Port Dover, Friday 13 Oct 06

Submitted by Steve Krug...

Rick Stamp and I decided we were going to Port Dover come hell or high water. We left Brantford around noon and headed down, stopping in Waterford for a coffee. It's a good thing our resolve was strong, because it started to rain part way there, although not a lot at first. Then the rain turned to snow and then it started to hail. I was okay because I had a windshield, but Rick had only goggles - his face turned a very interesting shade of purple from the hail. I figured there would only be a few bikes in Dover due to the weather. We got to Dover and it was incredible; our local paper said 1000 bikes, but I'm sure there were a lot more! The puddles had whitecaps from all the wind and Satan himself was there riding some sort of Honda in a red thong and cape. Ours were the only two Urals I saw the entire day, but several people told me they had spotted another white patrol covered in OVC cards. Too bad we never met up with the owner. It took us close to an hour to get more than 10 feet away from our own bikes, as everyone wanted to know what they were or wanted to tell us what they were. I'm thinking our bikes were photographed by every camera there! The wind was amazing, the vendors would take your money with one hand while holding down their tents with the other. We hung out for a few hours and I think we got more soaked from walking around then from riding. Grabbed a late lunch and a coffee, then had a dry ride home except for all the trucks kicking up spray.