Thursday, July 16, 2009

Montreal Diary pt.1 - Oh Montreal...how I love thee

pt. 1 - Bikes

I took a break from my life in Denver, Colorado to travel to what had previously been one of my top picks of places to visit - Montreal, Canada.

Montreal is awash with all things amazing: historic architecture, mad fashion and style, French speaking, excellent music (think The Stills, Arcade Fire) , and as I just found out, cute humble road bikes. Sure, every town these days has its share of blinged out fixies that represent the newest in a certain subcultures obsession but Montreal has something more. Montreal has truly embraced cycling as a mainstay of their culture. It's not about riding the "right" bike. It's about riding a bike. That bike seems to be what in Denver would catch my eye as a hot vintage find. In Montreal that find is the norm. Yes, it's that European. Below were some of my more favorite regulars:









































































































































It gets better: The Bixi.
Bixi is Montreal's new rental bike program. placed no fewer than every three blocks, bixi stations made traveling on two wheels cheap and convenient. All it takes is a credit card and enough trust to overlook the License Agreement that was laid out exclusively in French.
























Three gears, a light and a basket.
What more do you need to peruse the sultry streets of Quebec. Well...maybe an umbrella as we found out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmm - bike porn :-)