My Port Dover ride report (long)

PD13 June 2008
Woke up and check the weather - yup - still saying 40-60% chance of thunder showers. Look out the window - hazy, but sunny. Dang it, I'm going anyway - calling for a high of 32 so if it rains, at least it'll be warm.

Got the family out the door by 8:30, then got myself all prepped and ready and rolling wheels just before 10am. Oh good, gas is $1.37.4 - filled up and hit the highway.
The ride there was just shy of two hours, of some rather scenic secondary and tertiary highways - normally take Hwy 3 to Simcoe, then turn south. But today, there's a bridge closed outside Delhi, so we got redirected down #59 then across #1 into the south side of Simcoe.

Note to anyone wanting to go in the future - this is an excellent route - cut out a good 90% of the gridlock traffic that makes up the effort of trying to get through Simcoe on a Friday the 13th!
So down #24 and over #6 and right into Port Dover - as always, they've got the city closed off to vehicular traffic (mostly - damn locals *wink*) and it went quite surprisingly smooth. Coming on on #6/Main St the bikes lining the streets started at the outskirts of town already. I pressed on trying to get as close to downtown as possible -- made it just about 1/2 way before deciding to occupy a spot on the side of the road. Spots were generally available everywhere you looked - even right downtown if you had the nerve to get down all that way on your bike. Parking on the main streets in PD is intersting - lines of bikes on both sides of the road, plus a line down the middle! And once you add the truly massive crowd of people wandering around, it's quite the experience. There's bikes, trikes, scooters, and more EVERYWHERE to be seen. Bikes/trikes with trailers, with coffins, sidecars, handicapped and wheelchair accessible bikes and sidecars. New bikes, Old bikes, Really Old bikes! Strange creations - like the electric golf bag scooter - there's some interesting handiwork. If you want to see the world and history of bikes - this is it. As there are so many bikes, from all over Canada and the US, the rest of the story is just a report - there's just no way I could describe them all.

So I parked around 11:45am, and immediately ran into another XJ owner! I was stripping off the riding gear (ATGATT - All The Gear, All The Time!), and he stopped to say hi. Not on our list or website, but has an 83 750 Maxim. Gave him a contact card, as he was on his way leaving town.

My XJ performed flawlessly if you are concerned - yet another perfect trip. Stripped out of my gear, and booked it down Main St to get to the Timmies for Noon, to see who else would show up. Please note - "booking it down Main St" at noon in PD is an excercise in crowd avoidance, and threading your path through. Managed to make it though -- didn't see anyone at first, made sure my XJOG shirt was very visible. After getting coffee and some brunch, ran into my second XJ'er! Lostboy for the XJbikes website, and shortly thereafter some of the XJ listers caught up with us - Mike & his wife Zita, Orest Romanish, and a couple of people whose names are sadly escaping me at the moment - very nice folks all! We decided to make our way back up Main to do a little shopping. If it's got to do with a motorcycle and you want it - it's here. And then some. I think everyone eventually found something they wanted.

Once getting to the city park, vendors galore here to peruse, the madness of the crowd continued unabated, and by now it was getting stinkin' hot -- 32degrees C, high humidity, and hazy. Saw a totally topless woman waling by.
Totally.
Topless.
No paint, no fake tattoos, just good 'ol nature. Caught aback, it took me a fraction of a second to realize what I was seeing! Please note, this is legal here in Ontario - women have the right to go topless in public in any place a man would - this would just be the first time I've ever seen someone taking advantage of that right! But the truly funny thing was the reactions most people were having to seeing her -- nope, not what you're thinking -- NOTHING. The vast majority of people (including my companions - save Zita) DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. As I watched her walk away, most people didn't even bat an eyelid, no double-takes, no looking, staring - nothing. Amazing, and telling all the same. Interesting.

Back to the story - Just after this we continued back up Main St towards the bikes, as theirs were parked even further up than mine. The others I was with decided to call it a day as they'd been there since early morning - I bid them a farewell, safe ride, and decided to head back down into the melee. So the PD13 staff have been advertising that the Guinness Book of Records was going to be there, and they were trying to set a "most bikes" or something record and you needed to get your tag. I'm told if you came early enough, they were giving them out as you entered town. However, as that didn't happen for me, by the time I found out where to go to register it was all done - they'd run out of tags *dammit!* I really wanted one of those too. Guess that means they're pretty much guaranteed the record though, eh? Ran out of tags, and there was still many bikes to be counted.

Now you just CAN'T go to Port Dover without going to the harbour pier... and getting some fresh smoked whitefish! Yum! Best I've ever had, right there. Getting on 15:00 now, and the crowd's starting to thin out a bit - not quite shoulder-to-shoulder anymore -- can actuallly find a couple of feet of space now. Walk back up the strip to my bike, get some gas ($1.34.2 - cheaper than in London, interesting) and ran into a couple of guys from my old hometown - Thunder Bay, Ontario - wow, now that's a long ride. They're riding Kawasaki Concours' though, so not so bad.

Back on the bike, and head for London. Strangely, remember that detour going to PD? Yeah - doesn't affect you going west - so got to ride through downtown Simcoe. Stop-n-go traffic for 30 minutes, 40 feet at a time, on the air-cooled bike in full gear (ATGATT baby) - can you say HOT? Past that though, the trip was a breeze and nothing interesting to report. Arrived home 2 hours after leaving, XJ ran wonderfully again - sunburnt (good old raccoon eyes too), windburnt from having the helmet visor open, and sweaty - but wow - another great visit to Port Dover on Friday the 13th!

 

It was a good time for all To bad, so sad that I split to early too early to see the topless girl but I was at Port Dover sense 7:00 am. :cry: It was nice to meet up with other XJer's and put a faces with the names. Can not wait till next year to do it all over again!

 

Absoulte Glorious Ride and Time =) if you check out the www.pd13.com site... video number 2.. you can see my XJgirl =)

 

Cool vid! I just wish I could've gotten one of those Guinness tags *doh*
Figures - I was too busy trying to find the other XJ folks to remember to go sign up!

 

We gots ours as we rolled in... on the norfolk site, you can see a pic of bro and me pulled over where I was handing him his ticket that was handed to use at the other side of that intersection. =)

It was a truely Amazing feeling riding in. Up until Tilsonberg it was just him and me, and then around that turn, Boom 20 riders ith us.. hit the next little town, around the bends and bang at least 150 riders with us now. Riding along with the soft roar of the motors echoing down the centre.

 

You've never been before I take it? It's amazing how the closer you get, vehicle traffic starts thinning out, but you start seeing more and more bikes everywhere you look
The one thing I've learned over the years is: Avoid Simcoe
Whatever you can do to avoid having to drive through the middle of town will make you a much happier person.
Unless you happen to like bumper to bumper car & bike traffic for 1/2 hour in the middle of downtown -- I go around it now.

 

nope that was the first one, Have been Die'n to go forever, as well as Bro, but something has always come up and never been able to make it. And yes, have to agree with the simcoe, on the way in, took the same detour you did which was very smooth. On the way back we cut right through, but yes traffic was all over the place on the way back.

It's an event to be expercienced, over and over though!