{"id":87,"date":"2005-05-14T13:33:55","date_gmt":"2005-05-14T20:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=87"},"modified":"2005-05-14T20:51:12","modified_gmt":"2005-05-15T03:51:12","slug":"friday-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Friday 13th"},"content":{"rendered":"

Port Dover, Ontario. Friday 13th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over 20 years ago a few guys decided to make meeting at Port Dover Ontario, on Friday the 13th’s, a ritual. It caught on. Now, 20 years later, like hordes of migrating birds, tens of thousands of bikers find their way to “Dover”, this year it included my wife and I.<\/p>\n

Port Dover Ontario, Canada, a small fishing village of 5000 people on the shore of Lake Erie, gets bombarded with bikers, whether they like it or not, every Friday the 13th. Even in the winter they show up. Port Dover is about an hours ride from where I live.<\/p>\n

\"PD-2.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

I took lots of pictures of the action, its worth the look….<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The crowds….<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is hard to overstate how many bikes there were here! The current guesses are in the area of 100,000 bikes, and after walking around for the day I think that number is close. Every square inch of the town had a bike on it. Every street was lined with bikes, the larger streets had 4 rows of bikes on them. And a sea of leather clad bikers.<\/p>\n

I’m the one in the leather jacket…..<\/em>
\n\"PD-7.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

The crowds of bikes went on….<\/p>\n

\"PD-3.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

and on….<\/p>\n

\"PD-4.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

and on…<\/p>\n

\"PD-5.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

Every side street, as far as could be seen, there were bikes parked.<\/p>\n

\"PD-6.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-8.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

One of the roads into town, lined with bikes for miles.<\/p>\n

\"PD-9.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

The town is shut down, police are stationed on all the roads into town turning back cars, only bikes and locals with cars are allowed in. There are shuttle busses that will drive people into town from satellite parking lots outside of town.<\/p>\n

The ride in was interesting, even in Kitchener you could see the bikes gathering at donut shops and gas stations. As we rode down the highways started to fill up with bikes, all heading the same direction. By the time we arrive in Simcoe, about 10 miles from Port Dover, the entire town was crawling with bikes, thousands of them, all heading down the highway to Dover. Quite a sight to see.<\/p>\n

The Bikes<\/strong><\/p>\n

There certainly were lots of unique bikes there, more than anyone could photograph, but I got some shots on the ones I thought were pretty cool. It was difficult to get a decent picture of the bikes, as soon as you back up a bit to get the shot, someone walks in front of the camera! So a few are missing some of the bikes….<\/p>\n

See, as soon as I stepped back to get a picture of this contraption, this big pole stepped in front of my camera….<\/p>\n

\"PD-10.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

Some very impressive bikes present.<\/p>\n

\"PD-11.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-12.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

This was an impressive bike, a very nicely done paint job on it. It looked to me like something the Liberal government “sponsored”. If you are a Canadian, you will know what I’m talking about…..<\/p>\n

\"PD-13.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

the same bike showed up in this painting.<\/p>\n

\"PD-14.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-15.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

They certainly don’t make them like they used do. Thank god.<\/p>\n

\"PD-16.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-17.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

This one has a sidecar for a wheelchair to roll up on, very well done.<\/p>\n

\"PD-18.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-19.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

Here was a piece of work. The engine is a Chevy 350, 367HP. I think he uses it to pull the boat up to the cottage….<\/p>\n

\"PD-20.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-21.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

\"PD-22.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

This was my favorite one. I asked the owner about it, but he just referred me to the tank.<\/p>\n

\"PD-23.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

Another car with 2 wheels.<\/p>\n

\"PD-24.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

I liked this one, of course. It is a dead ringer to mine….<\/p>\n

\"PD-25.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

The people<\/strong><\/p>\n

You don’t have 100,000 bikers show up and not get a few colorful characters….<\/p>\n

\"PD-26.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

After walking all day I thought of trading places with him.<\/p>\n

\"PD-27.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

There were bands playing everywhere. These guys set up in the car wash parking lot. They were a blues band, and very good. The little kid on the right could really play a mean geetar!<\/p>\n

\"PD-28.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

My pretty wife….<\/p>\n

\"PD-29.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

well, at least he wasn’t cold.<\/p>\n

\"PD-30.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

If you look closely, the passenger is carrying a tank on his\/her back feeding something into the bike. I can only imagine what is in the tank. Talk about good friend, I don’t think I would volunteer to carry a small explosive on my back, on the back of a bike!<\/p>\n

\"PD-31.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

I really don’t know what to say about this guy, other than “please put some pants on!” <\/p>\n

\"PD-32.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

and because these guys were here….<\/p>\n

\"PD-33.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

these guys were following….<\/p>\n

\"PD-34.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n

Overall, it was a lot of fun! Lots of bikes and as you can see, “interesting” people. We left around 2:30 in the afternoon, and that proved to be about a half hour too late. We got caught in a very heavy, and COLD, rainfall on the way back. Took quite a few hours to warm up once we got back home. It was sunny and warm all day, until the ride back. I ended up with the goofiest sunburn on my face.<\/p>\n

Tim<\/p>\n

\"PD-1.jpg\"
\nImage copyright 2005 Tim Warris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Port Dover, Ontario. Friday 13th Over 20 years ago a few guys decided to make meeting at Port Dover Ontario, on Friday the 13th’s, a ritual. It caught on. Now, 20 years later, like hordes of migrating birds, tens of thousands of bikers find their way to “Dover”, this year it included my wife and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.port-kelsey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}