MPQ

The plan was the Ripton hermit and I along with Ron Dawson were headed to the Adirondacks to find the elusive barbecue restaurant in the first floor of the fancy hotel.

This time we would be riding away from the sun with it at our backs and hot rubber meeting cold asphalt tearing up the road like we done so many times in the other direction.

Ron Dawson got the email I sent.  He just got home from work in Montreal there was no way he was going to make it, he was attending and hosting his own motorcycle club meeting on Saturday instead.

No response from the Ripton hermit so it looked like the plan was a bust.  Just at the last minute Ron said: "hey why don't you come up to our meeting at the Burgundy Lion on Notre Dame West for tomorrow".

Now I was locked and loaded for north instead of west and yeah it was 40° but I was ready with my Aerostich roadcrafter and my 99 BMW R1100RT.   I was ready to get all the benefits of the drop in temperature that yielded just a bit of a bump in horsepower for this late autumn riding.

I took the river road out of Lincoln down to 116 N. Then on to  2A and onto the slab 89 N. up to customs.  To say that the Canadian border guard was friendly is an understatement…. she didn't even asked me to take my helmet off.  She had one look at my enhanced drivers license and then she asked me: "is that a Vermont motorcycle plate?". "Yeah", I said and I read her my number from memory.  She said have a great day.  Around the two hour mark I started to feel some discomfort.  I had some tingling and numbness in my fingertips and I wasn't really getting the circulation that is common on a summer ride.  I also didn't want to buy fuel in the states because all they had was low octane ethanol-rich garbage that would then sit in my tank over the winter attracting moisture converting into the snot and slime that would just cause more trouble than it was worth. So for a couple bucks more I went to fill up at a Petro Canada.

The parking lot was chock-full and every one of the fuel islands were empty.   Everyone was at the Tim Hortons inside.  I opened the door and made a left walking to the order here station.   There were 4 ez chairs to my right placed in front of the gas fireplace.  When I walked in the door I was hit in the face with the cinnamon sugar smell of an apple fritter.  The sweets case stacked from bottom to top and a pleasant young lady reaching in with wax paper to pull out a glazed prize for another customer waiting at the counter.  I went with a hot decaf coffee with steamed milk and a buttered croissant.  I could not help but notice how un-American this gas station was.  My octane choices were: 89 91 94 non-ethanol.   Would you like nitromethane sir?   Um, why yes.  The attendants looked like they could end up on the runway in Lisbon for the Yves St. Laurent's spring show.

Back out on the autoroute 35 I was just south of its junction with the autoroute 10 at Chambly.  Then west to the city just twenty-five more kilometers.  I got to the point that I normally crossed the St. Lawrence Seaway at Pont Champlain.   Traffic was shut down for construction.   The detour took me right and downstream, following the on the seaway to Jacques Cartier Bridge.  To my left iron train trestles with vertical lift drawbridges allowed big ships to pass. They looked weathered and antiqued but still in use.  The road went under the bridge and made a sweeping climb to the right to get up to elevation.   As I crested the bridge I stayed in the right admiring the view of the Seaway.  It was just beautiful at 10 o'clock in the morning.  Jacques Cartier Bridge dumps you real close to the Old Port downtown.  I was a couple hours ahead of schedule and spent that time cruising the city in circles getting lost and then finding my way again.  From the bottom to the top up by  Mt. Royal on cobblestone streets vast overlooks zigzagging my way downhill to the port.  I was just cruising deciding left or right at the end of each street. Saint Hubert, Saint Catherine René Levesque……. the streets just stacked up and I continued the ride.   As I got closer to the time of the meeting I used my GPS instead of the handwritten address I had taped to my tank. In all of my circles in my travels I never did stumble upon the pub without the help of electronic navigation.   I had left my tank bag at home which I normally use to hold my GPS.    I flipped up the keyhole  cover of my fuel tank cap and seated my Garmin back against it, taping it in place with the blue masking tape that had my 2 destination addresses on them.  Now, west of the city I narrowed in on the spot.   15 south to 720 west, off at Atwater street and on to Notre Dame.   Ron had just parked between two street posts.  His friend John the retired aircraft mechanic parked the one bike he doesn't work on too much, a newer 1000cc Honda.

The Burgundy Lion is an English themed pub boasting over 300  whiskeys, ryes and scotch.. http://www.burgundylion.com/whisky/.  You will find Murphy's stout on tap among other old world favorites.  14 foot high ceilings and a mezzanine with an eat in sports bar feel that makes it's way past two clean restrooms and spills out onto an open air rooftop lounge.   I was greeted at the door by the pub host.  He showed me upstairs to the club meeting table.  Twenty-two club members sat at the main table and people that didn't RSVP sat at the bar booths.   This bike club is all about old iron.  Their flagship is a ‘48 Indian Chief that seems to win every time it goes to show.

I found my place at the corner of the table, to Ron’s left.  Anna his wife greeted me: "you're crazy", she said.   I just smiled then shed my Stitch and ordered a stout.  The waitress was extra friendly.   Real big smile.  Real big.  All the staff were really friendly and helpful.   It did not take long for me to find my place on the menu: bangers and mash.   Oh was it good.  When they brought out the first 4 servings of it there was a truly Canadian thing: a waiting war.   People that ordered the dish did not want to speak up that it was their dish as they were being polite.    Watching this I thought the first trip was all that was ordered.   The waitstaff made two more trips showing me that I had made a fine choice.  Two long bangers sat atop a mound of mashed potatoes circled by a sweet onion reduction.  I begged a piece of Anna's rye bread to wipe the plate clean.  As I looked down the length of the table the banger plates were clean.  Anna looked at me and said:  "that wasn't good at all" and then gave me a closed mouth smile that finished with an up turn at the corner of her mouth.    They did separate checks for each member which I thought was very nice.   It took the stress out of sorting a big bill and added to the chill vibe in the room.   John the mechanic stood to Ron's right and raised his voice in order to reach the group participants.  He was shouting over other conversations with a chunk of rear tire in his hand that had a wheel spoke poked through it.   He was on  his Honda CBF1000 at the time and asked the crowd to tell him how much force it took to make that spoke go into that tire.  Answers were only in Newton Meters. ( we are in Canada after all)

When we had settled up John the mechanic, Ron Dawson and I road onto the slab and out to La Salle past where I used to whitewater kayak.  He led us to his home shop and we pored over his collection of Beemers, Velocettes and BSA’s   He had fitted some of them for racing and performance and wrenched at the track.  Lighter cranks reinforced rods, shaved heads and high compression.  Not discussed was the super voodoo head work that is only whispered to people after 3 or more beers get the best of him and he finds himself on a roll.  Valve relief cups in high performance pistons. Micro vortices inducers, multi-grind-angle valve seats: straight flow bench voodoo.  That will have to wait for another day.  We set down empty Black Label cans and circled out of the development and back on the highway east.   Once downtown we found our way to Ron's building.   Ron pulled to the left side of the overhead doorway that led to the multi story parking garage under his building.   He pulled the fob out of his pocket and swiped it near the sensor.  The door started up and we rolled inside.   With a low ceiling. We were now boxed in.   I must admit I felt a little bit like Darth Vader with my Aerostich Roadcrafter and my Simpson outlaw racing helmet.  As we descended our rubber met smooth and polished concrete and we echoed in the cacophonous cavern rumbling our way down and around and down again.   The building ate our cycles.   We were locked down for the night.

Upstairs a three-olive dry dirty Stoli martini was waiting.

Picture windows on two sides looked out onto the city that was hushed.  The snap in the air chilled things out  People of the streets were in snuggle mode,  opting to stay in their cars and homes instead of brave the seasonal weather.  The evening crowd had started to warm up for their party that was to ensue.  They were taking their time getting going.  Like a tin man calling for an oil can without moving his lips.

Inside, onions were chopped and caramelized while Anne called to Ron, he worked the stove.  The shortest short ribs,  pork short ribs were getting braised in oil in the pan on the stove.

Anna Opened a fresh bottle of Stoli for the martini.  I was thinking to myself, neither of these two drink vodka…… where did the half a gallon of Absolut go that she opened this summer when I was up? Ron sweetened the onions with heat.  Into the stock pot went Anna's Sicilian Abruzzesi mothers' basil tomatoes.   Ron backed the heat off and the simmer was on.   Now I took to the couch and began to thaw.   All day long the cold didn't bother me... and now the Stoli was a cool burning fist that first touched my lips extended down my throat and warmed me deep in my stomach. I was warming outside and inside and my heart beat met the pulse of the street which slowly settled. Normally I talk too much but not tonight this night.  I withdrew inside the comfort of the moment.

As the ribs simmered and released their connective tissue the sauce glistened with a marrow glow.  Pasta boiled in the pot and then dinner was served.   Soon after I succumbed to the feeling of the evening as my eyes glazed over and I stopped responding to conversation.  I knew that I was done before the city even woke up.   There would be no rabble-rousing going out on the town tonight.  I was done for.

Anna, constantly raising the bar, went whole hog at the butcher.  There was a selection of fine meats to go with breakfast, any one of them superb, and we settled on sausages with eggs.  What a delight.

One of the greatest gifts in this trip was a restriction that my wife Stephanie put on me before I left. She had asked that I be home for 9 o'clock Sunday to cover for the kids.   Counting backwards for travel and wait time at customs, Ron & I had our gear on when it was still dark.  With kick stands up we circled and climbed out of the belly of the building and prepared ourselves to be birthed onto the streets in morning's first light.  With natural concrete reverb the cacophonous rumble the engines made it sound like we were driving out of a Marshall stack tube amp, with every knob turned up to 11.  The hair stood up on the back of my neck and we cleared the door breaking out into the street at 1 degree C.  We continued thru numerous detours climbing away from Montreal “centreville” on autoroute 10  headed out of the city.  The St. Lawrence Seaway to our left and the sun at our backs was mixing with the cloud cover to form a red golden glow in deep shadow.  The city was at its finest hour that I'd ever seen.  It was unbelievable & we had it to ourselves.  The streets were empty…… even the taxi men were lined up bumper-to-bumper in their suits inside their cars outside of high-rise hotels.  No cars, no doors opening, no unsignaled turns, just Ron and I and our bikes and the road.

Outbound on Pont Champlain four lanes wide,  wide open.  The concrete seams of the bridge matched the pulse of my head inside my helmet and time slowed down. It was surreal.   Rushing water, a mile wide, ran under the bridge and up and overtop we went…. Lane sharing, rolling on throttle going ahead and then matching speeds while the engines roared.  Dark pink exploded on the horizon and reached out illuminating the silhouette of the clouds.   1 degree C, 94 octane just incredible.  Je me souviens Montreal,  I will remember.