on his young daughter's bike. He was a bit apologetic until I explained that people riding bikes with seats far too low was something of a pet peeve of mine! I was only too happy to raise her seat.
 
Later, the route took us through the Lafarge Quarry and cement plant. As per Lafarge's more or less standard procedure, there was carefully clean heavy machinery lining the route for the perusal of the cyclists. There were also employees wearing long-sleeved T-shirts with the Lafarge logo on them to talk to cyclists wanting to persue the machinery more closely, and to prevent the cyclists from getting too close!

Also as per standard procedure for Lafarge, the drums on the cement trucks were turned so that the brand name was very obvious. I have written about this more than once.

The one downside of the day was that there was no milk left at the end.

Mummy writes:

My stats for the Tour de l’Île:  9 km to the start, 66 for the tour, 9 km back. 

Perfect weather, cool and sunny. 

We met Joey (Michael was in Hong Kong) on the Charlevoix bridge as usual.  We were there at 7 having breakfasted, so pretty early.  I was worried about running into and having to go around all the people lining up for the regular Tour de l’Île, as we had to pick up Hugh’s bib, which for some reason had never arrived by mail.  In fact there was nobody lined up to start, they were still getting everything set up.  They had a package ready for Hugh, it all took practically no time.  So off we went. 

There were several streets where there were lots of tow trucks blaring warnings, then hauling off the many many parked cars.  There must have been every tow truck in Montreal out making money.  I wondered if they had unfairly put up the no parking signs after everyone had gone to bed, but I’m sure they really didn’t.

We stopped for a red light and the young man volunteer was very enthusiastic and insisted of taking selfies with each of us.

The Rivière des Prairies was very impressive.  A strong east wind (Daniel would say the weather gods were on our side, for once) against the considerable current.  No boats out, but one sea plane.  So many pretentious houses, a few lovely old ones, quite a few modest 1950s ones.  Lots and lots of small parks by the river.  And a big one near the end of the island.  Hugh and Joey followed the 60 km tour signs to lunch, I went over the bridge, tough against the wind, to Repentigny, then back with the wind, just for fun, and joined them at lunch.

Back along Notre Dame mostly.  Lots of bike path.  Joey was impressed with how many bike paths there were.  She has always done the closed streets version of the tour.  We took a detour into a park to watch the shipping.  Eventually we joined the closed street tour, then Hugh and Joey went straight home and I went to the finish.  Going up Berri, I was impressed at how many quite small children were able to pedal up.  And quite a few people who looked young and fit were pushing their bikes.

So many people at the finish.  I got our chocolate milk and headed back to Daniel’s before 2.