So here I am in Bowling Green, OH. Since I was in charge of writing the journal today I'll just post the exact same thing that will be posted on the B&B site since I need to do some bike work tonight (spokes keep loosening on people's bikes and I don't know why, I think it's due to overall spoke tension, or lack thereof, but I'm going to try a few things)
Here we go:
So today was long. Our longest in fact. A grand total of 96 miles (and I didn't ride those extra 4 miles to get a century). At the ungodly hour of 6 am we met at the church in Avon Lake, left the warmth of our host families' beds, ate a huge breakfast and loaded up the trailer. The only problem here was that the folks at Avon Lake gave us so much food we weren't sure if it would all fit in the trailer. Normally we play bag tetris with our duffel bags and just shove the rest of the food into the empty spaces. This time was different though, we needed to not only play duffel bag tetris but also food tetris. Our trailer was packed completely full - an impressive feat.
We started the day approximately fifteen minutes after a large rain storm passed overhead so the only thing we had to deal with was wet roads - not too bad. After taking a group photo in front of the "Welcome Bike and Build" sign at the church, we took off. Our 95 mile day was to have two lunch stops! So I was looking forward to a well fed trip. The first 40 miles were not that eventful for me and my huge paceline of Pen, Chris, Isaiah, Kathy, and Ian, and a few others that came and went. We arrived at the lunch stop after passing by Cedar Point Coaster Point, looking longingly at the numerous roller coasters. I then took off early with Bobby to go the next 35 miles to our next lunch stop.
Bobby and I took turns leading each other in the horrendous headwind. As the first group of riders we had to chalk every corner, but since we were limited in our amount of chalk - our directions were probably lackluster at best. After a bit of confusion in the directions getting into Freemont (I think?), OH, and passing the mansion of President Rutherford B Hayes we started to get confused. Our cue sheet said go 2.2 miles on Route 6 and then turn right onto Country Home Road and go 20 some miles. However we never saw said road, but we did see signs on Route 6 for Bowling Green so we just went on Route 6. Let me tell you, Route 6 was one of the worst roads we've been on. There was a pothole, roadkill ridden shoulder, which was barely wide enough to keep us out of danger. Several times we were inches from passing semis speeding along with seemingly little concern for our well being - a scary thought indeed. We plodded our way to Helena, OH at 75 miles, still no sign of our van and second lunch stop. After calling the van several times I get a hold of Dan who sounds like he said "I got stopped and am at mile 62". So thinking the van got a ticket we continued on surviving on bananas, energy bars, and the thoughts of an air conditioned church. For the record it turns out the van got "stuck" not "stopped" in the muddy shoulder and had to get towed out.
As we approached Bowling Green, Bobby's tire was getting flatter. A hold over from a flat earlier in the day, I found a slash in his tire that I assumed caused a small puncture. We pumped up the tire in hopes it would hold for the next 15 miles to Bowling Green. We got about 6 more miles and it started deflating. So quickly (since we wanted to get to the church) we put a new tube in and put a dollar bill at the slash site to keep the tube from coming out of the tire and getting a puncture again. The dollar bill, unlike most paper, doesn't disintegrate when wet. We finally found the mysterious Country Home Road and then at 3:30 found the waiting cool church with iced drinks and snacks. After showers at Bowling Green State University, we had a wonderful pasta dinner and had a great presentation and chat with some congregation members.
While it was a long day, everyone but us had two lunches and arrived before 6 pm, a long day for all. All of us seem quite tired since it was our longest day and are looking for a good nights rest.
A bit about me now that I'm done blathering. I am Anson Moxness. I am originally from Anchorage, Alaska and just finished my freshmen year at Dartmouth College, where I plan to be an Engineering major.
As with my blog entries I'll end with a quote, undoubtedly about cycling:
It never gets easier, you just go faster
-- Greg LeMond
About Me
- Anson
- I am a born and bred Alaskan who just graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. I am spending three months working with the World Wildlife Fund in Nepal to bring gasification stoves and alternative energy projects to rural areas of Nepal. Among other things, I am an avid backcountry skier, part-time adventure racer, and a budding photographer. I have biked across the North American continent, fallen 13,000 feet out of an airplane, ski raced till by body gave out, tried new things whenever I could.
2 comments:
"Several times we were inches from passing semis speeding along with seemingly little concern for our well being - a scary thought indeed."
I am not sure why you finding yourself on heavily used roads when it would seem you have many other choices. Commerical drivers are just annoyed when they see bikers. I wouldn't expect them to slow down, much less stop if anything happened.
Often times there aren't many choices that aren't much too long. It would be nice for commercial drivers to move over a bit when there is no oncoming traffic (most of the time they do, but we get buzzed a lot). Cyclists do have a legal right to the road, so even though they are annoyed they should be respectful of the laws and I sure hope they would stop if they hit one of us.
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