Aug 25: St. Catharines to Byron, NY

Stats: 131.3km (about 8.5 extra), Avg 24.1km/h, Max 43.6km/h, Time 5:26, In camp around 2:15pm

It almost seems wrong to be at an RV camp way out in nowhere USA and have it offer free WiFi to campers... We are WAY TOO connected in this day and age. But I do feel obligated to update, since so many folks are following this tour from home.

(Actually, I take it back, it's been pretty flaky. I think we're overwhelming it, and I've heard that you can't upload photos. I'll have to edit in the photos later.)

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Kind of a Long-Short day today. There was 30km to the border, then a lot of waiting around at the border for everyone to arrive, and for our scheduled time, and then another 90-odd km on the US side.

Randy DeWolde is blogging right beside me and he called it an uneventful day and I think that's pretty accurate. The only photos I took were at the Falls, as we were fiddling around waiting for time to pass.

Left the school around 7 with Pieter and John DV and cruised to the Canal, and then up to the Queenston St Bridge (the one under the Skyway). The bridge was up. As a long time Niagara resident (from birth to age 21-23) I regard these bridges a basically annoyances. When they're up they make you late for church, or the movie, or meeting friends, and you always need to allow time for them...

But I quickly realized that for all the tour members with me (and there was very quickly about 20-30 of us stopped there by the bridge) this was all new, and probably a fun thing to experience. We pressed on and reached the designated meeting place near the rainbow bridge wayy, wayyyyy early. So four of us (Val Smid had joined our group) found a coffee shop for some hot chocolate and a donut. Pieter handed out 3-4 cards. After this we made our way back and found a growing crowd at our meeting place (a parking lot). Pieter and I took off and cycled up to the edge of the Horseshoe falls, and found some other sea-to-sea-ers like us wasting some time.

Art + Pieter, Horseshoe falls behind

Errr, Pieter, Eritia, Josh, Jonathan, Ryan, and I forget who else, and outdoors in the glare of the sun, it is REAL hard to see these photos. I'm kind of posting on faith right now... :-)

The old standard "self-portrait by holding up the digital camera" shot.

(ASIDE: Niagara Falls at 9am on weekday is almost dead quiet. I highly recommend picking that time to visit the falls. And yes, the Maid of the Mist was even running.)

The actual crossing of the Rainbow bridge was both exciting and uneventful. We sure make a HUGE DISPLAY when 200+ cyclists, all in matching Jersey's, take to the street and occupy an entire lane on the approach to the bridge, and on the bridge also (which was also dead quiet). Unfortunately I'd packed away my camera in my rear bag, so I did NOT take any photos on the bridge itself.)

(NOTE TO SELF: go searching flickr for other photos from other folks. Dave Raakman was on the bridge taking shots as well.)

At the US customs we were waved right through. THAT IS NOT A TYPO. They didn't even ask to see any passports. We were all stunned. I later heard from Billy D, the camp manager who was in front (on his Harley!) that the boss there told him that he was very impressed with how well organized we were.

And that is about it. We biked. and biked. The group split up pretty quickly, thanks to stop lights and differing riding speeds and styles. I rode most of the day with Ryan Bruxvoort, Rod Boerman, and Pieter. Towards the last quarter of the ride, we lost Pieter and Ryan, and later found that they'd stopped for pizza, so we even passed them for a while. But they later leapfrogged us as well.

We rolled into camp very early. I was one of the first 15-20 riders. Helped unload the truck a bit, and was #2 to sign in on the sheet. (Katrina beat me.) Later we heard that a number of folks made some wrong turns, and another number stopped and took it easy, hit some golf balls and so on.

And I have to go soon, as my wash, (which I shared with Pieter, Nathan Beach, and Randy DeWolde -- they needed a US quarter, which I had, which bought me some washer space... ;-) is finished.

See? I'm blogging about wash, how pitiful is that. Told you the day was uneventful,

(Title corrected - Byron, NY, not MI !!! Thanks HeatherF)