Dunkirk to Buffalo: Into the wind - Underground Railroad Route (Northern Half) - CycleBlaze

June 19, 2011

Dunkirk to Buffalo: Into the wind

We had another good weather day other than the headwind. Our rule of thumb when unsure about the direction to take at an intersection is the correct direction is uphill or into the teeth of the wind.

When leaving our hotel in the morning a family saw our WVU pennant on the bike and told us they lived in the Cheat Lake area (in West Virginia) where our son and his family live. Later, while lunching along the lake a young family man again saw our flag and told us he works at Mylan Pharmaceuticals in Morgantown where our daughter-in-law used to work. At first we marveled about these contacts because we drove quite a distance to our starting point in Indiana and had now cycled over 800 miles, but then realized we really aren't that far from West Virginia as the crow flies.

While passing through a small town, Rhona heard music playing and saw a teenage girl on the porch dancing with a hula hoop.

Frost heaves and torn road surface sent shock waves (unrelated to the hula hoop) up through the fork and handlebars. On our 1996 cross country ride we rode a different (and cheaper) tandem which had a low quality fork. After the tour, my hands and forearms took a while to recover. We purchased this Cannondale tandem, partly because it had what they called a "Pepperoni" fork which did a better job of insulating the shock from frost heaves on the road. Regardless, if we ever buy another tandem, I'm getting one that has some kind of front fork suspension.

Rhona's highlight of the day (other than spending quality time with her husband) was stopping at a small town pizza shop and buying an entire plate of raw vegetables. I'd show you a picture, but a vegetable is a vegetable is a vegetable.

In Orchard Park we stopped at the Obadiah Baker Homestead. This was one of the last stations on the Underground Railroad before fugitives crossed into Canada.
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It's a private home (and is for sale) now so we just took a photo. If you look closely, you can just see a bored teenage girl on the porch. She's probably disgusted seeing sweaty cyclists in lycra taking pictures of her house.
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In Orchard Park we had some difficuly finding a place to stay. We cycled several miles on a hot busy road to the Orchard Park Inn. It looked pretty shabby and there was a note on the door indicating that "Mike" was out but would be back in 10 minutes. However, we knew that "Mike" had also not been answering his phone for the last 45 minutes and decided not to wait on "Mike". We retraced our path a bit and then a few extra miles to a Hampton Inn. We walked to a Wegman's to shop for dinner, figuring that the cost for dinner from a grocery store would differ from the cost of eating out. Unfortunately, we didn't account for "Rogue Rhona" running rampant through the aisles scarfing up all of the healthy foods she could carry. Oh well, it was a romantic night out.

Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 851 miles (1,370 km)

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