After miles of corn in Illinois and Indiana, I was excited to note on my cue sheet that we were crossing into Ohio on Day 37. I should have saved the energy because Ohio-at least the first part was basically identical to the previous two states. And when I say “basically identical” I mean that if someone had picked me up and spun me around then told me to keep biking I wouldn’t have known which direction I was going.We couldn’t even tell that we had crossed into a new state except for the fact that the support staff had marked the state line with sidewalk chalk.
Kendalville, IN to Napoleon, OH 70 miles. This was an extremely pleasant and easy ride. The road surfaces improved (at least in some places) and it was still flat, so when we caught a good wind we breezed through the day.
Napoleon, OH to Sandusky, OH 92 miles-Another great day in Ohio. It was a $12 night so a couple of us rode our bikes 3 miles to the Chili’s and were treated to Margaritas by Doug. We then road the 3 miles back in record time.
Sandusky, OH to Burton, OH 101 miles. This ride can be summed up in one word “detours”. I started off the morning a little slow and about 5 miles down the road began contemplating when it would be to early to stop for second breakfast. I made it all the way to mile 27 where Rachel and I stopped at Pete’s Restaurant in a small town. We were greeted with the normal questions by the hostess, but apparently a few other people in the diner overheard our responses because before we knew it we were being peppered by questions from all corners. Literally everyone stopped eating and started asking us about the trip. It was fun to have their attention and even more fun to hear them discuss us when they turned back to each other and thought we couldn’t hear them. Big surprise folks, sound can travel across a small room when you’re shouting at each other. It was a delicious breakfast and I felt energized and back to normal afterwards. On this high note, we remounted our fearless steeds and began heading towards Burton once again. Unfortunately, the main bridge we were using to cross the river was under construction, so we were forced to detour down the river and back up the other side after we crossed. Only mildly irritated, I continued pedaling as we entered the suburbs of Cleveland. Traffic was heavy and fast so the miles flew by as I concentrated on not getting killed. After we made it through Cleveland around mile 70 we discovered that another bridge was closed so we detoured around that, got back on track and had gone barely 3 miles when we were stopped by a police officer who informed us that a tree had fallen into some power lines on the road up ahead and that we would need to detour past it. He told us, “Don’t worry,its only a couple of extra miles.” I was thinking “don’t worry, this will only hurt for a minute” as I contemplated what damage would occur if I rammed into him with my bicycle. Before I could really get upset however, we stopped at a gas station where we talked for a long while with a man who was a cyclist himself. He bought us a liter each of Powerade which I promptly chugged on the spot. I hadn’t known I was dehydrated but seeing as my stomach didn’t explode and I immediately felt much better: I’m going to guess that I was. After getting back on track once more we were greeted by some very very steep hills. I was on a sugar rush from the Powerade so I made it to Burton in record time and was closely following my cue sheet until I bumped into two other Big Riders. They stopped me and told me that I was going the wrong way and that a local woman had pointed them down the huge hill right in front of us. Being a complete nincompoop I abandoned the directions and followed them down the hill. It was a three mile hill and, go figure, the local woman was wrong. Luckily we ran into another guy who showed us a short cut to the fairgrounds we were staying in and I only had to climb half of the way back up. I arrived at the fairgrounds from the back entrance and marked off another day on the Big Ride.
