Wings, Falls and the Kindness of Strangers

Lockport to Niagara Falls to Buffalo....Wow.  So many things happened in today's 66 miles.

When we woke up at the Church of the Drunken Pigs...we were treated to breakfast.  Everyone suited up in their orange Bike the US for MS shirts for the the photo op in Niagara.

As with every morning, we took pictures of the board for vital info for the day.  The board is also where each rider checks in at each rest stop so we know everyone made it. Today's board featured an incentive to hurl one of our route leaders into the falls!  Obviously, not serious, but folks have been riding Kevin pretty hard since he will be leaving us in Buffalo to join the transAm route (one of their route leaders has kidney stones)...lots of traitor jokes and pranking this week...

It was amazing to see the crush of orange jerseys erupt from the church parking lot and take the road in pace lines.  The whole group rode together for the morning which was an impressive site - we got lots of honks and cheers.  I admit, I was overwhelmed with a sense of pride that morning - so many individuals united in mission riding as one.

Our first and only rest stop for the day was in the Tops grocery store parking lot - 3 miles south of Niagara Falls.  Many of us went inside to grab food for this stop and for later in the week.  In addition to folks stopping by to chat and ask questions, the owner of the Tops store came outside and made a spot donation of $1000 - which gets our team closer to our overall goal of $100,000 in donations.

After the stop, we geared up and rode into Canada. We paid 50 cents each to cross the bridge and also showed our passports. Ryan, Kristen, Mason and Drew stayed stateside to have adventures that did not require a passport.

After crossing to Canada, we took turns taking pics with our bikes at the falls and grabbed lunch.

Then we headed of the Niagara bike path towards Buffalo.  This was an interesting route with lots of cool bike bridges to cross. A new route leader, Skylar, appeared out of nowhere and rode into Buffalo with us, taking time to ride alongside each rider and introduce himself...and he also joined us at a local bar for drinks on the way.

It was an easy ride into the city. We stayed at the Buffalo Christian Center that night.  This place was awesome - they had mini golf and pool on the basement along with a roller rink.

We stored our bikes on the first floor... The only drawback was that we slept on the fourth floor - no elevator. Who knew that a bunch of folks who ride 65 miles a day could be such whiners about the stairs??  (Myself included) The fourth floor also featured showers and a basketball court - this place was pretty cool - also we did not sleep on the floor and each got our own cots!!!

That night, we made a pilgrimage to Anchor Bar - home of the original buffalo wing! It was a fun outing and great way to send Kevin off.  Most everyone tried wings - mild, medium, hot or suicide.  The suicide wings were ordered by two of our brave route leaders, Kevin and Ryan...who slogged through the plate - clearly sweating and slowing down over time. Finally, Richard, a 68 year old rider, former Air Force, who can out pace most of the folks on this tour (clearly a fan favorite), saunters over to Kevin and says, "Can I help you with that young man?"...it was like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood from an old western...  The whole table was silent and went 'oooooooooohhh'.  Richard ate that suicide wing - no problem - no sweating - and sauntered back to his seat.  In all fairness, Richard trains in Albuquerque - where he dines on lots of spicy Mexican food...so this was not hard for the gringo...

We walked back to the Christian Center....crawled up 4 flights of stairs, while whining the whole way...and Kevin said good bye to all...With that, his amazing helmet hair, great attitude and bike box headed to the TransAm ride team.  They are very lucky to have him - he and his surprise chocolate milk rest stops will surely be missed!!!

Lastly, the first video for the Northern Toer team was uploaded to Youtibe today...
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qmP2C4ohLsM