After having reached Avon after much excitement and adrenaline, we have managed to make it to our first rest stop. I have family here in Cleveland, so we decided to spend a couple days here in an effort to recuperate before setting out again. While here we visited my grandma and showed her some of the pictures from the trip so far.
I had expected to be able to post some pictures while at my cousin's place, however a nameless Skirt recently spilled beer on his laptop, so no USB ports.
Time for a quick re-cap.
Since you last heard from us, we've managed 3 flat tires, countless rolling and not so rolling hills, ridden down our first 6% grade, had Mike sleep past 7:30am (I know right?!), met numerous other riders (two of whom were riding the same route we are, but the other direction), ridden through a rain storm, and hidden scared in a BP while a lightning storm blew over. Exciting huh.
On our crossing back in to the US, I was reminded how wonderful the Patriot Act has been to my feeling of safety with relation to the annoyance it has caused me. Suffice to say: nearly an hour wasted thanks to a US customs official who decided taking his lunch break was much more pressing than getting us through customs. Mind you, he also neglected to mention to any other official that we had been waiting for said hour. Frustrations abound..
My friends Kirsten and Liz met us for lunch in Buffalo and were kind enough to bring me a few things I had forgotten to bring due to a hasty exit from home. My wool hat, some razors, and a few extra Hefty bags are now safely in my position. Thank you so much.
On the mention of thanks. We'd like to thank Jason over at the Pittsford Eastern Mountain Sports store for spending nearly three hours with Fatman and me in an effort to prepare us for our solo bike ride. The amount of mechanical knowledge imparted to us during that time most assuredly put my mind at ease with regards to our ability to stay riding in the middle of nowhere. Without this we would have been stuck thrice over so far. Thanks a heap Jason, we greatly appreciate your help and are sure to use the afore-mentioned knowledge many more times over the next three thousand+ miles.
Afer passing through Lackawanna, we encountered our first real set of successive hill climbs. Nothing all too long, but in quick succession and in ever-increasing grades. By the end of the day we were definitely feeling wiped. We had been told a couple times earlier on the trip that days 3-4 would most likely be the most difficult days of our entire trip, and so far this seemed to be the case. Until day 5..
Day 5 in my opinion was by far and away the worst day. Due to some poor technique in my left leg pedal stroke, my left knee started to hurt pretty bad, so I spent the whole day in my lowest three gears. The whole day proved to be a chore due to constant >15 knot headwind. What a day to nurse a knee. We decided that in contrast to the previous days where we tried to average ~12 mph we would instead ride longer at a slower pace closer to 8 mph.
We stopped for lunch and ordered some food, only to see a fish-fry being brought out to the table next to us. Who knew we'd made it to Friday? Certainly not us. You better believe we switched our orders right quick. Later that day we rode by a house with two dogs in the yard. I was behind
Fatman by nearly 300 yards trying to make up time in a high gear. As I was passing the yard I noticed the
pitbull that was running towards me, barking up a storm, wasn't tied up. He was practically on me before I got the bike moving. Let me tell you, my heart started racing and my cadence nearly doubled in a short order.. Snapping jaws are a wonderful speed boost.
That night we camped at a
KOA with a pool. The exact opposite of a
hot tub, never-the-less, we enjoyed the cool temperature's affect on our severely taxed muscles.
On Day 6 we reached our first ever 6% grade.
Fatman thinks we may have hit one earlier, but I didn't see a sign, so I won't call it true. Thankfully, the sign
was in our direction, so we got to ride down it instead of up it. On the other side though, we did have our longest, most intense, soul-crushing hill yet. Before we started the downhill leading up to it, we saw a little kid ride down it on a single-speed. Needless to say, there was no way I was going to walk up the other side if he wasn't (he did walk, and I am proud to say we schooled him on the ride up, /flex).
A few miles down the rode we reached our destination for the night: Pine Lanes. This wonderful mobile-home park only cost us 5$ to stay the night and was bigger than some of the towns we've ridden through. The owners give cyclists a deal because they "admire the lifestyle." Can't say I can complain, though the showers were interesting to deal with. The only way to regulate the temperature from scalding to just shy of boiling was to blast hot water from the three sinks. Ingenuity at its finest. The next morning when Mike stumbled over to my tent, he informed me that he had only just woken up, at 6am! For some reason it seemed there was an implication that I should be happy I wasn't roused out of slumber earlier. Zounds.
Day 7 we planned on heading to Perry, approximately 53 miles down the road. With a mind for our next day of riding through Cleveland, we considered adding 7 miles to our ride in order to reach
Painesville. An agreement was made that if we in fact did chose to add the mileage, we would stay at a hotel and get a pitcher of beer to celebrate a
successful first week of riding.
Around noon we stopped at the Crow's Next in
Ashtabula for some lunch and to wait out the sweltering heat. We ended up staying nearly three hours. As we were sitting, we noticed a car drive up with a Sun recumbent bike on the back! The same company of bike that Mike is riding. There was no way we could let this opportunity pass us by. Dave gave us a wonderful explanation of how to get around a broken bridge in downtown
Ashtabula. Thanks Dave, we made it through town no problem, even with a wrong turn.
Later in the day found us on the way through Geneva-on-the-Lake. Recently on a climbing trip to Alabama we found ourselves experiencing "vortexes" of oddity. Namely things that were so outside our realm of experience that it seemed we were riding through the Twilight Zone. This place definitely took the cake. Biker Heaven on Lake Erie. In the short ride through town we saw more bikers than I'm sure I've ever seen at once.
After going off-route (my fault) and making it to North Perry, we decided we would in fact try to make it to
Painesville. A cop
stopped near us and gave us a precise distance estimate to the inn we were heading for. As we started out, we noticed a storm heading toward us and the wind started to pick up. We pulled over to put lights on the back of our bikes for visibility and headed out again. Not 100 ft down the road, the temperature dropped and rain started coming down sideways. After a hard ride through rain-turned-bullets, we covered the last 3 miles in about 2.5 minutes, we turned in to the Villa Rosa inn. Only after we had stopped did
Fatman inform me that he had been yelling at me the whole ride in: "Get out of the
way!!! Ride faster!"
We planned to head down the road to a sports bar to get a big dinner and pitcher of beer, but
decided to wait for Billy, the
innkeep, to get off work and give us a ride. When we got there, it turned out they had stopped serving food, so we downed our pitcher and headed back to the room for a much needed dinner. We decided to dump everything we had in the pot and proceeded to make the most appetizing dinner we've had to date on this trip. 1 can tomato soup, 1 pack Top
Ramen chicken, 1 pack Top
Ramen beef, 2 packets chunk light tuna = Yummy-town central.
We woke up the next morning around 7:30, ready to head in to Cleveland and past to Avon, where my cousin Josh lives. After taking slightly longer get out of the room than expected,
Fatman realized that he forgot to pack his bungees in his utility belt and couldn't find them. 15 minutes gone. Once found, I proceeded to sheer a valve off one of my tires, which then needed replacing. There went 45 minutes. Finally we left the inn at 10:30, nearly an hour and a half later than planned. In the first half-mile of our ride we managed to hit every red light we could. Finally we made it in to
Painesville and had to cross the bumpiest bridge on the planet, where I lost a water bottle that was promptly flattened by an overly zealous motorist. Talk about a morning to remember. Spirits high and ready to ride.. we continued on our way in to the city.
We stopped for lunch at a McDonald's in East Lake and ordered two double Big Mac value meals. As we were eating, two guys on loaded bikes road up: Stephen and Spencer. When they came in we got to talking and found out they're riding the same route we are, but the other way. They mentioned they'd done 80 miles the day before; what a difference a tail-wind makes. Stephen is planning on heading all the way out to Maine, Spencer is planning on taking a train back to Fort Wayne once they hit Niagara Falls.
On the other side of Cleveland we ran in to a lightning storm and after getting mostly soaked, waited out the cell in a
BP. As we were heading out to make the last 15 miles to my cousin's, a guy drove up and told us about another cell twice the size coming in within the next two hours. After getting our rain gear on, we hopped on our bikes and decided to blitz the last leg to try and beat out the storm. I can't tell you how exciting it was to race a lightning storm. Easily more exhilarating than the last three years at school. We made it in to Josh's a good half-hour before the storm hit. Score.
The next couple days have been easy, relaxing, days in Avon. We got some errands done, replaced some bike gear, bought some groceries, and picked up a pair of books for early nights.
Thanks for tuning in,
Beardo out.
