Feeling Unwanted In Ohio

07/19/09 - Day ten is in the can, as they say. Another productive day, if not one of the most enjoyable. Not that the weather was bad or the company, but I have to say that so far Ohio is getting a barely passing grade as a cycling friendly state. The greater Cleveland area, in particular, has not impressed me at all. Positively. In fact, I was prepared to give it my lowest possible rating of “sucks balls” until they threw in a few miles of bike lanes. The citizens must have been pretty excited about the addition of the bike lanes; it looks like they celebrated by breaking lots of glass all over tbem. Anyway, I’ve decided to give it one more day before I give my final grade, but as of right now, it’s looking like F+. That reminds me, I saw a construction company today called C+B+C+ Construction. Slightly above average, I’d hire them. The people of Ohio, so far, are the least courteous of anywhere on this trip. We had some pretty close calls today and that really hasn’t been happening much at all. Here’s another observation: there is no roadkill in New York. They must pick it all up and give it to Pennsylvania and Ohio for distribution on their roads. Seriously, you never see any dead animals on the road in New York state, but for the last two days you couldn’t swing a dead raccoon around your head without hitting another dead animal. It’s kind of gross.

Today we also had to say goodbye to brother J.D. His route took him south in the town of Ashtabula, while we continued westward. It was great having J.D around the last few days, we had some really interesting conversations. We traded info so that we can stay in touch and wished him well on his great big adventure.

Speaking of Ashtabula, so far that has been the coolest city we’ve visited in Ohio. Unfortunately, it was one of the many cities gutted by the implosion of the US steel industry. Idle power plants and massive freight docks stand as monuments to that unfortunate chapter in our history. We went to a nice little bakery there and had some pretty awful coffee and pretty good pastries. An older gentleman who had lived there his whole life gave us some history on the area. Here’s some trivia about Ashtabula that I bet no one knows (except maybe Nuber): the cheap one piece cranksets that come on cheap kids bikes and Walmart bikes are called Ashtabula cranks. Anyone know why?

We ended up riding about 75 miles today, in nice weather and got to a motel on the outskirts of Cleveland. We had to resort to the motel again because, strangely, there are no campgrounds in the metropolitan Cleveland area. I’m actually really starting to prefer sleeping outdoors. I’ve been sleeping so soundly and comfortably that I didn’t want to get a room tonight, but short of knocking on doors and asking to camp in back yards, there was no choice. We almost got lucky, stopping at the fire station to ask directions to a motel. The fireman there said that his old fire chief would have let us stay at the firehouse, but the new guy wasn’t that cool. Oh well. He also said that he and his wife had driven to Frankenmuth MI yesterday to eat at Zhenders and shop at Bronners. Mind boggling, and absolutely meaningless unless you live in Michigan, but here’s the kicker: It took them five hours to drive there and it will probably take us six days to ride there. Kind of demoralizing.

Before we lost J.D. this morning we were riding through a nice residential area and Marc spotted a yard that was decorated with probably 30 pink flamingos. We stopped and got some photos of me sitting amongst the colorful birds to send to Ben. He loves those birds. That’s about it, I think. We are staying in the J and L motel in Wickliffe Ohio. It’s slightly nicer than the place we stayed the other night, but best of all we both have our own beds and it’s not massively humid in here because there aren’t three wet cyclists and their bikes and their wet gear drying out. We did a quick bit of sink laundry and now we can watch some TV and walk up the street and get some dinner. And read. Marc finished his book a few days ago and we have been unable to find a place to trade it for another so last night I tore off the first 80 or so pages of my Junot Diaz novel and gave it to him. Now we are really shaving grams, sharing one book for the two of us.