Shakedown Ride - Cincinnasty to the Mistake on the Lake - CycleBlaze

July 28, 2020

Shakedown Ride

I’ve used the Arkel rack and bag on the single speed before, but I thought it would be prudent to do a ride with everything I’ll be carrying on the trip, just to be sure.

I rode one of my usual routes (50 miles), and everything worked fine, although the ride did reveal that my chain is in dire need of lubing.

I’ll do that tomorrow.

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Memorial to a man who was killed by a train while walking on the adjacent railroad tracks on Labor Day, 2019. This seems to happen surprisingly often - why do people walk on railroad tracks? And why don't they hear the train coming? I've never understood this.
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Mike AylingHe wanted to self terminate. Very common here in Oz to the extent that the media usually reports of "an incident" causing train delays.

He was listening to loud music through headphones and did not hear the train
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3 years ago
John PescatoreTo Mike AylingI had a close call as a kid, when a friend of mine and I were playing on elevated rail tracks and almost got caught on a bridge when a train came speeding by. Trains can be surprisingly quiet (unless the engineer is blowing the horn) and move amazingly fast.

I do a lot of hiking, rarely on the tracks, but often near them. Not unusual to think "what is that noise?" and then seconds later a high speed train comes flying by. Throw in reduced hearing in older people and there you go.

Around here it is more often people misjudging train speed and trying to run across the tracks ahead of the train.
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3 years ago
I'm fascinated by these unofficial roadside memorials. I try to stop and look at most of the ones I see while touring. This one is about ten miles from my home, and has gradually become more elaborate since the man died last year.
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Robards gets its nickname from the book "Stories of a Sanctified Town" by nineteenth century author Lucy Furman, who based the location and characters on the town. There's not much left in Robards these days. There's also some local confusion over whether it's pronounced ROE-bards or RAW-birds. I've been corrected when I've used either pronunciation.
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