On steel and getting home

The winds were calmer and more indirect today, which was good as yesterday proved to have consequences. I set off from Sorel, over a lift bridge to its sister city, Tracy. I was following the 132 rather than the Route Verte and was rewarded by the sight of a Rio Tinto steel and titanium mill, emphasis on the steel. It wasn't terribly pretty, but it was interesting to me. I have a certain fascination with industry.

All this stuff we have comes from countless processes and origins. To give just one germane example, as a mechanical engineering drop-out, I remember being amazed at the almost magical way iron and carbon come together to make steel, or rather steels as by small variations in the ratios and certain additives, there seems to be no limit on what characteristics you can coax from steel, except possibly lightness. ;-) And as an added bonus, I gather iron and its derivatives are among the most recycled materials. It also had the bonus of seeing a new to me variety of railway gondola car which looked particularly stocky and sturdy as if they were used to transport very heavy materials such as iron ore. The nearby autoroute, number 30, has the name "Autoroute de l'acier" as the area was and is a relative hotspot for the steel industry in Québec. I was to pass at least one other steel mill, this one having a conveyor belt system to carry ore (or possibly other bulk materials) over the 132 from the shore of the St-Lawrence.

The weather was sunny and cool and I felt I made decent time. I stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Varennes. While I was eating, another cycle tourist came it and asked for a table from which he could keep an eye on his bike. This proved to be the table next to mine and I could see that he had brought 4 water bottles in with him. (I later saw his "whee" bike with attached monowheel trailer: two bottles in the classic positions and two attached to seatpost.) We chatted a bit, though I fear I didn't give him enough props when he said he had started in Vaudreuil that morning as I couldn't recall exactly where Vaudreuil was. (I later found out that it is just off the West end of Montreal Island, meaning that he had already ridden approximately 80 kms that day.)

I attribute this mental fog to fatigue as even after lunch I found that I was relatively sluggish. Thankfully, Varennes was the beginning of the end with a nice, well-used bike path besides the Saint-Lawrence.

Google maps had suggested that the best way across the River was to use the Jacques-Cartier Bridge to get to Île Sainte-Hélène, then take the Pont de la Concorde. However, the Cartier Bridge is not familliar to me by bike. From taking the bus out to the Townships, I know that its' approach from the South Shore involves many twists and turns the logic of which appears opaque. Not something to be approached lightly. The Bridge also involves a considerable amount of climbing and indeed, it was the sight of it high above my level that proved the clincher. I took the the longer but easier option of crossing the Seaway at the St-Lambert locks, riding along part of the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve to Île Sainte-Hélène, then taking the Pont de la Concorde. Then it was very easy to get home. I rode along a portion of Notre-Dame street that had gone from two-way to one-way to two-way in my absence.

It was less easy to haul Leonardo up the stairs to my flat as my left knee started to complain.