June 27, 2019
Training Ride
Port Burwell to Port Dover
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Jackie’s avg speed: 10.0
Scott’s avg speed: 11.0
Weather: 70-75 degrees, hazy, still, humid
Our gear was packed and ready to roll at 08:04, but not soon enough to beat the heat. The air was heavy and still, no breeze. It was good that we had a relatively short ride. We needed a motel with WiFi so we could catch up on admin. Camping has its advantages, like wild nature and low cost. But the things that we can’t do from a campground – like replenish supplies and upload the blog – pile up.
Breakfast was instant oatmeal with local strawberries, a banana with Nutella, local strawberries with Nutella, coffee and tea. Now we were truly out of food. By 10:15 we reached Port Rowan, and we wanted lunch.
The Old Thyme Deli was open, so Scott got a ham and cheese sandwich on homemade bread, I got an avocado turkey wrap and a Coke. The owner was a good, loquacious cook who had seen a few cyclists pass through. She listed some of the interesting options ahead of us. Our route would take us through a series of wineries before we got to Port Dover, which she said was great place for shopping and swimming. “The road looks like this” – here she made a swooping and diving motion with her hand. “But you guys look like you can handle it.”
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How right she was on all counts. The wineries might tempt people with designated drivers. But cycling up steep hills after sampling wines would not work. Cycling and sampling might be doable if a person were a sommelier who tasted the wine, then spit out, but what’s the fun of that? And if a person enjoys the wine, walking the bike might be okay. But that person would lose cred as a tough Montana bear.
Each time we saw a road sign with a truck pointed down a wedge, we told ourselves, no problem, this is training for real mountains up ahead. Each time we climbed back up, we were glad this would be a short day. We always remember the pluses. No trucks at all and these backroads were sometimes in shade.
We got to Port Dover a little before 14:00, completely wiped out by the ride and heat. We stopped at the Erie Beach Hotel, basically the first place we saw. It is perched about 15 feet higher than the street on a rise of lush green grass. When I walked up to the registration desk, probably red faced with spiky helmet hair, the manager said, “You tired of pedaling?” He had obviously some experiences in acting the gracious host to tired travelers. The price was $145 Canadian/$110 US, the same as the Wallaceburg Days Inn, but worth every penny. Breakfast of two eggs, toast and coffee would be $6 extra, but unfortunately, not offered until 08:00. We wanted to be on the road before then.
Laundry, blog, and internet research of the Canada/U.S. border crossing took up most of the afternoon. But since the beach was just a block and a half away, we took time for a brief swim before dinner. The water was calm and much warmer than Port Glasgow. Most of the crowd had departed for dinner already. After a shower, we do what people do in beach towns. Walked the main drag, stopped in and browsed at the boutiques, then went to find groceries. The only supermarket was a mile and a half away, so we bought protein bars and Subway sandwiches at the Circle K.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for dinner at a place called 211 Main. The deli owner had told us perch was a specialty of Port Dover, so that’s what I ordered. Scott had a cheeseburger.
It was 21:00 by the time we finished and the ice cream shops had just closed. A couple was watching us when we tried the door of the Dairy Bar that had just closed. “You can still get ice cream at Dairy Queen,” the woman said. I told her we were on foot, it was too far, and she offered to drive. We thanked her and said we’d try Tim Horton’s just a block away. No ice cream there, but they did have chocolate cake donuts. We punted. We also had the solution to our breakfast problem, since this place was open 24 hours. Lights out for Scott at 21:30, I worked on the blogs some more.
Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 2,110 miles (3,396 km)
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