Chicago to NYC – Day Six

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Start: Richmond, Indiana
End: Xenia, Ohio
Mileage today/cumulative: 59 / 353
Elevation Ascended: 925′
Weather: Sunny, 72° at start; Sunny, 90º at finish; Winds: mostly behind us!
Flat tires (entire group) day/cumulative: 0 / 1

We’ve made it to Ohio! This is another new cycling state for Team Pea and the route today was a nice introduction to the Buckeye State. A gentle tailwind made it even sweeter.

Bev’s day started with a two-fer. Just as we were getting ready to roll out, a couple appeared with their two dogs, giving Bev a two-for-one shot at her “stop and pet the dogs” goal. This required me to step up my game and visit a brew pub for lunch AND a brewery post-ride. We’re all about achieving goals.

Much of the day’s ride was on bike paths and rails-to-trails. I should mention that the rails-to-trails we’ve ridden to date have all been paved with asphalt. Later in the trip we’ll encounter some trails with crushed stone and gravel. An early highlight was riding through our first covered bridge. The 100-foot long Geeting Bridge was built in 1894 and spans the tiny Price Creek near Lewisberg, Ohio. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was named for Dave Geeting, who owned land to the south and west of the bridge, and was the first to drive across it.

We also spent a good chunk of the day riding on the Midwest section of US Bike Route 50, a west-east bicycle route. As of today, USBR 50 consists of three sections: a western section from just east of South Lake Tahoe, California, to Border, Utah; a Midwestern section from just outside Terre Haute, Indiana, to Steubenville, Ohio; and an eastern section from Colliers, West Virginia, to Washington, D.C. The route is ultimately planned to span the country, from near San Francisco to Washington, D.C.

With about 17 miles left for the day, we stopped for lunch at a brew pub in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Dayton has seen better days but they’re working on making the downtown area a little more bike friendly. The Riverscape MetroPark along the Great Miami River is also very nice, with a bike path that follows the waterfront. They call this area Dayton’s Front Porch and to make that point, have installed large swings along the riverfront, where we saw people enjoying a hot day in the shade. The river is used for kayaking in the summer and ice-skating in the winter.

I should mention something about the weather. It has been ridiculously hot. The portions of Indiana and Ohio that we’ve been through have not had rain in weeks and water levels are very low. Temperatures this week have been 30 degrees above normal and and even the locals have expressed alarm about it. As we were eating breakfast a couple of days ago, the local Indiana news channel was conducting an online survey asking viewers “is it too hot to go outside today?” (the overwhelming viewer response was YES).  We laughed at those newscasters and their silly viewers as we prepared to ride our bicycles 59 miles. Of course, in a few days we’ll be bundled up in cold weather gear and complaining about the other extreme.