Montreal

Montreal city has a certain lack of charm. For somewhere that is supposed to be a Quebecois hotspot of culture, mixed with North American stylings. It's really just a snooty north american city, nothing more. Burger joints, obese people drinking gallon Cokes and Grand Lattes topped with cream and worst of all.....filtered coffee.

I was lucky/unlucky enough to be staying gratis at friends extended family, keeping my footprint small and helping where I could. We hired "old gold" hannah montanna made by the now defunct Pontiac brand, backed by GM, Buick, Cheverolet and nearly every other brand of car being sold in the USA right now. Even though GMC say on their ads "Two cars can't share the same market space" reffering to clearing old stock.....but they can make the same car, just with different names on it? And that's enough to fool people into buying them? I digress...

The squirrels are cool.

And so it's off to Quebec city, which I am looking forward to. The 3hr drive not so. But it flies by as we play with every gadget Old Gold has including but not limited to: Auto sliding side doors (how lazy are ppl here!) DVD screen, infrared headphones for the back and a compressor built into the back quarter panel, handy for those pre race tyre changes maybe....shame it didn't work, like a lot of things on the car.

Quebec has a much richer history and even more snootiness about it, but that fits with the whole theme of the city, built around it's old town. It works. It would work even better if they had real coffee. We stayed very accommodating extended family again which was superb. These ppl loved having visitors, even thought they spent most of the summer on their boat in the harbor renovating it. And they didn't speak much English, which was good I think. I spent most conversations getting the jist of things, nodding, giving single word answers, but laughing all the same when required. Shame my French is so shoddy, but then, even if it was good, they speak "Quebecois" so they mightn't have understood me anyway.

And so it's off to Mont Saint-Anne, via bike as we hit our first race of the 3 weeks. An 80km point to point, which would be a perfect warm up and to rid myself of "Aerolegs"

It would be if it was dry. Instead MASSIVE bog holes, mud and all associated greeted us. But we left with no brake pads, rooted cables, ghost shifting and $125CAD for 5th, just enough to cover entry and a rebuild.

Mont Saint-Anne isn't big. You think ski towns are, but even the hill is small. It has nothing on the European resorts for size, but much more for technical riding. And rain, much more rain. I'll thank the Magura boys for saving my bacon with free brakepads, when I couldn't find them anywhere. Little used brand of brake yes, but they work so well so i'll be stocking up when home.