There is something about a 5-degree October morning in Montreal that forces you into the present moment.
When you are riding an electric moped at 7:20 in the morning, watching your breath fog up the edges of your visor despite the Pinlock, your mind tends to clear out the noise. Your layers aren’t quite thick enough, the felt in your gloves is doing its best against the wind, and all around you, rush-hour traffic is waking up in its usual hurried, impatient rhythm.
For me, being on two wheels has always been more than just a cheap, nimble way to slip past Montreal’s endless orange cones and blocked lanes. It is the only place where I get an uninterrupted monologue with myself. Inside the helmet, it is just the hum of the motor, the cold autumn air, and room to think.
And over the past few weeks, there has been a lot to think about.
If you follow the channel, you have probably noticed that things have been unusually quiet around here this year. In 2024, I uploaded over sixty videos. In 2025, it was more than fifty. In 2026, I have barely put out eight.
The silence wasn’t planned. It was just life catching up with me.
When the Plan Falls Apart
When I first started documenting my rides and sharing my journey, I had a clear roadmap. I was in school studying accounting, dealing with shifting scooter regulations, getting my Class 6D licence, and preparing for a structured white-collar career. There was always a milestone to reach and something new to talk about.
Then school ended, and reality hit.
Despite finishing my studies, I could not land a job in accounting. Month after month of applications led nowhere. When you are sitting at home in your mid-40s, waiting for someone to give you a chance to prove your worth while watching your savings dwindle, a quiet kind of depression sets in. You feel stuck. You feel like you have nothing worthwhile to share, and bringing a camera along on a ride feels like a chore rather than an escape.
I found myself wondering what Montreal Rides even was anymore. Were people tuning in for the electric moped? The occasional how-to? The rare gear review? Or were people just following along for the honest journey of an everyday rider trying to figure life out in the city?
While I was stuck in that mental holding pattern, an unexpected detour presented itself.
The Accidental Renovator
Over the summer, a side job came up through a neighbour whose family needed help. An elderly father had been moved into a care facility, and his adult children were left with the daunting task of clearing out and restoring a house that had fallen into complete disrepair so they could put it on the market.
They brought in specialized contractors for the structural work, but they needed someone reliable to do the heavy lifting: hauling out decades of furniture, clearing debris, patching up damaged walls, and prepping the place for paint.
I took the job.
At first, it was pure physical shock. Hauling trash, lugging furniture, and working on your feet all day takes an immediate toll on a body that spent years sitting at a study desk. My back ached, my hands were stiff, and I was falling asleep before 9:00 PM every night.
But as the weeks went on, something unexpected happened: my head started to clear.
Getting out of the house every single morning gave me purpose. Instead of staring at job boards hoping for an email, I was putting in honest, exhausting hours. More importantly, I discovered something about the work itself that surprised me.
The Meditative Art of Plaster
Nobody likes painting ceilings. That is a universal truth of home renovation.
Plastering and sanding, however, turned out to be an entirely different story.
There is an incredible, almost meditative satisfaction in taking a damaged, neglected room (walls full of deep gouges, settling cracks, and old anchor holes) and slowly working it back to life. You mix the compound, float the spatula across the drywall, let it dry, and sand it down to a seamless edge. When you roll that first coat of primer over the surface and see a clean, uniform wall where a broken mess used to be, you feel a deep sense of accomplishment.
The work is quiet. It is tactile. It requires patience and finesse rather than corporate posturing. For the first time in years, I felt calm.
It made me realize that maybe I had spent the last several years aiming for the wrong target. I don’t need to be sitting in an office staring at Excel balance sheets to earn a living. What I need is tangible, honest work that pays properly, keeps me active, and gives me a clear path forward.
The Blueprint: Starting Over in Your Mid-40s
Admitting that you need to completely pivot your life in your mid-40s is humbling. When you have zero retirement savings and no pension to fall back on, you don’t have the luxury of wandering aimlessly. You have to be practical, and you have to move quickly.
So, I’ve decided to make it official and transition into the construction trades.
The first step begins immediately with the ASP Construction course — a mandatory 30-hour health and safety certification that opens the door to working on unionized job sites across Quebec. In the local construction industry, even entry-level general labour under the collective agreement earns around $40 an hour, complete with pension contributions and medical insurance from day one. That alone creates an immediate safety net that I simply didn’t have in my previous search for office work.
From there, the plan is to specialize. Come March 2027, I am planning to enroll in a formal trade apprenticeship program for plastering. It is an intensive, 800-hour program running through the autumn.
The advantage of going through recognized vocational schooling here in Quebec is that the training hours count as time-and-a-half toward your apprenticeship credentials. Those 800 hours of structured trade school credit as 1,200 hours on your union record, cutting down the long climb through the 2,000-hour apprenticeship tiers on your way to becoming a certified journeyman (compagnon).
Instead of picking up bad habits through trial and error, I want to learn the trade properly from the ground up.
Between now and then, the goal is simple: keep working, keep skimming compound, keep sanding, and save every spare dollar to build a financial cushion for when full-time classes begin. It is hard, dirty work, but for the first time in a long time, the future feels like something solid I can actually build with my own two hands.
Autumn Roads and Winding Down
Back on the moped, the morning commute continues through the city streets.
The colours in the trees along the boulevards are turning fast now, glowing in deep oranges and reds against the pale morning light. The sun is setting earlier every day (barely making it past 6:00 PM) and the chill in the air is a daily reminder that our two-wheeled season is nearing its finish line.
Before long, the November slush will arrive, the winter tire deadline will lock down the streets, and the bike will be heading back into storage. But until that happens, I am taking every cold morning ride I can get.
Starting over isn’t easy. It hurts your muscles, bruises your pride, and forces you to confront the years you feel you might have wasted. But like an old plaster wall, you can always patch up the cracks, sand down the rough spots, and lay down a fresh coat of paint.
As I navigate these final weeks of the riding season, I’d love to hear from you.
How has your autumn been shaping up? Have you ever had to walk away from a plan and reinvent yourself later in life? And as this channel evolves alongside my life, what is it that keeps you tuning in to Montreal Rides?
Let me know in the comments below. Stay warm, watch out for the morning frost, and keep two wheels on the ground.
Leave a Reply