There are many nice things about bicycling 30 miles a day in Montreal, but there are two problems. One is that whatever muscle that is, about 11 inches off the floor on the outside of your leg, it doesn't like it. I was going to name this muscle, but I got impatient looking it up. Might be the gastrocnemius.

The big muscles--the quadriceps--are just fine. They'll keep pumping as long as I need them to, over hills, through mud, whatever I ask for. The little gastrocnemius is simply overmatched.

The other problem is that if I keep taking an hour and a half each way, in and out of Montreal, that's three hours a day I'm not writing. (Plus wiping-down-the-bike time because it's muddy out, plus showering-with-my-cycling-clothes-on time because I'm as muddy as the road.) This is supposed to be a very productive writing retreat. That's the only valuable thing about it (and what makes it a writeoff).

Not sure what the solution is--there are no Starbuckses or Second Cups in Brossard, and although I'm sure the perfect place exists, finding it is the trick. I did find this and this on the web, but I can't tell whether either is a sit-for-six-hours kind of place. I'll check them out tomorrow.

The St. Lawrence river at night is deep and black. The smooth sections are invisible.