Serendipitously, we found out the Grand Prix Cyclistes de Montréal was taking place at a nearby park during our stay in Montréal. This, and its twin race in Québec, are the only 2 UCI sanctioned races in North America this year.
On our short walk to the race, we passed a number of dedicated bike lanes that made me quite envious:
This statue, called The Illuminated Crowd, was also pretty cool (not sure what Jill is looking for down there):
We arrived at the park around 9:AM and caught a number of teams and riders warming up, including Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie:
We also saw a number of the teams being presented:
The race itself was pretty exciting. We stationed ourselves near the hairpin turn near the finish line. The turn is at the bottom of a hill, so it was particularly challenging:
Each lap took about 15 minutes to complete, so we had time to wander about between laps. The entire race took about 5 and a half hours. Here, the photographers are lining up for the sprint finish:
Notice the brooms on this van - it's to sweep up the last rider:
And here are the winners (Portugal’s Rui Faria Da Costa was winner, France’s Pierrick Fedrigo was second, followed by Belgium’s Philippe Gilbert). Gilbert won the race in Quebéc a few days earlier, which clinched him as the number one ranked cyclist in the world:
And some videos I made of the start, finish, and medals presentation of the race:
Our first full day in Canada started with us running into the "Le Marathon des Arts" festival. We witnessed the opening parade and lion dancers:
For lunch, we found a great vegetarian place called Commensal, where food is sold by weight. It was a lot like Souper!Salad! - except nicer, hipper, and with good food.
Afterward, we made our way to a couple of dual purpose bike shops that I had read about. Le Grande Cycle is a small shop that had an unridden Gary Fischer Klunker for a really reasonable price ($495) that I really wanted. They also have a small cafe inside. The other shop is called BikeCurious. It's also a small neighborhood shop that - surprise, surprise - is gay and lesbian friendly. They have a small barber shop inside and offer "lesbian haircuts for anyone."
After the requisite bike shop stops, we made our way to Chinatown, passing along the way a Ferrari Daytona (a pretty rare car that I have never seen in the wild):
a sidewalk tribute to Leonard Cohen:
And finally, the Chinatown arch:
Then we made our way down to Vieux-Montréal and Vieux-Port (Old Montréal and Old Port). The old part of the city is pretty touristy, so we didn't stay long:
On our way back to the hotel, we passed a number of weddings being photographed:
We also saw a bunch of BIXI bikes for rent in town. I believe Austin will have similar bike rental stations soon:
Jill finished off the night working on her novel:
I got to Town Lake about 11:00 this morning (after my my mom and sister left for Houston - they had spent the night with me). I was going counter-clockwise around the 7 mile loop and having a decent run despite the dust storms. As I was crossing the wooden bridge along the trail below 1st Street, I tripped over one of the railroad timbers that make up the bridge. I started stumbling forward, so I sped up to try to regain my balance. Well, that was a mistake - all that did was propel me onto the ground faster and harder (note to self, as the angle of your body approaches 45 degrees, speeding up will not help right yourself up). Luckily, I landed on my shoulder, banged my cheekbone, then slid a few feet on my back. I laid there for a couple of minutes, looked around to see if anyone was nearby, dusted myself off, and walked the mile or so back to my car in shame:
The reason I was running at all was because I'm feeling blah from having eaten so much these past couple of days. Jill's 40th birthday was Saturday, and while we tried to stay up until midnight Friday night to celebrate, she fell asleep around 11:30. However, that gave me just enough time to hang some decorations and light a birthday cupcake before waking her up:
Her birthday presents seemed like naturals for me. A painting of Jill was featured on the July cover of Poets / Artists magazine. She didn't have a copy, so I got her one and put it inside a Mead Trapper Keeper (a modern version of what she wanted in high school):
I was surprised she didn't know what happened to the original cover art. So I contacted the publisher of the magazine, who put me in touch with the artist, who in turn sold the painting to me:
Morning came and we kicked off the day by going to the Monkey Nest for Caffè Americanos and vegan donuts:
The plan for Jill's birthday celebration was divided into two parts: roller skating in the afternoon, and a party at my house in the evening. This is her skating outfit (the obligatory tube socks were added later at the rink):
Skating was at the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex in East Austin. I thought about joining her on the rink, but after putting on the skates, I realized that would be a big mistake. I felt like I was wearing really slippery, really tall platform shoes. Not to take anything away from Elton John, 3 out of the 4 members of Kiss (the drummer doesn't count), or any of a number of strippers working their way through business school on any given night, but the adage about "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" is true. Anyway, everyone else had a good time:
For the party at my house, I didn't really have time to prepare food for 20-30 people, so I got Zocalo to cater for me. Jill, however, picked out the cake - it's a vegan Dreamsicle creation from Sugar Mama's Bake Shop in South Austin:
I think everyone had a good time. Especially Jill:
Thanks for coming Eric, Gaby, Diego, Alison, and Mollie - it was nice to integrate some of my friends in with Jill's. And a belated happy birthday to you, Alison!
