12. 6/10/23 Crystal Beach, Ontario to Dunkirk, New York

June 10, 2023

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Note: We actually rode 61 miles (my watch died just before reaching our hotel) and our actual elevation gain per Strava was 1,334 ft.

Today was a challenge. The best part of the day was the 9 mile ride on the Friendship Trail to the Peace Bridge over the Niagara River.

A short fun detour due to erosion on the lake bank.

A distant view of Buffalo across the east end of Lake Erie.

We got to the bridge only to find that the sidewalk for pedestrians and cyclists was gated. (I forgot to take a picture). We were stumped! We asked a man in his car sitting nearby and he was as perplexed as us. He said it was open yesterday. He told us how to get on the road to cross the bridge and assured us we would be safe. We followed his advice and rode in the right hand lane (there were two lanes going east into the U.S, one going west) which was a truck lane (fortunately no trucks came!). At the border, the agent told us to get in the car lane. We did. Then the car lane officer lectured us about not being on the sidewalk. We protested and explained and he didn't really believe us, but radioed his buddies to let us into the pedestrian entry so we could safely ride down to the lakefront park! (otherwise we would have been on freeways). It was very strange, but worked out okay.

Riding NEXT to the sidewalk. You can see that there was no way we could get onto the sidewalk with our loaded tandem

We meandered through waterfront parks and downtown side streets to get through Buffalo. I was stumped by this totally rundown, abandoned park right near the Peace Bridge. Notice the tree stumps! I haven't been able to google the cause of this.

Two hours into the day, we saw that we had only gone 14 miles. That's disheartening when you have 47 more to go! There were small "towns" down the coast but they didn't offer much. We found a full service Convenience Store:

Everything a cyclist could want! Blue PortaPotty, crate seats, outdoor outlet to charge my phone and food (including grapes) from inside. (don't know how I managed to take this out of focus!)

After "lunch", we took the Old Lake Shore Road, trading a busy 4-lane road for rolling hills. We stopped at Frank Lloyd Wright's Graycliff house.

Frank Lloyd Wright's summer residence for the Martin family. We opted out of the two hour tour, so we didn't see anything but the gift shop. There were several other magnificent houses along this coast.

We rode the last 20 miles on NY 5; rolling hills, not much shoulder and headwinds of 10 mph. Occasional lovely views, but riding was not much fun.

The Clarion Hotel and conference center on the outskirts of Dunkirk was a welcome sight! Best of all they have a restaurant on site and half the menu is East Indian cuisine. Everyone ordered the tandoori chicken tonight, so we had to wait 40 minutes for ours! But...it was scrumptious.

Today's ride: 61 miles (98 km)
Total: 387 miles (623 km)

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