You pedal, but little happens. Your bicycle rolls over frozen pavement, slowing with every second. You are stuck in your easiest gear, and no amount of shifting seems to work. You brake and dismount, then check the chain. Your gears are caked in snow—already a bad sign—yet you can tell something else is wrong, some mechanical issue beyond your abilities.
And what a dreadful place to break down: on an empty road, on the tip of a long peninsula, at the end of the Lachine Canal. Montreal is a dense and busy city, yet this park feels remote. Especially when the mercury reads -2° Fahrenheit. To add insult to injury, you were just filming yourself with a small drone; later, you’ll see that footage actually captures the moment you realize the bike isn’t functioning properly.
This ride was already ill-advised: You’ve been researching a guidebook to Montreal, and you planned to ride the nine-mile Lachine Canal bike path. Prolific snowstorms have dumped unclearable blankets of snow, which are now playgrounds for cross-country skiers, not cyclists. Instead, you rode your Dahon Curl on the road that runs parallel; yet Saint-Patrick Street is a busy corridor, and you’ve had to share the lane with deafening queues of cars and trucks. After all that riding, you reached the end of the canal, only for your bike to mysteriously conk out.
Luckily, the Dahon Curl is a folding bike, and Uber works in Montreal. A driver arrives five minutes later, and he helps you stow the Curl in his trunk. You struggle through pleasantries in French, until you finally give up and murmur, “Est-ce-que vous parlez Anglais?” The driver bellows with laughter, then switches to perfect English. He grew up in China, he explains, and he learned your shared language from a young age. Relieved, you explain your mechanical issues, and he commiserates.
The bike gets fixed a couple of weeks later. Your instincts were right—there’s nothing you could have done about a stretched cable, even if you’d had the right tools. Soon, the bike is as good as new. Back at home, you wait until the trails are cleared. That’s a mistake you only have to make once.
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