Treasures Of The County July 2007

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Sunday July 29th, 2007 ...

Eighty five degrees and sunny - another beautiful summer day in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Also known simply as "The County".

I set out by myself just before noon with the intention of retracing the route for the Lauren Gillie ride. On the first leg I found myself reflecting on the poem written by our new resident word smith Wayne Harvey in Lauren's honour. Even though it was sunny and warm that first part of the ride was sombre to say the least.

When I got to highway 49 I realized I hadn't had much to eat and took the Bay Bridge over to the Mohawk Indian Reserve on the main land to grab a burger and fries.

As I headed south back into the county I decided to go straight through Picton before heading east on highway 33 towards the Glenora ferry. Before the ferry I cut off on county road 7 and headed up to lake on the mountain before continuing east towards Cressy. Once I got there I stopped at the old United church and paid my respects to my grand parents who are buried there. It was a good day to ride alone.

As county road 7 turned into county road 8 and looped me back around towards the south it dawned on me that I hadn't been down to Long Point yet this year. Once again I was glad to be by myself because most people don't want to ride the gravel road down to the light house at the end of the point. That road is one of those stretches that you keep thinking to yourself "is this ever going to end?". It's definitely a long haul to the far south east corner of the island. On a clear day - like it was this time - you can see past Main Duck Island all the way to the edge of the horizon where Galloo Island is on the U.S. side of the border. You can barely see it in the pictures I took today.

I headed back out the same way I came in and just before the Black River cheese factory I turned west towards Milford. This would prove to be the highlight of my day. As I slowly went through the small village I caught an Army bike out of the corner of my eye. I did a quick u-turn and asked the gentleman out front if I could take a couple of pictures. Little did I know that I would spend the next hour learning about the history of this bike from two fine county boys - Errol Weaver and his son Sean.

The bike was restored by Errol and Sean at their shop called Bench Mark Works. It was a 1943 BMW R75 that served in the Germany Army in both the African theater and in Italy.

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Errol informed me that BMW had produced 18,000 of these bikes between 1941 and 1944. They had a 45.45 CI (745 CC) engine that produced 26 horsepower. Rommel deployed the R75 as a front line attack vehicle in Africa, so the bikes were equipped with a relatively heavy machine gun mounted on the front of the side care. Towards the end of WWII many German bikes were abandoned due to the scarcity of fuel supplies.

I copied the following section out of a book on the R75 that Errol had at the shop:

"Sidecar machine for military purposes on and off road. New OHV engine, off road transmission and reverse gear sidecar wheel drive with limited slip differential, bolted tubular frame and oil pressure brake at the rear."

The drive train to the sidecar is definitely something I have never seen before. Errol estimated that there are only half a dozen of these bikes restored in North America and this particular one had an interesting history. After is was seized by the Americans in Italy it somehow found it's way to Hollywood and was one of the regular bikes used in the TV series "The Rat Patrol". One of the stars of that show was a young Eric Braeden aka Victor Newman from the young and the restless. Errol joked that perhaps Victor was a Nazi. The bike is now valued at approximately $30,000 USD.

My family has been on this island for over three centuries and it still amazes me how every ride exposes more "treasures of the county". I would like to thank both Errol and Sean for taking time out of their day to talk about a very interesting piece of WWII history with me. They are a pair of fine gentleman and very enthusiastic about what they do. It's good to meet people like them.

You can view still pictures of this ride here.

You can view a slide show of this ride here.

SM

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Slide show added thanks to ellymay.

SM

[Mominatrix]

That Ellymay sure does some cool stuff doesn't she!!!! Thanks Ellymay. Great article Chris. I never did get to ride the Ferry. I think I should put that on my todo list.

[Fubar]

Great little story!!

[RegStonge]

Good one, that most had been a nice ride, and seeing this bike most had been a good surprise too...

Good for you SM, we all need days like that...
Reg

[RamMedic]

Freaking awesome dude!!! Nice job on the slide show ellymay!!!!

[Kate]

Always nice to read of your rides Thanks Ellymay