MINDEMOYA – The annual Tour de Meldrum Bay continues to bring in new riders every year to add to its growing number of riders.
The 19th annual Tour de Meldrum Bay, which is held to raise funds to present to the Mindemoya Hospital Auxiliary to be used to benefit the hospital, was this past Saturday-Sunday.
“We added a couple of riders the other night, so that we have 28 riders and 36 for dinner Saturday night,” said Dale Scott, who initiated the ride 19 years ago, singularly riding from Mindemoya to Meldrum Bay one day, staying overnight and having dinner at the Meldrum Bay Inn, and then bicycling back to Mindemoya the next day.
“All proceeds raised this year will be going toward the new emergency department expansion at the Mindemoya Hospital,” said Mr. Scott. He explained the Tour raised $8,400 in 2019 and expected about the same to be raised this year.
“Our goal for next year will be to raise $20,000 in commemoration of it being our 20th annual ride,” stated Mr. Scott. He pointed out the event will be advertised, and the riders will be getting new jerseys for the ride in 2020.
“It sounds as if we are going to have perfect weather for the ride this year (he was right),” said Mr. Scott “In 19 years of the tour I can only remember one time when it rained, when we left Mindemoya. That year it was raining at 7 am on the Saturday morning and I thought we might have to cancel the ride. By 8 am the sky had brightened up, and by the time I got to the start location at 8:30 am it was still drizzling. But I said to the riders let’s make a break for it, and by the time we arrived in Spring Bay on the ride the rain had stopped. In 19 years we’ve never had to stop the ride, although there has been a lot of times it was cool and windy.”
“We have six new riders taking part in the tour this year,” said Mr. Scott. Interestingly, Mr. Scott could not ride the entire route this year. He injured his knee recently and told the Recorder, “I’m going to ride a bit this year, my daughter Bethany and I will take turns riding, and driving the back up car.”
Mr. Scott said once again this year the tour ride has received a lot of financial support. “We have many supporters, so many family, friends and businesses that support this ride every year. We are very appreciative of this support.”
