IGotABike

Our last day on the trail was pretty eventful. We had to keep a schedule to be able to catch the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train so we wouldn’t have to stay in Akron overnight. We were ready to go home.

Here’s a canal boat in Canal Fulton. Is this the start of the Gratuitous Canal Boat of the Day?

Here’s a section of the new floating trail through Akron. This floating bridge is between 3/8 and 1/2 mile long!

Some more of the new trail through Akron.

We made the train at Akron Northside station by the skin of our teeth! We weren’t on board two minutes before the train started rolling. Carolyn was quite pleased!

And, incredibly, they were having a micro-brew happy hour, two for $5!

Here’s how they hang the bikes in an old baggage car

Our bikes, however, we’re a bit too heavy to hang!

Tickets for the train are normally $15. For cyclists, it’s only $2!

And the train crew is so courteous and professional!

When we got home, our good friend Nancy was there to meet us… With a bucket of chicken! We ate it all except for one tiny leg

Riggity jig!

Veronica, Carolyn and Guy

758 miles total.

Another tough hot day with lots of hills on Amish backroads. It was grueling, but we took our time and had our first real tail wind on the whole trip. Im starting to get sad, it’s almost over. Theres a good chance we could be home by this time tomorrow.
I have lots of pictures to post as today was a very eventful day. We spent a lot of time with the Amish and I took a TON of pictures.

I think the hub on my front wheel is going. It’s making squeaking noises.

Here’s a quick pic from this morning.

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, we went to the Mt. Vernon Post Office and mail home a ton of stuff that we didn’t need anymore.
OK. It actually added up to 15 pounds!
Turns out the mailman at the P.O. Grew up in our neighborhood, in the Halloran Park area!
The world just got a little smaller…

Made it to Millersburg! The ride was worse in our minds than in reality. It was still really tough, though. We stopped as much as we could and ate at every opportunity. And plenty of ice cream. I must have eaten six times today, had at least one ice cream cone and two milkshakes!
We’ve eaten our fair hare of cheeseburgers too! This was a small ice cream and burger shack, The Killbuck Sweet Shop and Diner at the end of the Holmes County Trail in Killbuck.

Riding the road on SR62 was tough because of the hills and the heat. And it got a tad scary when the semis would pass you at 60mph. It really moves the bike around a lot! I wanted to make a movie of it, but I decided that riding one-handed while doing 30mph and getting passed by a semi doing 60 was a bit risky. Maybe If I could mount the camera to my handlebars…

Anyway, we’re here. I’m gonna take a shower and try to post some pictures later. We want to check out the pool while it’s still open. It’s a salt water pool! Comfort Inn, Millersburg.

42 miles on the day, 675 total so far…

RT62 below

One of the other scary things about this hi way are the ruts from the Amish buggy wheels. They are about an inch deep and just about as wide as our bike.

Today looks like its gonna be a tough day. We have to get to Millersburg and that will involve a lot of road priding on SR62 and a few stretches of some grievous trail. We got some good rest, so we should be up for it. Hopefully it won’t get hot.
We are also going to mail some gear home this morning to lighten our loads.

Hahahahaha!
It’s not even 7:30 pm yet and we are in our room in Mt. Vernon and I am already showered!
It’s still daylight!
Today was an easy day, just 40 miles. We needed to catch up on some r&r. We are in the same Comfort Inn that we stayed in on the way down.
Right when we left today, we met a group of cyclists from Cedarville on their way to Cleveland. Among them was Jay and his wife (email us with your name!).

Turns out Jay built that tandem. Take a closer look…

That’s right. That bike is hand built out of WOOD! (walnut, iirc)

The cool part is that he’s selling them! Sojourner Cyclery. Check him out!

Here’s some cool shots from the NEW Heart of Ohio trail!

So….
Jamis came through and Carol got her bike fully styled out by Dave at Baer Wheels. Carol noted that the new rear wheel seemed to add some stiffness to the drive train… Like her pedaling was more efficient. A very good thing to be sure. He also tweaked her brakes, no more hideous squealing that made little children hide behind the skirts of their mothers and grown men visibly quake.
Well, it gave me the shivers!
I also got a new stem for my bike while we were there. A little shorter and a little taller (like I talked about with Phil in Xenia). It’s way better now. I adjusted my saddle the day after I spoke with Phil, and now I think I need to move it a little again.
After we got back on the road, it was our mission to find Carolyn some new cycling shoes. Her Bontragers that she bought just before we left were already wasted and were just two weeks old. We pedaled to the Columbus Trek store where she found another style of Bontragers. Trek superstar Matt spent a long time helping her select the right shoe AND he totally made the situation right with the old shoes.
Look for a shoe review soon from Carol.
Here’s the new ones

After that we had lunch.
We’re still tired. It was a long day yesterday, with a lot of harrowing road riding. Today we are aiming for Danville…