Tailwind into Canada
Plattsburgh >> Montreal | 120km | 381m | 4h28m
September 7, 2024 | 24ºC, partly cloudy, afternoon clouds
Tailwind!
When we got up this morning we were not only excited for some good old American hotel breakfast, but even more so about getting back into Canada in only about 50 kilometers north of Plattsburgh. And who would have thought that the second to last day of this trip would turn out to be the most fun day on the bikes. All because of the wind!
Not only did we have a relatively flat route ahead of us, but the wind was blowing straight from the south while we were following highway 9 straight up to the north. What a blast! Riding at 35km/h with a heart rate under 100bpm on a flat road with almost zero traffic just feels awesome and it seemed like we’d be having exactly those conditions all the up until Montreal. Time and distance went by so fast and effortlessly, it almost felt like riding a motorcycle.
Welcome back to Canada
The border experience back into Canada was very unspectacular. We chose a minor border crossing, didn’t have any cars ahead of us, and a border agent who didn’t seem to be too interested in our adventures. We hoped to be asked all the questions, having enthusiastic answers about bike packing and routing ready, but instead were greeted with bureaucratic ignorance. No thread was expected from two Canadians on their packed bicycles. For us, two cyclist who never bikepacked together before, this was an almost overwhelming milestone: we just completed the entire Empire State Trail and cycled the whole state of New York from east to west, and south to north, from Buffalo to Albany, to New York City, and now all the way back to the northern border of the United States.
Montreal: trying to beat the storm
We still had some 70 kilometers left until we’d reach downtown Montreal. And while at this point the sun was still out, and the wind still very much on our side, we knew that there was some good amount of rain and cooler temperatures forecasted for later today. Tailwind-cycling isn’t too exhausting, and we just kept sailing further north without having any additional major breaks.
Cycling into Montreal was very easy, especially compared to New York City and basically most of the other bigger towns we came across. The city’s bikepath network is remarkable and helped us getting almost all the way to our final destination. The sky was completely cloud-covered when we came closer to downtown, which may have been the main reason for the paths being relatively clear of people on a Saturday afternoon, which we did not mind at all.
It felt a bit weird when we finally crossed over the St. Lawrence River towards Montreal’s skyline, a mix between joy and disbelief and just the physical pain that accumulated over the past two weeks; it wasn’t easy to wrap your head around the fact that we basically just connected NYC with Montreal by bicycle. To routine long-term bikepackers this may seem like an everyday experience, but to us it felt like a pretty big accomplishment.
The rain started just 5 minutes after we arrived at our AirBnB (and basically did not stop before we left town two days later).
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South-bound: Day 01 | Day 02 | Day 03 | Day 04 | Day 05 | Day 06 | Day 07 | Day 08
North-bound: Day 09 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15