Thursday evening, July 24th. We, the Ride for Africycle crew are all tired but well fed. This has been an incredible trip so far defined by so many awesome things.
Day one: Rotarians. We met up with local Rotarians, the mayors of Peterborough and Port Hope, the support crew and we spun off to Wesley Acres, just outside of Bloomfield. Money was raised by those Rotarians (Peterborough, Northumberland Sunrise and Brighton) and all of it will go to Africycle. We will post the final amount raised shortly after the end of our ride on the 26th. It was a great ride, down Archer Road off of Highway 2 after Cobourg, along the lake, with a few flat tires, clipped-in falls, fast bursts and slow hills, we arrived into Wesley Acres feeling like a 100 bucks. Rick, Linda, Mark, Roger and Phil… thank you. Rotarians.
Day two: Speed. We polished off 75 km (our shortest day) in less than 3 hours. We hit an excess of 40 km/h a few times and rewarded ourselves to a pint in Kingston. Staying at Rustle Church was like a dream within a dream and Al seemed to be able to slip an obscure book into the van. Speed.
Day three: Rain. Oh my goodness. To wake up to the sound of rain normally makes me smile warm in my bed in Peterborough, but not in Kingston with 124 km ahead of me. We hit the friendly border, stayed as far as we could away from ‘Hogan’ the outhouse, and took the ferry across. Cape Vincent, the border town on the American side of Wolfe Island, was beautiful. Jozina was shaking from the cold so we stopped in for a coffee and had a hard time leaving. We made it to Selkirk Shores at around 5 PM and enjoyed about 10 minutes of sun at the gate. Other than that, rain.
Day four: Hills. Harvey Botzman, writer of ‘Round Lake Ontario, the plotter of Great Lake routes, said it was going to be hilly that day. And Harvey is never wrong. It was one hill after another all day long. We stopped for a newspaper interview at the Palladium Times in Oswego and hit the hills again all the way to Sodus Point. Hills.
Day five: Length. This was the mother of all days. 169 km, bumped up from our estimated 154 km just so we could get into the ‘century’ club (100 miles in a day). From Sodus Point, through Rochester for some site-seeing with Harvey, and onto Golden Hill State Park. The highlight of the day for some of us was the Lake Ontario State Parkway bridge construction. It was closed and forced the car traffic off. We started following the detour, stopped, went back to the bridge, ran up the grass on the other side of the bridge, and had the parkway to ourselves for about 10 km. It was apocalyptic. That said because it felt like all the cars had gone away and bicyclists had taken over the world. We arrived, had showers, ate, and fell asleep. We were dead to the world but we’re all now in the club. Length.
Day six: Falls. Just that; we crossed the border, wasted some time looking at the water and made our way to Shalamar park. And Marijke, the daughter of our support crew, beat David, Mike and Michael at Settler’s of Catan. Unprecedented. Our pride fell. Falls.
Day seven: Shelter. My goodness, what a day. I’ll elaborate a bit as this day is freshest in my memory. We left Shalamar with Fred Farnham of the Welland Rotary Club. This man is 81 years old and definitely the best 81 year old to join us on a day like we just had. It started raining as soon as we left. And it started raining pretty hard only 5 km into the ride. Mike Vyn, prone to getting flat tires, popped again. “Flat!”, we all yelled and pulled over into a farmer’s empty roadside stand. Fred and I sheltered ourselves beneath the stand while the rest of the group began working on Mike’s tire under a tree. I noticed movement in the adjacent house and a shirtless man appeared in the window. Moments later the garage door opened and it began to pour. Think of ‘pouring’ in this case being God above us with a jug of water pouring over the road, the driveway, everywhere. ‘Joe’, the owner of the house, called us in. And we gladly accepted. As we continued to work on Mike’s tire, or at least looking on, the wind picked up and drove with such a force that it would have easily forced Fred and I off the road into the ditch. He said he had just instructed his wife to put on the coffee and that we had to come inside. Hospitality when cold and shaking suddenly took on a new meaning. Joe and Rita, soft fruit farmers outside of Virgil, took us in with arms wide open. The power went out, we laughed and went upstairs where there was more light. And the coffee had just happened to finish before the power left so only our laughter filled the kitchen. They had five children who had all grown up and moved out and they mentioned a few times that it was as if all the kids were home. Then Fred, our Rotarian friend, started making balloon animals for their grandson, Ethan (who could operate a backhoe even though he was only 6). Parrots, monkeys, samurais… all kinds of creations came out of Fred. The whole situation seemed surreal and we laughed and loved it, the hospitality, the hot coffee, the 81 year old man who laughed with us and made balloon animals, and Joe and Rita, God bless them. Leaving once the rain had died down was like leaving a little piece of heaven behind. And another 80 km brought us into the Hammer. When we arrived here, tired and weary, the rain began to fall just after we stepped through the door. David Blondel’s mom rolled in a little while later with about 200 pounds of food for us. Tired and hungry we were. Dry we remained and satisfied we became. Shelter.
More in a few days. Click ‘To Donate’ and give a bunch of money.
-Michael
