July 30, 2016
Day 60 Upper Arlington to Waynesville
Today was full of bike touring adventures. We left Geoff and Marty's house after a brief morning rain. As has been the case all summer, putting the rain covers over our panniers prevented any more rain. We headed out of Columbus to get to the first of the four trails on Ohio to Erie trail network that we would ride today. After an easy route to the southwest side of the city, we got on the Camp Chase Trail, which connected to the Roberts Pass Trail and took us the town of London.
We've been hearing what a great town for cyclists London is and we were looking forward to seeing it. As we were riding into downtown, we had a sudden blowout of our rear tire. So our experience of London was that it has nice, wide, clean, safe sidewalks for tire changing. We really were fortunate that it happened in a place where it was safe and easy for Kerry to put on new tires. We were carrying two new tires and he decided just to replace them both. With help from Team A, he got it all done in less than 20 minutes. There was even a Mc Donald's less than a block away, so we could wash up and enjoy a Diet Coke before we got back on the trail.
At London, we picked up the Prairie Grass Trail. Jut outside of town, we saw some volunteers building some raised pads for camping. We stopped and had a nice conversation with them about trails and volunteers. They seem to have the benefit of lots of volunteers, which helps make s great trail for locals and cycle tourists.
Earlier in the week, we heard from a guy who volunteers on the trail as a "Trail Sentinel" who wanted to meet us and ride together for a while today. We arranged to meet him at Cedarville. As we approached that town, up rode Gary, as well as his fellow trail sentinels Steve and Ted. We all rode into Cedarville and stopped for lunch.
They were all friendly, interesting guys and we enjoyed talking with them. The trail sentinel program sounds great, as they ride along the trail to provide assistance to cyclists.
They assisted Team A by directing them to a local bike who had parts they needed, then riding along with us all to the shop. The needed repairs were quickly underway. We issued sincere invitations to Steve and Gary to visit us in Florida before they left. We hope we will see them again. (Note to Ted: The invitation is extended to you as well, of course)
It was only another 15 miles to tonight's destination and we arrived just before 6PM after a long, full and very enjoyable day.
Today's ride: 79 miles (127 km)
Total: 2,856 miles (4,596 km)
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