It was back in April 1961 that a trio of young Canadian high school students decided to spend their Easter break bicycling around Lake Erie, which took them right through Lorain County on the old Rts. 6 and 2.
A Lorain Journal reporter caught up with them in Vermilion. Here’s the article about their incredible adventure, which appeared on the front page of the newspaper back on April 6, 1961. It’s a real heartwarming story.
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Food, Friendship And Fun
Canadian Cyclists Pedal Way Around Lake, Visit Vermilion
By CHARLES GRAY
The three were Darryl Amos, 16, Adrian Vanderlugt, 17, and Collin Watson, 16, all of whom are Hillpark High School students from Hamilton, Ont., Canada.
They are spending their Easter vacation by cycling their way around Lake Erie.
They figure the cost will be about $50 spread among all three of them since their habits are frugal and they never turn down a handout.
They sleep mostly in barns or sheds, using sleeping bags for comfort and warmth.
Last night they slept at the Hosko Fishery on Rts. 2 and 6. The lodging was provided by Don LaCourse, an employee, at the request of Harold Neiding, manager of the Lake Erie Drive-In Restaurant.
The boys, clad in jackets and sweaters and medium heavy trousers, didn’t seem to mind the cold, which should be normal if you consider the heat generated by a person who rides a bicycle some 80 miles a day.
The Journal’s first contact with the trio came when this reporter stopped to give a lift to Amos, who was standing alongside the road just west of Vermilion.
Amos lifted his bike, which had a flat tire, into the rear of the station wagon and we drove to Diedrick’s Bike Shop on Rt. 60 for repairs.
His two buddies had gone on ahead so we decided to catch up with them. Amos spotted their bikes in front of the Lake Erie Drive-In on East Lake Rd. and we stopped to join them for coffee.
As the three munched hamburgers and drank milk shakes furnished by Neiding, they told of their excursion, which began in Hamilton on Good Friday.
Amos seemed to be the one who caused all the trouble along the trip because he couldn’t keep his cycle in repair. On Good Friday afternoon, some 30 miles out of Hamilton, the gears broke on his light, English-style Canadian bike.
Amos, however, managed to capitalize on the incident in much the same way as he did Wednesday. In the former case he was picked up by an employee of TV Station CHCH, Hamilton, who got him an unclaimed bike from the Hamilton Police Department.
Station CHCH and Radio Station CKOC, Hamilton, sandwiched the story of the boys’ tour into its Good Friday broadcasts.
After that it was steady cycling. The first two days, Watson reported, they bucked 25-mile-an-hour head winds which slowed them down. By the time they reached Vermilion they had covered 375 miles. They have 290 to go if navigator Vanderlugt’s calculations are correct.
When bedtime comes they show a “leave it up to us – we’ll handle it” attitude. The first night they slept in a barn with 32 cattle; second night, they got separated, two slept in a bed in Blenheim, Ont., and Amos slept in the back room of a hotel. The third night they wound up in the lobby of the YMCA in Detroit after several police calls arranged for them. The fourth night they slept in a barn with one cow in Flat Rock, Mich. Tuesday night they slept in a hayloft between Toledo and Bono.
“There is much more to see when you reach the American side,” said Vanderlugt. “It is more heavily populated and the Americans, on the whole, are very nice people and extremely friendly.”
They left Vermilion at 7 a.m. today, stopped for a brief tour of the Ford Motor Division’s new Lorain Assembly Plant, where they were shown the assembly line and were photographed for the company’s magazine. They headed east on their bikes at 8:30 a.m.
The three, all members of Hamilton High School track and field team, say that the trip “is a ball.” They hope to visit an American High School before they cross the Peace Bridge at Buffalo.
If traveling broadens one, it also reminds him of home. In addition to learning something of America and is people, its geography and industry, they’ve found there’s nothing like “home cooking.”
Nevertheless, they are already planning a similar trip around Lake Ontario.
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A lot has changed since the young cyclists visited our area sixty years ago.
It’s a different world now. Although the basic goodness of people never changes, it's a much less innocent time. It’s hard to say whether such a journey would even be feasible today.
And there are other things that have changed. Thanks to the pandemic, the border with Canada has been closed for more than a year. The Lorain Journal is now the Morning Journal; the Ford Plant that they toured is long closed; the restaurant building in Vermilion that was the Lake Erie Drive-In is now the home of Jim’s Pizza Box.
But happily, some things don’t change.
What do I mean? Well, I caught up with one of the Canadian cyclists last week. (Not with my car, of course; online!) And as you’ll find out in tomorrow’s post, he’s still making the newspapers – sixty years later!
Dear Mr. Brady,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a young and somewhat fearless/ stupid lad of 19, I decided on a whim to bicycle 🚲 80 miles from Lorain to my former residence, Bucyrus, for its renowned Bratwurst Festival. Although the route was flat as Ohio gets, the August day was hot, hot, HOT.
By the time I reached town some 12 hours later, I could barely pedal my 10-speed Schwinn and I was covered in self-made salt dust. All I could think about was taking a swim in the local park pool. Alas, by the time I got to the pool house, it was closed for the day. So I checked into a hotel on the town square, showered, and went to bed with dreams of bratwurst dancing in my head.
The next day my parents drove down and gave me a ride back to Lorain, my home town.
It was an adventure I have never forgotten. Or repeated.