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Day 42
Was that a pothole, or the Grand Canyon?

ROUTE: Wooster OH to Youngstown OH DISTANCE: 91 Miles WINDS: Quartering tailwinds until the end...5-10
WEATHER: Muggy, 85 TERRAIN: Rolling to flat TOTAL CLIMBING: 2800 feet

DAILY DOINGS: Sadly our day started out saying good bye to Herb.  He was in good spirits, but really sad to have to leave the ride.  We'll miss seeing his Vermont jersey cruising along during the day.  His wife drove in to take him home.  He'll heal and be riding again soon, but his shoulder is much too sore right now to support his weight to ride.  God's speed my friend, I'm sure we'll see each other on the road again soon.

I started out in the van this morning with Karen.  I needed to check out the route ahead of the riders since we had so much rain last night.  Just about dinner time the skies opened up and poured inches of rain in just a short time.  The ground is already so saturated from previous rains that I was afraid some of the roads may be underwater in the early part of our ride.  As it turned out, the streams were full to capacity, but none were out of bank so we pushed on undeterred on our route.  Even though we were not affected by the latest bout with the weather, some of the farmers weren't so lucky.  We rode by several fields that were devastated by the heavy rains and wind.  Below left, Kevin is riding by a field of oats that were only about 50% standing.

Today's route is also a bit complicated in the navigation department...lots of turns and a few hills to negotiate plus I suspected a cue near the end of the day was in err.  My plan was to stay in the van with Karen and mark most of the route with directional arrows and then get out at the last SAG and get on my bike ahead of the pack and mark the remainder of the route to the motel.  With that plan, I spent another day sprinting between stops to mark the turns.  I haven't ridden the mileage of the other riders over the last few days, but I've been hammering just about every inch and my legs revolted today.  As I jammed up the first good hill, my legs just said NO.  OK, I sat down and started to spin up the hill to appease the quads.  Bummer, I let Niki, our daughter who's been visiting since Crawfordsville and who is a massage therapist, go home this morning without giving me a massage...My bad!

The first 30 miles of today's ride was out in the beautiful Ohio country side...smooth, quiet roads were the order of the day.  We were greeted again with soggy air, mild temperatures and the obligatory steep hills to start the day.  Some of the ride today was in more urban areas, but the majority was still rural.  And as I said, the terrain wasn't flat either by any stretch of the imagination.  The hills today were short and steep and they were continuous in some areas especially near the middle of the day.  We had it all today...smooth country roads, complicated urban streets, beautiful quiet bike path, but the biggest challenge with today's route was the rough road surface after the first SAG stop.  Ohio has some of the most beautiful countryside, but in contrast, it also has some of the roughest roads...some said "pothole" was the word of the day.  Debbie had so much fun riding the bumpy roads that she threatened to call the county road commissioner and file a complaint about the road surface and Bill stopped to tell a farmer to please pay his county taxes.  It's hard to tell everybody about all the bumps because they seem to be in a different area every year.  Every year they fix one section and another section gets worse.  In many areas, freeze cracks are prevalent from the freeze/thaw of Ohio winters.  One good note though, they fixed one of the worst roads so they are working on making these roads better.  We will be overjoyed when they finally fix the rest of them on our route, but by then the good ones will be bad.  I can't wait to get to New York, they have the best road surfaces in the country...at least where we ride.

Everything went mostly to plan.  I was ahead of the group through the area I felt could be a problem navigating...getting off a nice bike path just outside of our destination.  Just as I got them all back on track, we found a road closed for construction immediately after the bike path.  I rode down to see if it would be a problem to the bikers and found no one working and no problem for our people to get through.  So I rode back to the bike path and arrowed clearly to indicate we could ride through.  Everyone followed the route except George who, when he saw the road closed, he tried to find another way around...did he see the arrows?  At the motel he said he didn't.  That's OK George, it took the rest of the group about 4 weeks before they saw any arrows I put down...you've only been here since Indianapolis.  Keep looking.

Everyone got in by 4:00ish so another successful day on the road.  Since I got in early, I may get the site done before dinner.  I've got about another 15 minutes before I need to do maintenance and another hour before dinner at Cracker Barrel.  Tomorrow we'll get on our bikes again and do another "almost century."  We've almost done 500 miles in the last 5 days counting tomorrow, but we've got another rest day in Erie.  Hey, we're in the east now...only 9 more riding days.  It's coming fast.  Tune in tomorrow and check how we do...I'm betting we can almost coast to Erie.  See you then.

DAILY DISCERNING DIALOGUE:

Our Brits David and Bill can't understand why everyone in Ohio wants to sell their garage on Saturdays between 9:00 and 11:00.  I told them that wasn't anything.  They would really be surprised at how many try to sell their yards.

"Johnny, what are you doing picking up cookies with your dirty gloves on?" asked Barbara at the SAG.
"I cleaned my hands before I put on my gloves."
"Now you know better than that."
"I know," he said holding out his hands.  "Slap them, I've been bad."
"You certainly have."  SLAP!
At the next SAG Johnny asked, "Did you wash your hands after you slapped my hands at the last SAG?"  "I've been worrying about that for the last 35 miles."
"I think I did," she said."
"If you didn't, you should have you know." 
"You're right," she said.  Now slap mine."
SLAP
"Now let's both go wash."

"What's the record of number of wrong turns in a day?"
"Did you count all the ones you made while you were lost?"

"I found some loose screws on that road."
"Those were my fillings."  "Oh, you mean on your bike."

"Last time I saw David, he had fallen into that pothole on Turner Road and I never saw him come out."

 DAILY SHENANIGANS:

Seems Linda needed to use the facilities but was in a pretty populated area so she decided to check out an assisted living facility to see if they'd let her use their bathroom...no problem with them.  She found the bathroom and when she was ready to leave, she tried to open the door to the outside and alarms went off with a vengeance.  Stepping away from the door, the alarms stopped. 
"OK, I've got to get out...let me try again," she thought.  Turning the knob again she set off alarms. 
Soon an employee came to her assistance.  "What's the problem?" he asked. 
"I need to get out of the facility, I'm riding my bike across the nation, and someone will be looking for me soon," she explained. 
"Sure they are...now let's call your nurse and get back to your room," he coaxed. 
Next time I think Linda will use the bushes.

 

Last night Doug couldn't get his key to work.  He tried and tried.  Finally, he called the front desk for help.
"Are you putting it in correctly," the desk clerk asked.
"Lady, in the last 40 days I've stayed in different motels, I think I know how to use a credit card key in a motel door," he thought and was about to say.
"Did you put it in with the picture side down?"
"Oops, never mind."
I thought this was funny, but it got me too.  I stay in motels over 180 nights a year, and I've never seen one that used the blank side up insertion.  You learn something new everyday.
 

DAILY DIGITAL DELIGHTS

You know how every time you do laundry the sock monster keeps one of your favorite socks.  Well, Steve found that sucker and beat him to a pulp and returned the missing sock...now our problem is to find out who's it is...try Clarence.

Good thing we are over 40 days into the ride...now we can make the weight restriction.

Neither rain, cold, snow, or blow...or road closures with heavy machinery can keep Debbie from getting to the motel.

Linda is doing much better keeping the grease off the back of her leg...only a couple small spots today vs the usual completely black calf muscle.  She has 10 more days to get through a ride completely clean.  I'm betting it won't happen.

I'm just a lonely helmet...I've lost my head.

Root canal gone awry.

Tim, Scott, Bob, and Kevin decided to take a shortcut to dinner at Cracker Barrel.  They could see the sign, but there was a jungle between them and their dinner.  Bob, a former Marine, had already started smearing black under his eyes and camouflaging his face until they decided to try a more indirect route...the street.

  

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