Day 73 Perrysburg to Oberlin, Ohio

Oh how nice it is to ride 4 riders strong with a SAG wagon driven by cheerful Dennis and bell ringing Sean.

It was a busy day with lots of miles. The day started early for Sean as he had a 6 am live interview with NBC in Toledo. This meant catching a lift at 5 am from the hotel. Despite the early morning,he rocked! I think Sean is an early morning person.

Sean had a 2nd interview  at 7:45 at the hotel with all of us in the background getting ready to roll. This on top of an interview with ABC on Monday that aired on their 'good news' section at 5:50 pm. It's great to be given this coverage and recognition. Thank you Steve Coyle for arranging this. Steve is a stroke survivor and very active in getting the F.A.S.T. message out to the public. He calls his stroke, "My 'STROKE' of Luck". Steve, you are a real superstar!

Sean and Steve in lobby on Monday

Are ride started with NBC filming our exit and the van guiding us to our route. Traffic was light, roads were good but the wind was kicking up. 

We eventually landed on  a bike trail called the the North Coast Inland trail which took us on a protected bike path that ran a South-East diagonal across the country side. 

Nice bike trail: North Coast Inland Trail

This bike path apparently caused some frustration for Dennis and co-pilot/navigator Sean as they attempted to keep track of us while driving on highways that ran either East-West or North South. 

The going was slow due to big head wind,   multiple stop signs along the route, and a train....The train came upon us from behind and at first I liked it. It provided a welcome nostalgic feel to our riding. Plus it helped block the cross wind. But the train was long and as we rode along it we noticed it was slowing. Finally it stopped with it's middle firmly blocking our cross road. 

 We are blocked by train: What do we do..?

:  I estimated it ran at least 2 1/2 miles in either direction so we were pretty stuck. 

After a 20 minute wait we decided to ride back the way we came to go around the backside of the train. But as we did that the train started moving again, this time, backwards  

We stopped and reflected. 

The train did the same. Well  it stopped. Not sure it reflected. 

I felt like we were in a rock scissors, paper game.  Unbelievable. 

The train finally started up again, this time moving forward. We rode back to our original point and finally were able to cross the tracks and make our way towards lunch.

It was Subway's once again. I like it. 

The rest of the team is already tired of it. Funny.

Sean greets us for lunch ringing cowbells!

 Diana  laughs explaining the train delay

Post lunch we were back on the trails and this time facing  dirt and gravel. Rick, "The Wall"  did his best to protect Andrea, "The Kite", from the wind. Kudos to Andrea for putting up the good fight.

Andrea, like a kite in the wind

The wall: 6'3" Rick, 

on a beautiful 1992 custom bike

With time running short and wanting tomorrow to be a good day, Diana and Andrea packed up their bikes with about 20 miles to go, and Rick and I slugged it out.

On one of Rick's pulls we both hit some deep ruts in the dirt trail and my water bottle cage cracked sending my water bottle flying.  No problem, had I noticed this event.  But I didn't.

It was 3 miles later after battling strong headwinds that I reached for my bottle and came up empty. 

Do we go back? My first bottle was almost empty so if we didn't go back, we'd need to find somewhere to refill. And would it be right to litter such a beautiful trail with half a bottle cage and a water bottle? We decided we wouldn't be litter-bugs so we turned back and enjoyed a 3 mile tail wind back to the place of impact. 

Needless to say, we then faced a repeat of a 3 mile slugfest with the wind. 

We arrived a bit late but in good spirits and with all our parts and pieces. 95 miles today. 

Oberlin is a beautiful town and we enjoyed a nice walk downtown where we all enjoyed a good dinner. As a college town it has many eateries and business seemed to be doing well. 

They even have a bike shop with a Schwinn String Ray in the window. Brought back memories of my first bike!

Tomorrow is a relatively easy day, 64 miles to Ravenna, but the winds are going to be a factor once again...I tried to find a lunch option that spared the team of another Subway sandwich, but my first choice "The Grille" doesn't open until 3pm. Dennis is going to try and improvise. We shall see. My bet is it will be Subway once again. :-)