Day 7: Erie, Pennsylvania to Hamburg, New York 81 miles, 2300 feet of climbing

I think I'm turning into a duck.  Well, I will if the rains keep up.

Pennsylvania vineyards in front of Lake Erie.  Now, it started to look like one the Great Lakes!  Some of the vineyards here and on the New York State side are for wine production.  But the majority are concord grapes for Welch's, the jam/jelly/juice company.

The first 20 miles of today's ride was along Lake Erie in the Pennsylvania wine country.  Vineyards on both sides of the road, but especially along the lake shore.  It was overcast and cool and the ride was a joy.

That's not a distorted shot.  It's the heavy rains just starting to come down that made the picture look odd.  No sooner than I took the shot, we were all running for cover into a tractor shed at the golf course to the right of the trailer.

Almost like clockwork, we hit the New York state border and the heavens opened up.  Not a light rain, but a torrential downpour with lightning and thunder all around us.  Six of us ducked into the tractor shed of a nearby golf course (picture to follow from one of the ride leaders who was alert enough to take a shot of us all huddling under cover, surrounding by tractors and all kinds of golf course landscaping equipment).  The management of said golf course was not all that pleased by finally acquiesced and allowed us to stay until the storm blew through, about half an hour later.

There were numerous sluiceways along the lake shore road.  It was amazing how much water flooded the streets.  Many of the streams were overflowing their banks.  The runoff was emptying into the lake, but I'd never seen this volume of water pouring off the land before today.

The rain let up but left massive flooding in its wake.  We were all getting text alerts of flash floods along today's ride path.  The thunderstorm the night before brought four inches of rain in one hour, according to some locals.  This just added to the damage.  Vineyards and front lawns of homes along the roadway were completely flooded and there were many times when we had to navigate through flooded streets, slowing cycling through the runoff.

The lighthouse in Barcelona.  

After the rains, the sky turned bright, the sun made a brief appearance and our one sag stop of the day, in the town of Dunkirk, was a pleasant and dry rest area in the local park along the shoreline.  Then came the bad news.  We weren't going to make it into the hotel before getting hit with a second front.  More rain, but at least no lightning.

The marina in Barcelona.  The picture doesn't quite tell the whole story here.  This was taken about half an hour after the first storm blew through.  On the left side of the parking lot, you should be seeing 14 boat slips.  There are only two visible as the other 12 are under water.  That's how much rain these folks had over the past 24 hours!

Sure enough, 15 miles for the end, the soaking rains came down again.  At least it was warm enough that we didn't need to run for rain gear.  Unfortunately, I wound up with a different dilemma.  Seven miles from the finish, I caught a piece of metal in my back tire and blew it flat.  It would have been worse if I had to change it in the pouring rain.  Luckily, there was a church nearby and I ducked under its portico for cover and so I could work on my tire.  There I found other riders who had also sought shelter from the storm.  Shortly after I got there, the minister of the church invited us in to use the bathrooms, to get cold water and to just get out of the rain.  He was a former policeman in Buffalo before changing bosses.  A very sweet and caring man.

Seven miles later, through the challenges of rain so heavy that seeing the road, the route map and my bike computer to check mileage for turning cues, I made it to the Comfort Inn in Hamburg.  A hot shower and a biking cleaning later, and I was good to go.