West Lorne to Port Dover, ON

Posted on August 6, 2004 by Kevin

My bike computer showed 47 degrees this morning, probably our coldest ride start to date. I got out my leg warmers for the first time. The Californians with us said that these conditions would cancel a planned ride back home. The Minnesotans stuck with their short sleeves.

It warmed up comfortably by lunch, which was in the town of Port Burwell on a Lake Erie beach. There was a sign pointing out over the water that said Cleveland – 144 km, Ashtabula – 80 km, and Erie – 81 km. So I figured that at this point, I was the closest to home that I will be during the whole tour, as we will be heading more north and east as we continue through Ontario.

On this 98-mile day, several people succeeded in riding a five-hour century, including Peter (who did it non-stop), Ryan, and Jeremy from the staff, and David Butler, who made it with just 21 seconds to spare. The terrain got a bit more hilly than yesterday. I rode most of the day with Bruce and Patti.

When we got to Port Dover, we went straight through town, down to the harbor area for ice cream. We ran into some other riders there, including Richard, Colleen, Molly, Marisa, David Butler, and his wife Patricia, who had come to visit us once again.

We stayed at the Port Dover Composite School, and had dinner and breakfast at United Grace Church just up the street. It was Road Relics night again; my entry was a hotel key card that I had found; I labeled it “Meet me in room 312 at 11:30pm.” I think it got a lot of laughs, but I did not win anything this time.

After dinner, several of us went to a bar in town called FortyTwoEighty. Then we noticed that another place up the street called Cap’n Bill’s was having a karaoke night, but it didn’t start until 10:00pm, so we went to yet another place across the street (I don’t remember that name of that one). Finally, a little after 10:00, we went over to Cap’n Bill’s. In honor of some of the harsh days of headwinds that we’ve had on the tour, I sang Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind.” Molly did “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” and Scott did “Take It Easy.”