Day 17: 90 Miles

Columbus, OH to Mason, OH

Today was my longest day by far in terms of mileage but it wasn’t without some problems along the way. Ohio has an amazing system of bike trails and today I would be traveling exclusively on bike trail from Columbus to the outskirts of Cincinnati. I knew the route was perfectly flat and if things went to plan I’d have no trouble completing 90 miles

Things started out smoothly, but 10 miles in I felt my front wheel start to wobble. I stopped and realized the tire was a little flat. I tried pumping it and it held air, but 2 miles later it was flat again. I was going to have to put a new tube in. I unloaded everything, took off the wheel and put in a new tube. For some reason the new tube didn’t seem to be working. I pulled the new tube off and found it had a small hole, so I patched it and tried again. You would think a new tube having a hole would be rare, but this tube had 2 holes. After I patched that one it still would not fill, so I moved on to a third tube. After wasting 45 minutes I was finally able to get moving again.

I hit the town of London at mile 20 and within seconds there was a thunderstorm over me. I quickly found a McDonald’s to hide out in while the storm passed by and chatted with a group of octogenarians who were having lunch. They saw me come in on my bike and after talking for a minute or two one of the guys broke into a bicycle story of his own. When he was much younger he was driving his Cadillac down the road and saw a cyclist who was walking his bike because he couldn’t get up the hills. So this guy offered to tow the guy down the street using a rope tied to the back of his car. The cyclist was  apparently nervous about him going too fast, so he provided the cyclist a whistle to blow whenever he needed to slow down. So here is this guy towing a cyclist behind his car like a water skier when all of a sudden a Thunderbird pulls up along side. This guy wouldn’t let the Thunderbird pass so he gunned it and wound up drag racing the Thunderbird with a cyclist being towed behind his car. I can’t imagine what this must have looked like, but this guy at McDonald’s was sure happy to relive that memory.

After about 45 minutes the thunderstorm had passed and I was ready to get on the road. It was already 1:00 PM at this point. I averaged 14 mph today, so i would have expected to be at least 55 miles into my day by 1:00, but here I was leaving a McDonald’s just barely finished with 20 miles. Things were pretty smooth for the next 30 miles and at mile 50 I stopped in the town of Xenia. I knew there was a bike shop in town and stopped in to pick up a couple of spare tubes. I’d used up my supply of tubes earlier in the day. The town of Xenia is the hub of 5 or 6 bike trails in Ohio. All of these trails meet at the Xenia Station (pictured above) and extend out through Ohio in all directions.

I got back onto my trail at the Xenia station and made it about 15 more miles before my rear wheel started to feel funny. I got off and found that the rear tire was now nearly flat. It is way more frustrating to have a flat like this. There is no hole in the tube to be found and no clear reason why the tube won’t hold air. I wouldn’t have even noticed it for another 5 miles had I not looked at my bike computer and realized my average speed seemed off. So I hopped off the bike, took all my panniers off and started changing out the tube on the rear wheel. Thankfully I now had 2 extra tubes. As I was changing out the tube a couple stopped by to check on me and I was actually able to provide them some help. They needed a bike tool to make a minor adjustment and I just happened to have the right one. We talked a bit more as we each fixed out bikes and as they pedaled off another couple rode up and made sure I was okay. I have all the tools I need to take care of things, but it’s nice to know people are willing to stop and offer help, food, or just have a conversation to get me through changing out a flat.

I got back on the road and the remaining 25 miles of the ride flew by. I got to my hotel in Mason, OH around 6:30 PM. I’m back in a hotel tonight for a few reasons. I was going to camp tonight, but that would have meant stopping around mile 65. I was feeling too good on the bike to stop at that point. Also, there were tornado and hail warnings not more than 40 miles from where I am stopped. It wasn’t clear what was going to happen with those storms overnight, but I felt safer being indoors.

90 miles was surprisingly easy today. I hadn’t averaged over 12 mph on any ride so far and today’s ride was 14 mph. It was a long time on the road and I was a sweaty, bug covered mess by the end, but good to know I’m in shape to get 90 miles in and not even feel tired at the end.