...After we left the art gallery we went to the bar Zaphod Beeblebrox (hitchhikers guide to the gallery) for some food and beer. There was $5 cover and we saw a kind of whiney emo band but it was fun anyway. We returned to find Naomi in the midst of last minute exam procrastination. We tried to take the last bus back to Nic's house but it didn't come
so we decided to walk. 10 minutes into the walk the bus passed us. However we did get to see a beaver walking around on the bike path and talk to this guy about the FTAA. Next morning we got up and Nic came by and made us some breakfast again. We left the house around 10:45 and took the bus to get out of town. The public transit busses in Ottawa have this kind of
system where they are set up to be kind of a high speed bus route like a train. It was a little complicated but it seemed like a good system. We got to the highway where Chris recommended we go to hitch hike and it was very busy and not a good place. We walked and sort of half stuck up our thumbs to try to get a ride for about 45 minutes. It was very hot and
ugly with tremedous amounts of garbage on the side of the motorway. We eventually got a ride from this guy who lived half way between Ottawa and Cornwall and so we got out of town about 50km. We got out at the highway exit and then were going to walk up to the on ramp area before we were going to hitch hike. however there was a car pulled over way up ahead which might have been for us and then all of a sudden another
stopped so we got in that one. That was the quickest time yet - less than a minute to get a ride! This time the driver was a franclophone firefighter from Levis (across the river from quebec city) and he was commuting between Hull and Levis because he was coming back from the first of his 3 (or4?) part test to become a firefighter in Hull. he did not speak english very well
but he practiced on us and we made some feeble attempts to speak french. He brought us farther east in montreal than where we were going because it was easier to get off the motorway there but it was good because we were right at the metro station and were soon back to Aynsley's house. Then Allyne came home and we went with her to see Aynsley at this cafe nearby and looked at some already devoloped FTAA photos.
Soon we were all off to Critical Mass. It took us a while to get going so we got there kind of late maybe 5:45 as people were getting ready to depart. There were lots of people about 100 and a lot about the FTAA as well. It was a really fun ride and I had the video camera out and talked to a lot of really cool people and sort of interviewed them while riding. The ride went for about an hour and a half and we managed to get rid of most of
our Bikesummer flyers and talked to a lot of people about it. We met this neat older guy, Robert Silverman, who knows Guy and was a big bike activist guy back in the 70s. he showed us around Montreal a little, showed us the bike lanes, the special kind of bike racks, and we got some bike bags instead of bike boxes for the airport. He told us about how there was a big movement in the 70s which after a lot of effort got
a lot of things built and then it sort of fell apart because people thought they had enough. He also had some neat poems he told us and some good ideas about how to play volleyball. We then went to get some bagels for the Pot-luck and rushed back because we remembered we were supposed to talk on Co-op radio by phone in at 8pm and it was almost 8:30. We got to Dave and Anna-Fred's apartment and then did the phone interview which went pretty well but
was not recorded at all. The Pot-luck was great and about a dozen of us bikesheviks were there. We all looked at photos and ate food and exchanged numbers and watched some of my video from the trip. We got rid of all our propaganda finally. One odd tragedy that happened was that the sliding glass door just fell over and smashed everywhere all by itself in the kitchen. Aparantly it was broken and they'd complained to the landlord for a whole year but it just broke.
The real tragedy was that it fell and got glass all over both cakes in the kitchen and ruined them both! It got pretty late while we watched the videos, and we only left around 1:30 am. We had made plans to meet Aynsley and Alynne at a gay club called Unity, so we rode with Doug towards that area of town. We lost Doug while we were saying goodbye to Genevieve. We knew where to go so continued on our way. During the ride we realized we probably should not stay at the club, or else we would get zero hours of sleep. If we went home, we'd get two hours of sleep before we needed to wake up and go to the airport. Russell's neck was quite sore, and we thought it might be bad on the airplane, so we decided to just say hi to our friends at Unity and then go home. When we got there, we couldn't see them inside, the cover was 8 dollars, there was a dress code, so we left without finding anybody. We got back to Aynsley's house, went quickly to sleep, and woke up two hours later to pack for the airport. Now comes the beautiful part! We left around 5:30 am, riding along the well-kept bike route in the sunrise. We rode along the canal and then the river. There were many birds singing and the air smelled nice. The perfect way to say goodbye to Montreal. We got to the airport at 7:10 am, which seemed early enough (the plane left at 8:10). But, we ended up hurrying to get our bags checked because the ticket people were rushing us. Finally, we put our bikes in plastic bags, and boarded the plane. At first, Russell and I didn't get to sit together (all double seats were taken), but then the man next to me moved to an empty seat to be near his family, so Russell moved to that seat. The meal was exactly the same as on the way in, and there were two movies---What women Want, and Meet the Parents. We watched parts of them because there was nothing else to do and it was hard to sleep in those tiny seats. We landed in Vancouver 10:30 am BC time. Russell's parents, Ros and Neale, met us at the airport. Our bikes were OK, our bags were altogether, the grass looked luscious and green, it was drizzling...Later, there was a rainbow welcoming us back.

Russell back at home

autosaurus@tao.ca
Vancouver, BC Canada - Tuesday, May 01, 2001 at 00:21:25 (PDT)

Well, we're now back - this is the rest of the trip: ---
We left the Ottawa public library and walked to the parliament buildings which were very nice looking all lit up. We took the bus to Naomi's dorm and met her and Nic there. There was a special dessert study break for the students just as we arrived so we got treated to a bit of the cafeteria food naomi constantly complains about. They had some really awful desserts but nice vegitables - free anyway. That night we went to the two local campus bars and bought super hard pretzels and then danced to some reggae music.
We were spoilt again as Nic let us stay in his room at his house while he had to sleep at Naomi's dorm. Actually the first night they didn't want to walk 45min. home so they slept on the couch. Nic made us a nice breakfast and then we all went for a walk to the (hogs head?) waterfalls. It was really nice weather and we waded in the water and had a lot of fun. We went back to Naomi's dorm and snacked on some food and Naomi said goodbye to many of her departing school friends. Then we went home and watched a video 'the acid house' which was similar to 'Trainspotting.'
The next day we went out for some Chinese Food with Chris and Judy my relatives, and Naomi and nick at a restraut with excellent food. Chris was anxious about that because he realised after making the choice of restaurant that of course we had much better, on average, asian food out west. But it was very good and afterwards Chris took us on a little drive around Ottawa. We saw Cretien's house and all the stupid rich houses in that area of town. They had no sidewalks and the streets and everything were intended to give a "village" feel. However of course everyone drove around and it was the ultimate wealthy auto-addicted suburb.
Back in Downtown Ottawa we walked around and across the bridge to Hull too look at the National Civilisation Museum building and then back again. We went to the National Art Gallery and saw lots of Amazing Canadian Art (Though I think the VAG has better Emily Carr) We were treated to some poetry as well as there was at that time going on a poetry tour of the gallery with poems inspired mostly by the art pieces. We had to leave far too soon (it closed at 8) and were shushed out of there by one of the multitude of Gallery Guards. There was definately too many guards, in my opinion, because I kind of felt like I was being watched a little which was very annoying and distracting from the art.
Also they really need to have more things you can touch because it is a bit too sterile...

Russell back at home

autosaurus@tao.ca
Vancouver, BC Canada - Sunday, April 29, 2001 at 21:22:54 (PDT)

Well, here we are in Ottawa. We just hitch hiked here and were dropped off at the public library about 10 minutes ago. Naomi is not home at the moment so I am going to wait a little bit to call her. Meanwhile I will describe today. Unfortunately as you can tell from reading this page the whole submit a daily report of what happened kind of fell apart in all the FTAA craziness plus the limited access to computers. -----
Last night we knew we had to get here to Ottawa and we were still in Quebec. Things had really ended abruptly in Quebec City and all the FTAA protest activity was gone and so was much of the wall. We got up rather late and hung out in Robert's Attic. Torrey, Aynsley, Allyne (sp?) Jane and I were still left and Doug had joinned us that last night to sleep in Robert's Attic. About 1pm we finally got going to go out for breakfast with everyone but Aynsley (who had gone to study her schoolwork) went to eat crepes. We went to a wonderful crepe place in the old city that was actually outside the fence but on the other side from us. We all had meal crepes and then also dessert crepes it was really delicious. We then bought Robert a flower as a thank you present for letting us stay there and also some toilet paper (it had run out because of all of us staying there) We went home and finally packed up our stuff. Unfortuantly until about this point Jane and I didn't really investigate how we would get to Ottawa. AlloStop (a car pool service) didn't take bikes often and more imporatntly didn't go west of montreal. The bus was really expensive - 76$ to Ottawa one way plus $16 for bike - each! We eventually came to the conclusion to bus with the others and our bikes to montreal and then stay the night in Montreal and then maybe hitch hike to ottawa the next day. This we did. The bus ride was good and we watched videos of the FTAA on the mini TV in the video camera. that is really a great camera and a useful tool/toy (thanks mom for letting me adopt it as I have been) We ran out of battery watching. Aynsley was going on about how she is so mad about going to the FTAA that she now plans to hook up with Sven Robinson and demonstrate outside of the parliament buildings in Ottawa this summer. She wants to take one of my two souvinir tear gas canisters there as a prop. Good use for it I say (even if I personally wouldn't bother lobbying parliament myself as I'm an anarchist and don't belive in asking someone else to give me power). The boxes our bikes were put in for the bike trip were covered in the $13 bike fee. The guy who put them in the bike boxes for us was quite the packaging artiste - we didn't have to do anything to the bikes except remove the front wheel and he cut the boxes to fit with the seat and handlebars sticking out. My bike is really long so the bike box was really modified and it was very funny. Anyway in montreal we kept 3 of the boxes for the airplane (Allyne is also flying back to Regina) and we carried them tied to our backs with all our panniers and everything. It was quite funny and we looked like turtles. We didn't get it on film because i was out of batter unfortunately. We were all pretty tired when we got back so we just ate pasta and crashed (we stayed at aynsley's house) even though we had talked of going out to bars and dancing and having a lively night. This morning we got up late and seperated our stuff so that we could bring only a backpack and leave our bikes and everything else with aynsley. We were pretty slow getting going partly because we didn't know much about where we were headed or how to hitchhike. We left sometime after 2pm I think and headed out onto St. Laurant to get some cash and to ask where the nearest metro station was. We got to the Sherbrooke Metro and tried to figure out the maps and routes and decided we wanted to go on the metro to Vendome station and then take the train from there in the direction of rigaud - off the island of montreal so that we could then hitch hike on highway 138 as suggested by Torrey. We took the metro and then bought bus tickets from the guy at the sation and fortuantly he spoke english and told us about Dormian station and hitch hiking from there. It was about 3:15 and the train didn't leave until 3:50. We went out to the street and I got some film and we bought some montreal bagels. Earlier we had mistakenly bought a bunch of junk food in the train station because we forgot that we could just go outside to one of the many awesome montreal stores with some real food that are everywhere there. We took the communter train at 3:50 and it was a nice ride though not tremendously scenic. We were a little worried because we looked at our maps and we though we were going the wrong way because we found 138 wasn't near where we were going. When we got there we bough a map at a gas station because we wanted to know better where we were going. We had made a nice sign "Ottawa s.v.p" and had that and so when we got to the main drag we stuck out our thumbs. We kept walking toward the highway because we were in town. The first people who stopped to talk to us couldn't take us but offered some food and money (which we didn't need) they had been in quebec City too and said see you next year at the G-8 in Ottawa. the second guy (the first that really stopped ebcause the others we just past in a parking lot) only gave us a ride about 2 km up the road to where he though it would be better because it joins the road coming from Toronto and more people would see us (he was going to toronto). A big semi truck that was half empty stopped next and he didn't see our sign and he was going too quebec city but we thanked him for pulling over. About 5:40 a couple pick us up and took us about half way. They lived there in between montreal and ottawa. the women was frencha and the guy was english and she was a teacher and their children lived in Yellowknife and Calgary and they had some grand kids in Yellowknife. They were pretty nice and dropped us a little out of their way at a truck stop so we weren't totally in the middle of nowhere at the highway exit. It was about 6:20 then and then we stuck out our thumb. It was cold and very windy and beginning to rain so we ate some food. We got picked up next by a guy Medhi who was driving by himself to visit his girlfriend (and surprise her with his visit) in Hull (across the bridge from Ottawa) He drove fast and was french but we actually communicated pretty well. He was originally from Morrocco but lives in Montreal stuying computer science. He dropped us off right down here in downtown Ottawa at the library (we didn't know where else to go) Jane phoned my sister and so now we are going to the university. This crazy lady who was "talking" to got was bugging jane but otherwise it's a very nice library and we ought to use more libraries for our updates. Maybe tommorrow or tonight we will go back and better give reports on the FTAA and the ending of the bikeshevik trip. I have 6 video tapes of footage from the trip so far and so I will have some amazing pictures to show (though i bet you'll want me to edit it a little first!) Yay for hitchhiking!

Russell hitch hiking

autosaurus@tao.ca
Ottawa, Ontario Canada - Tuesday, April 24, 2001 at 17:48:57 (PDT)

hello everyone. just thought i'd inform those of you who care that i am back in montreal alive and well, although somewhat deflated from the excessive tear gas exposure. no, deflated is the wrong word, more like enraged. it is still difficult for me to comprehend the experience and therefore even more difficult to convey it to you. still, i think it is important to try.

the bike trip was absolutely amazing - great ride and even better people. in retrospect, it seems that the ride represented everything we were going to QC to protect. it was the complete antithesis to the experience there.

our last night on the road was spent in donacona. as we rode the last 50k or so to QC we were stalked by police officers who finally pulled us over and inquired about our political opinions on the ftaa. it seemed fairly obvious since denis had a large anti-ftaa flag hanging off the back of his bike. a car load of press people filmed the whole thing and then followed us for the last 20k into the city as we sang our bikeshevik velorucion song. i did a radio interview with a friend from NTR in regina while riding into the city. it was insane. i had to interrupt the interview for traffic lights, pot holes, and other such impediments.

anyway, arriving in QC was inspirational. there was press everywhere as we rolled up singing and we received a very warm welcome from all of the protesters. i was amazed at the number of people honking and waving as we rolled in.

the air in QC was electric, the anticipation so insanely intense. you got the sensation this was much bigger than you would have imagined.

somehow i managed to get myself involved in doing communications for the march the next day. everyone else did it for the march that night as well but i was so overwhelmed that i couldn't handle it. for those of you who know me well you will understand that i needed some down time to sort myself out. aside from everything else, not being able to speak french sort of added to the confusion.

we went to the spokescouncil meeting that day as well and i was amazed at the organization of the protesters and at their diversity. it really is a very encompassing movement.

netami and i went out for dinner that night and saw the perimeter for the first time, enclosing blocks of historic QC and guarded on all sides by riot cops who looked completely unhuman.

the next day's march was amazing. 4 of us went ahead of the march to inform the protesters about what actions were going on and to give advice for the route based on the location of the police. this proved difficult since they were everywhere. as the march approached the perimeter, we passed by a convoy of buses filled with riot cops putting on their gas masks. i was amazed to see this as gas definitely did not seem necessary at this point, the march was very peaceful.

anyway, as soon as the march arrived at the square just outside the perimeter, there was gas everywhere. this was the first time of many to come. shortly after, huge trucks with water hoses appeared. one single guy stepped right in front of one of them and pushed them back. everyone cheered. this was one of the most uplifting moments of the protests. it seemed to symbolize the power of the individual. however...shortly thereafter, the water began gushing at full speed out of these gigantic hoses and people ran down the hill in an attempt to get in front of it and avoid being catapulted down. the inundation of tear gas continued for the rest of the day and was not limited to any particular area. it was everywhere. they were not discriminating at all.

i spent some time at CMAQ, the indy media center, which was amazing. it was great to see so many young people taking the initiative and creating their own media. i checked my email there and discovered that jim, one of my profs from j-school had died. this was almost too much to bear. not that death is unbearable but the world already seemed to be upside down and this only augmented the sensation.

that night we went out for a tear-gas respite beer but to no avail. the place was packed so we had to sit on the patio which was enclosed with plastic. 5 minutes after sitting down, we were forced inside b/c the tear gas was increasing. the bar was locked down in an attempt to keep it out, the waitress was wearing a gas mask while serving. we attempted to get out of the bar. it was like we were soldiers being pushed out into the war zone. they opened the door and were yelling, "go, go, go" to all of us. the gas was so bad that amy turned back saying she couldn't do it, leaving netami and i stuck outside. they didn't want to open the door to let us back in. netami got in and i, being the stubborn person i am, decided to stay out there and suffer for a while. i don't think my brain was working properly. i couldn't breath or see and collapsed on the sidewalk. i was so profoundly sad. our lodging was only 2 blocks away and we couldn't get there. we waited in the basement of the bar for about an hour and tried to enjoy some more beer before the air cleared.

the next day we attended the people's summit and heard different speakers including maude barlow (council of canadians) and jose bove (fairly radical activist and farmer from france who rammed his tractor into a mcdonalds in protest). then we marched again. this march was much bigger than the one on the previous day and there were approximately 60,000 people in it until the march split off when many people decided to go up the hill towards the perimeter rather than continuing on the route away from it. the march started out very high-energy and positive but the closer it got to the central area, the more trepidation there was in the air. you began to sense people's fear....why should people be fearful of marching on the streets in canada???? we needed some respite and went to a bar to watch the coverage on the tv. every place was filled with people doing the same.

that night we met up with some bikesheviks and shared stories from the day. there were people all over and the tear gas was still filling the air. denis and i agreed that it all seemed apocalyptic. there were fires in the streets, garbage everywhere (they had removed garbage cans as a security measure), and the air was filled with tear gas and the sounds of tear gas bombs going off, rubber bullets being shot, and helicopters hovering in the sky.

sorry guys, i'm wrapping it up, but there is so much to tell. this is the tip of the iceberg. one last story.

we were leaving the loft when we spotted a big pack of riot cops heading straight for us down the street. aynsley was at the store on the corner and torrey ran over to rescue her. we all quickly put our bikes back in the alley and stood behind the door. netami was standing in the doorway as the cops passed until one of them jabbed her with his baton and screamed at her in french to shut the door b/c she had nothing to do here. obviously, she was a little shaken by the experience. we had to wait unitl the footsteps had passed to emerge from the alley so we could go to meet up with everyone else.

there is of course much more i could tell you but this email is rather verbose so i'll leave it for another time. i just wanted to give you guys an idea of what it was like in QC with a first-hand account of the events. it was a very mixed experience filled with both fear and elation, sorrow and joy. i have renewed faith in humanity and renewed disillusionment with government. one of the many chants uttered over the weekend was, "this is what democracy looks like." i really hope not.

hope you are all well and found this informative. if there is anyone else you think would be interested in reading this please pass it on.

ai.

alynne iversen

iversena@hotmai.com
Montreal, Quebec Canada - Tuesday, April 24, 2001 at 11:36:03 (PDT)

Very crazy here,

coming into the indymedia press room to work on our past days reports is not a good idea because we always get into these super dramatic situations. Right now it just blew up because there are unconfirmed reports that there was a protestor killed by the police. There was indeed a person shot in the throat and hospitalised but the rest may be wild rumours. In any case there is a degree of escalation outside including molotov cocktails being thrown. Also the riot police are again right outside the doors. Today did not actually seem that crazy to us but we sort of sat out a lot of it. however it is too crazy right now to go into details. The RCMP say there has been no deaths but then they also deny using tear gas and other things when they do use it. So anyway I think we are going to meet the other bikesheviks now and have dinner. Peace.

Russell on my Bike

autosaurus@tao.ca
Quebec City, Quebec Kanada - Saturday, April 21, 2001 at 17:11:18 (PDT)

So it is now 12:40 am and Russell and I are in the indymedia centre, barricaded in for the moment (so that the gas can't get in, and the police don't try to get in. It is a safe haven in here. We are in direct contact with people outside and it is definitely a war zone out there. We don't know how long we'll stay in here for tonight. Somebody just came in with a plastic bullet that cops shot at the people and its scary looking. ANYWAYS, I shall continue with our bike ride adventure (day 3). Read Russell's update which is below this one before you read this so that it makes sense. So, we took the detour--scenic, hilly and with a strong headwind. Russell's wheel got so wobbly that we had to stop and true it. After the truing, we turned with the wind for a stretch and we flew down the road, happy for the break. Then the route turned into the wind again and we got back into our geese positions. We rode past a pastry factory and it smelled so good that we tried to buy some, but it was closed. We even tried to go around into the dumpster for any throw-aways or extras but it was a strange dumpster and we didn't go into it. A little later, we stopped for hot chocolate at a little cafe, and we were very tired, cold, hungry. There were 15 more kilometres to go after the cafe. After we'd gone for what we thought was about 10 km, and we climbed a big hill, we saw a sign that said: "Donnacona 14"!!! We were really disappointed and felt that it was neverending, but then discovered that some people in our group had put a 1 in front of the 4 with tape, as a trick, and it was really only 4 km to our end point. Yahoo! We arrived at our third host--a youth home--and they had spaghetti and tomato sauce on the stove for all 20 of us. We ate hungrily and then sat in the living room for a meeting. We were pretty dazed from the wind and the sun. The wind had made the 100 kilometres quite gruelling. We talked with the youth home people, answering some interesting questions (about why we were doing this ride...). A lot of the discussion was in french, but people translated it for us, so we got the main points. We also made plans for our actions at the ftaa---we were to be scouts and messengers for the people on foot. We thought up our aliases (Russell is Helmethair and I am Chainbreaker), and we wrote down our emergency contact numbers for somebody who was going to be away from the risky areas. Interruption: We've just heard that some country delegates have cancelled meetings because they don't want to come out of their hotel rooms. Also, the delegates who were supposed to arrive tomorrow don't want to come into the city. Don't worry about us. We're pretty safe on our bicycles and are sticking together!

Jane

janebuker@hotmail.com
Quebec City, Quebec Kanada - Friday, April 20, 2001 at 22:51:11 (PDT)

Whew! what a day. This has been about 3 days since we last updated and so much has happened since then. --- We were at the school in Trois Rivers using the computers that the friendly drama teacher at the school let us use. That night we had dinner in the school cafeteria and while we did that we had to make the decision about wednesday's ride. the Wednesday ride was the longest - Trois Rivers to Donnacona - about 90km. To top it off the small bridge was out because it was under construction and the close by highway 40 bridge was not accessable by bicycle. I thought it would be good to either critical mass or just cross in one lane. However people in our group did not want to do that so the other options were asking for a police escort or taking a 12km detour. We talked about it on the Sunday but hadn't really concluded. Some people were strongly opposed to giving ID to the police so it was very controversial.
After a long and drawn out discussion we came to a consensus decision to not phone the police but take the detour. It was supposed to be a scenic route anyway. That night we all slept in the drama classroom with a soft floor. They had weird showers that were automatically on from 10pm to 11pm and there were no taps. We had to get up really early for the next full day. We rode very hard for a long time with a strong headwind. The weather - as for all the days was beautiful but this morning it was cold. The first time we stopped after doing 28km was in the house of a unitarian bishop that Denis knew. We had a nice lunch right at the detour and then went straight into the headwind on the survey road which was indeed scenic but really hard. Also my wheel was getting very wobbly again as it has been the whole time....

Interruption. I am in CMAQ the indymedia website right now and it is under attack from police tear gas outside. There are some protesters were chased in the area. They are being chased around the highway right next to here and down the steps next to this building. They are being chased by hundereds of police using copious abounts of teargas and also rubber/plastic bullets. A few people ran through in here smelling of tear gas and they are very upset. They got trapped on the freeway just outside of here and had to scramble down a cliff. We have a security guard at the door. I will update more on this later. The CS gas is now coming in the door so I must go put my scarf under it.

Russell on my Bike

autosaurus@tao.ca
Quebec City, Quebec KKKanada - Friday, April 20, 2001 at 21:17:21 (PDT)

So now I will talk about today, Tuesday, our second day of the trip! This morning we woke up around 8:30 and had some oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. It was very nice to find some apples and bananas at a little grocery store across from the church. We got going at 10. There was a headwind most of the trip, but it was beautiful and sunny. I don`t think anybody got a flat today or had any troubles. We drafted each other a lot (rode behind each other like geese to hide from the wind). Speaking of geese, we took a little detour to ride past a special wetland place where there were lots of geese and other birds (kildeer and herons...) possibly nesting. Some birders were there with little telescopes aimed at interesting marsh birds. We stopped in Louisville for lunch around 1, and after eating we went into city hall to meet the mayor and explain what we were doing. We got some snacks there too, as well as a pin from Louisville. After Louisville there was about 30 km left to go, and it was a fine ride, still sunny, and a little chilly when we stopped for breaks. The St. Laurent River gets so huge at one point it reminded us of the ocean! I took some pictures today and finished my roll. We rolled into Trois-Rivieres around 5:30 and were met by someone who lives here and who escorted us to the highschool. Along the way we were rudely interrupted by a cop who must have been bored. He saw us going through a red light at a deserted intersection and gunned the gas pedal, screeching up to us with his sirens on. He said he has never given a ticket to a cyclist and didn`t want to give one today--so it was a warning, and we laughed about it as we rode on (he sure likes that accelerator though, and the pull-over was like we were doing something really terrible). Anyways, here we are at the school and we will be having chilli tonight!!

Jane

janebuker@hotmail.com
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec Kanada - Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at 16:56:09 (PDT)

So here we are in trois Rivieres! We did not update yesterday because we were in the little town of Berthierville with no access to the computer world. ------------ Ok we left you last on Sunday and we were at Grant`s house. We went to meet my sister at the "tam-tam"s which are drums they play in the outside park next to the statue on the montreal hill outside the magill residence. Sort of a hippy play the drums spontaneous jam session in the park. It was a beautiful warm and sunny afternoon but we couldn`t stay long for we had to go to the RTM to meet to prepare for the trip on Monday. We did get to see my sister and bid her farewell breifly, we also exchanged easter chocolate. At the RTM meeting we all go T-shirts and talked about the trip. We met Anna-fredrica who is making a movie about us for her school project and will meet us periodically (in a car! boo) I will be perhaps submitting some footage to that project as well. There were 18 of us in total and we divided food and other supplies. It was fairly relaxed and most people worked on their bikes a little bit. Unfortunately there was a big tragedy for me - a big stinky car ran over my bike helmet and my sunglasses and totally squashed them. The car drove through the alleyway close to the side and says he did not see my helmut next to my bike. Also at the meeting we met Tannis and Scott who will take the train to Quebec City. The Montreal anti-FTAA welcome centre was right next to the RTM and kind of busy so we dropped in there. While there I met Jamie Doucette who has been organising and living in Montreal. ------- That night a bunch of us went to Aynsleys house to have a pot luck dinner. There was Jane and I, Dave and Anna, Torrie, Aynsley, Paul and Beth... We had pasta and potatoes and I made nice pasta sauce. It was a very nice dinner and we got to meet everybody for on the trip and begin to get to know people. Dave had his guitar and sung some songs. Jane and I did our laundry there as well which was helpful. After dinner we all watched the Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels Video and everybody loved it - we watched both the old and the new version. We went home pretty late, almost 11:30pm and packed final things for the trip. We didn`t get to bed until 3 in the morning!
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In the morning we had to be there in front of the Montreal Stock Exchange at 8am. Jane and I were going to be a little late. Not far away My wheel started wobbling more and then it blew out! Very sucky way to begin the trip. Jane went ahead and I had to walk the rest of the way. Because my tire was broken on the sidewall we thought it would be better to change tires. The first one was way way too tight and we pinched the tube installing it so we then cut it off. Eventually we put another tire on. I think I held up the group. The group was planning to leave about 10pm after talking to the media and such. There were several TV cameras (though some were small stations) and several reporters including a CBC radio person. We made a speech about the FTAA and Capitalism and the Stock exchange (David made the speech) and we showed out closed ballot box prop and our ballots which have only one choice - to vote for the FTAA - symbolic of the type of democracy that the FTAA represents: Yes or Yes. We eventually left about 10:30 and got going through the city then onto the bike route. There was a newspaper photographer following in car for about an hour. We went on some pretty but badly maintained bike paths (lots of glass) and then eventually joined route 138 (which takes us most of the way - so far anyway). I got another flat in the morning from a peice of glass which really sucked. However it was much simpler to fix than my broken tyre. We stopped for lunch infront of one of the many old catholic churches. By about 5:30 we were in Berthiaville. It was fairly quick. We stayed in a preists houses - called a presybeterie - in a catholic church. They were really cool and had a sign made for us to welcome us which said "velorution" and it was a nice big banner! The house was really nice and three floors with many rooms. There were only a few on the second floor and they all had beds - the two people who pulled the trailers got to sleep there. We slept upstairs in what was more of a storage area - there were most of us up there. Jane and I just collapsed onto our thermarests after arriving for about an hour. then we all had dinner which was premade things from some organic food place in Montreal. Some people went on a tour of the Church next door which was about 200 years old. We were pretty tired and a little sunburned from the trip so we didn`t do much in the evening. Jane and I went down to the local Depanneur down the road. Because it was Easter Monday most were closed and the open one didn`t have much fruit or vegitables so we got a beer and some cheese and went back to go to bed. Jane is going to write about what we did today because now I am tired.

Russell on my Bike

autosaurus@tao.ca
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec Kanada - Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at 16:19:50 (PDT)

Well now the trip is really soon and we are very excited. Happy Communist Easter Egg hunting everybody - by the way. We were sorry to have missed it... Have been enjoying Montreal and the nice weather here. Hopefully this will continue. However we do know that Quebec is a colder, more northern city - about a month behind in weather according to Netami. --- We've been staying at Grant's house since Friday night and we continue to be spoilt by our hosts. Grant is away in Ottawa actually so we have a room with a nice big bed to ourselves. The house has a beer fridge with 3 taps for the kegs which normally inhabit it (but are now empty). Grant's roomate Aaron is very entertaining and has hoards of the most excellent kitchy stuff. They have a video lottery game that aaron scrounged from an alleyway. Also they have a genuine afro pick with a black power fist for the handle. ----
Friday we left the house around 3 which was better. We first went to the bicycle cafe. It is run by VELO Quebec in a building with a bicycle print shop and another kind of office advocacy organisation. No one there really spoke english well so we didn't get talking to anyone all that much. Out front they have nice bike parking and lots of bike racks. There are special bike lanes along here and - coolest of all - they had special traffic signal lights for the bikes which were just the normal redyellowgreen light with bicycle shaped lights. Inside they had a small cafe which was just a cafe but also had some beer and wine (like anywhere in Quebec). They also had a gift shop with great bike books, maps, postcards, t-shirts and some other random things such as bike parts fashioned into candleholders and such. all for sale. We got last year's tour de l'isle t-shirt (it was only 5 bucks) and I got a copy of Bike Culture 18, the now defunct but formerly best bike magazine in the whole world. It was the only copy there. It was a very nice place but it was a little bit sterile. After we left I noticed they did have a compressor for your tyres outside but other than that there was nothing really mechanical bike lovin'. Also there was a little too much emphasis on recreational biking such that the really nice activist stuff was not prominent. I was honestly a little dissappointed though I had been warned because when we asked about the montreal bicycle cafe the cyclists we knew didn't think of it immediately because it isn't really a place they go often but more of a recreational place. It was still a really cool place but apparently there is a bike cafe in Toronto called jetfuel where bike couriers hang out and that is maybe more what we would like. We need some place like this for vancouver. We want a place where you can find out more about bike activities and where critical mass is advertised. ---- at the bike cafe we found out about SOS velo which is a bike place where they recycle and resell old bikes. They make the nifty bike part candleholders and they employ about 20 people as bike mechanics - through government funding - as job training. We cycled there and found the place in East Montreal. It looked closed at first but when we went around the side we found it open. It was like any bike shop except all the bikes were rebuilt. Most of them they had repainted and they said ECOBIKES on the frame. They also had some mechanics there so it was like a regular store. They also had lots of the bike part candleholders, keychain things, book and CD shelves, tables and more assorted bike part things. Even furniture and some of the fixtures in the shop were bike parts. There were windows - actually a bike wheel you could look through to the rest of the shop. We came late so we couldn't get a tour of the back but it was a big warehouse type space where around 20 mechanics get training and work on hundreds of bikes. They say they make maybe 15 bike a day. They have their own sandblasting and painting facilities - those which I wish they had in vancouver as well because there is no place that will do that for bikes on a regular (reasonable price) basis. We videoed both places and left lots of momentum magazines and other bike propaganda. The second place was really cool and they've only run for 5 years. Something that the UBC bike co-op could really look to as an example in many ways. --- we went home because it was late and we had to meet naomi for dinner but I kind of want to go back if i have some more time. That night Naomi, Jane and I went to have dinner at a pasta place where you pick your sauce and then your pasta and they cook it in front of you. We were going to go out later but we ended up staying home with Grant and his friends - we had just arrived there - and talking to his crazy friend Dally and Robby about the Cuban Cigar Importing business and US policy to Cuba and it was very interesting and Dally reminded me of Milo Mindbender from Catch-22. Yesterday was really nice weather. We went out for breakfast with Naomi and Claire and their friend and then went to the park. Later we went to the RTM and fixed our bikes and then came home to after buying groceries to cook a stir fry. Then we stayed here and watched Strange Brew and imagined the Communist Easter Egg Hunt we were missing. Anyway today we were going to go to church but we didn't want to go late. No we are going to meet Naomi to eat chocolate and then go to the big pre-ride final RTM-POW meeting this afternoon. There will be 18 riders and we have places to stay for the whole route. We will all have special T-shirts and when we get to Quebec (actually the suburb) the mayor is going to welcome us!? Tonight we will have an easter potluck dinner with Aynsley and others and watch the Dinosaurs Against Fossil Fuels Video. Scott and Tannis may come as they are in town having arrived last night (but not bringing my U-lock as I left it in Vancouver) ----- so anyway have a good communist easter and the next update will be from the road (the interesting stuff!)

Russell on my Bike

autosaurus@tao.ca
Montreal, Quebec Kanada - Sunday, April 15, 2001 at 09:37:17 (PDT)

So we got going around 6pm yesterday. My excuse is that it is jetlag. It was rainy and very windy. We hope for better weather on our bike ride. first we went to a cafe and had a snack. Dropped off a few copies of momentum. did some food shopping so that hopefully we can save some $$$ not eating out all the time. We came across a spiffy little cruiser bike shop called V-Low as in low rider. Really cool bikes. talked to the guy john there for a good long time and exchanged some bikesummer and momentum and stickers and such. We may see him again. ------- After that we went to the RTM about 9:30 to fix our bikes. they said they were going to be only there for a very short time and then leave but they didnèt. The guy there had a Jamis bike exactly like Graeme s bike.We finally left there after 11 and got some pizza and then went for drinks at a place called Fats on St.Cathrines. We were with everyone from the RTM: Fred the biker chic, Marc the polish bagpiper, and two other guys whose name escapes me (Ièm so bad with the names) We got in around 3. We got up at 9:30 today and had some breakfast with Netami. We are going to go to the Bike Café we heard about yesterday. Also we will be going to dinner with Naomi at a Pasta shop. First we are going to buy cheese. Weève arranged for sunday night to go to have easter dinner at Aynsleys house with a lot of people and pasta and then we can watch the dinosaur video. Tonight we are going to Justins Art Show - he is Netamis boyfriend. On Sunday morning Naomi and i may go to church.
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http://vancouver.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=1138
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that is a link to a vancouver indymedia story about Sgt.Pepper hugh stewart chief police riot instigator of vancouver and his planned attendance in the FTAA military police. I wish i was surprised. Expect much stupidity. I saw another stupid article in the Globe today also. Also I heard that they will release the FTAA text, says the liberal government, but first they need to translate it into the 4 official languages. SOOO difficult that they wonèt release it until after the FTAA! very funny! Remember to read the story on my page titled "read this before you go to quebec" which is a bit obvious but explains what kind of spins you will see on corporate media stories. Far too familiar stuff Ièm afraid. We are doing well and are having fun. Montreal is a bustling place. We have been welcomed very well by the Quebec bikesheviks. Au revoir, mes amies! (in case you couldnèt tell yesterday and toady we were writing on a computer with weird keys. I canèt get an apostrophe and when I press it I get è. the question mark is É)

Russell on my Bike

autosaurus@tao.ca
montreal, Quebec Kanada - Friday, April 13, 2001 at 11:37:36 (PDT)

Hello, we are in Quebec! I am now writing from a computer with a very strange and bizarre keyboard so please excuase the strange punctuation. START We rushed off to the airport around 10:30pm and barely fit Janes bike into the tiny bike box we were given. Despite the rush we were in perfect time. Jane bought a drink for the plane and then we boarded. It was a 737 plane I think and all full. So much for our hopes that the red eye flight (leaves 11:40pm arrived 8:25am) would be empty so we could stretch out and sleep. The movie was Charlies Angels which was worse than I expected - and I didnt expect much. We both probably got about an hours sleep around as the movie wore on. Only about half an hour or so after the movie it was already breakfast so we had to be awake for it. Jane had the vegitarian meal. Here is our first experience with french - not even. After the meal the steward (male steawardess) asks jane how her vegitarian meal was "was it crapb" Jane thought he said crab - I though he said crap. Well it was airline food so thatès what I was thinking. Anway it turnout he was saying crépes... In any case it was some unidentifiable bean thing that was kind of tasty. I had an omelet thing which was OK but tiny. Anyway we landed shortly after in Ottawa. there was a big pile of dirt in the runfay which I thought was odd. It turned out that was just really dirty snow. the Ottawa to Montreal flight was only 24minutes long. Strangely people got on there heading for vancouver. It seems like the flight we took was about an hour and a bit longer than needed because of this stopover. I think people pay less money to take this less conveinient airplane flight. very bizarre. So then we arrived in Montreal Dorval Airport. We got our bags. The bags were pannier bags for the bicycles bungee corded together. We could only take two bags each together we had 8 panniers (front and rear bike racks) so that is what we did. So anyway the first bag to come strolling down the luggage carosel was a single pannier. This was very worrisome. Then the next three pairs came out. We figured we had lost one pannier. However it did come shortly after by itself. Oh well - we were lucky. Then Janes Bike even came down the carosel (usually they are too big) and Mine was push out from a door by some airline guy. then, just when we had everything else a single bungee cord comes down. The bungee that held the panniers that fell apart! So we didnèt lose a single thing! Anyway, it took a long time to assemble the bikes and we noticed our chain rings had been damaged slightly during the shipping. Anyway the bikies were finally riding about 11:30. we stopped at a gas statioin to get more air and a map. Immediately we noticed that the traffic here is different. We couldnèt fully tell until we got to montreal. The route from dorval is really really nice. We went along the river on this scenic drive and there were all these old stone buldings and churches and also a really nice bike path. We stopped in a small bike shop "west island sports" and th guy there - john - who ran the store was very nice. He gave us more air (all we had at the airport to fill up was janes chintzy hand pump. he had a scuba tank full of air which was pretty cool and got the tyres nice and hard. We gave him a copy of Momentum. He pointed us on the nice bike path. We got off the shore and then went along this bike path next to a canal. It was all very amazing too see. We went through a very industrial (la salle) area. It was nice and worm out but there was still some very dirty snow. We were very tired. The bikie ride was about 16Km from the airport so it took a while because it was furthur than we expected. We also practiced french with each other while riding. It was very windy but also flat so the ride was pretty easy. Jane speaking now: We finally arrived in downtown Montreal. We had a plan to meet Naomi at a cafe on the corner of St. Laurent and Prince Arthur, but we couldnèt find Prince Arthur on the map, so we asked some people for directions (we tried to ask in French). The first few people we asked actually did not know where St. Laurent avenue was (even though I said it in french, and even though it is one of the main streets)---maybe they just thought it would be too difficult to explain. The third guy we asked knew the two streets and told us how to get there. When we got to St.Catherines street(by the way, most of the streets seem to have names starting in saint or prince), the differences between vancouver and montreal became very clear. St. Catherines is one of the main streets, and every intersection is FILLED with people. People who walk onto the street at their own convenience, and who donèt use the street lights to tell them when to go. I almost ran into some people when they stepped out in front of me. Itès very chaotic and vancouver seems so orderly compared. It was very nice to see so many people walking (we heard that 60 % of the people on the island donèt own cars) and the roads were not dominated entirely by cars (pedestrians make up way more of the road traffic) The roads have no lines on them, there are way more potholes (which our new friend Netami says they are proud of) and the cars weave in and out unpredictably--sometimes they stop in the middle of the road to let somebody in or out, or to do whatever, but the other cars do not honk at them. One person yelled out: High reflective safety vests! for reasons we donèt know---perhaps just to say we were very visible (we donèt have many lights, but we do have reflective strips all over us). VERY CHAOTIC and so many more people than weère used to seeing in downtown vancouver. So on with the story. We arrived at the cafe quite a bit later than we planned, but Naomi was still there, sitting in the sun outside the cafe. Russell and I were very tired and dazed by this point and and we were talking slowly. We needed to get some food and find a place to nap fast. The three of us found a falafel place and we sat down to eat--oh it was so good to sit down. We then walked up the hill to Mcgill university where Naomiès friend Claire lives. Near the residence there is a park. It still had snow in many parts, but we laid out the tarp on a bare patch of grass and crawled into our sleeping bags. We both conked out there under the warm sun and slept for a few hours. We woke up when the sun was setting and it was getting pretty cool to be lying in the park. That nap was the blurry divider between the past two days. Anyways, we went to Claire and Naomi, and had a shower in the residence. Then we rode down to Concordia to find the bike people weère staying with. Luckily, we spotted the PIRG office and they told us where the bike shop was. The RTM (right to move) bike shop is very similar to UBCès bike kitchen and bike hub. Itès kind of a cross between the two, because its a free place where people can go to fix their bikes, and they order parts for people, but i dont think they repair peopleès bikes for money and its all volunteer. There were about 7 people still there working on bikes. It was around 9 pm, and 15 minutes later we all went to a place called Miami (a good dive, as someone called it). We got to know this friendly group of Montrealers and are currently being spoiled by Netami--we are at her house and itès very comfortable. Now we must be going to work on our bikes a little. Future messages will likely not be this detailed!

Russell on my Bike (and jane)

autosaurus@tao.ca
Montreal, Quebec Kanada - Thursday, April 12, 2001 at 14:24:52 (PDT)

Full Coverage @  Non- Corporate Independant News about the FTAA Protests:  quebec.indymedia.org   Local Vancouver news:  vancouver.indymedia.org