We are safe and sound in Millersburg. It was a twelve hour day in th saddle and sixty miles, half of which were on hilly Amish back roads, the other half trails, every mile into a 15 mph headwind. We are sitting in our chairs in our room and we still feel like we are moving. We have decided that tomorrow will be a Zero Day. They have a salt water pool and hot tub here 🙂
We started the day back tracking the ten miles from our hotel to Canal Fulton to rejoin the trail. That went pretty well. The hills were actually a little fun because we were fresh.
In Canal Fulton, we happened across a canal tour boat being pulled by a team of horses. The boat was filled with grade school kids, so we got to talk to them as we road along side. After that, we were in Massillon pretty quickly.
We stopped at Ernie’s Bike shop to try to drum up some business and I ran into a new reporter for The Independant, a local paper. He interviewed us for a bit and took some photos. He said it will be out on the 24th, if I Remember right.
After that, we hit the Sippo Valley trail. It was hot and as we were crossing a bridge, Carol spied a little swimming hole down below? We took advantage like a couple of country school kids, if you know what I mean 😉
The dip really cooled us off for a bit, but the sky Was threatening, so we pedaled on. Eventually we got to Dalton and ate at the drive in. The sky was really scary by then and we had a 17 mile road route to cover. We were concerned, so we just jumped on our bikes and rode off. After a while the weather moved to the east of us, but we were getting tired. Along some of the back roads, we ran into some Amish and their horses were spooked by us. It was pretty undeserving, especially for the one buggy driver. We were as considerate as could be and found that the horses were ok when we stopped moving and just talked to them.
Finally we arrived at Fredricksburg, after that hilly road route. We stopped at Lem’s Pizza and Ice Cream and had a couple of cones. We were whipped by this point, but we knew we only had 10 or12 more miles to ride on the Holmes County trail. Th Holmes County trail is unique in that you share it with Amish buggies. It’s like an Amish high way. We did some of our best riding of the day on this trail into Millersburg because it was evening and the wind was starting to die down a little. We still had to draft to make it, but we were up over 14 mph consistently. It’s amazing what you can do without wind.
Tomorrow we are staying here to rest, because the next section of trail is also a road route and is very hilly. Plus there is a section along state route 62 that is narrow, two lanes, 55 and used heavily by semis, so that’s a little stressful.
Good night for now. It’s my turn in the shower…!