Day 35, Sunday, August 3.
Brunswick, OH to (Kent), OH
Daily Mileage: 53.71 miles
Total Mileage: 3,150.9 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 4:04 hours
Average Speed: 13.1 mph
Maximum Speed: 38.5 mph
Pressing on this morning's agenda was finding a bike shop to inspect my headset. Trying to find one was a bit difficult though because it was Sunday morning and not many bike shops are open in the morning, if at all. We found one shop near where we were staying. Some guy answered the phone and then handed it to a lady who gave us directions to the shop. We piled into Steve's car with the bike and made our way to the shop. By following the directions, we found ourselves in a neighborhood, and then all of a sudden at the correct address. This run-down house had two or three vans sitting in the driveway, the shrubs weren't trimmed, the grass hadn’t been mowed in quite some time, and the screens on the windows were torn. We debated turning around and leaving right away but decided to stay because you never know, they might know a lot about bikes.
When I knocked on the door some guy answered it and then called to the woman. (We were never sure what the relationship between the two was.) The lady told me to bring the bike around to the carport. It was at this point that I started to realize that we were working with an amateur who knew enough to maintain a three-speed bike or a Huffy, but not one that was trying to get us to the ocean and had already made it over 3,000 miles. Little red party lanterns hung all around the backyard like they just had a party, three years ago. She clamped my bike to a rusty bike stand—now remember, our bikes were the dearest things to us during this trip. They got us from the west coast and were going to get us clear across the country. Imagine your new car that you don't want to dent, and imagine that if you dent it you'll be stranded far from home. She pulled out these big tools and proceeded to unscrew my headset. It was at this point that she needed to go back downstairs and get another tool. By this point, I had lost all faith in her bicycle maintenance ability and was ready to get out of there. Plus, David, Steve and I couldn't stop laughing long enough to talk because the sequence of events was so random.
With the home shop option shot, we went back to the phone book. All of our traveling was done with our hotel checkout deadline looming. We couldn't bring all of our stuff in Steve's car because there wasn’t enough room, so we had to get all of this done before noon. As we were driving the forty-five minutes to the next (hopefully) legitimate bike shop, we spotted another one that was open. They quickly took my bike into the shop and inspected it. I felt that I could really trust this shop with their articulate diagnosis and rust-free tools. They tightened everything back up and said the headset wasn't ovalized.
We packed the bike back in the car and high-tailed it back to the hotel to pack up and checkout. Steve stayed with us until 1PM today. We followed the Cleveland Metroparks road south of the city for the better part of the afternoon. It was a great road with lots of bike traffic. We've seen a lot of road bikers here, more so than in any other place we've been on the trip. (The guy at the nice bike shop said it's because everything on a mountain bike is illegal—I still have no idea what he meant.)
Toward the end of our day, David called his old friend, Ryan, who is staying an hour south (by car) of where we were at the time. He's spending the summer at Kent State for the Kent Blossom Music Festival. Ryan drove the hour to pick us up on the side of the road and drove us back down to Kent State. Once there, we showered, ate Taco Bell, and were about to walk over to the sight of the Kent State tragedy when the skies opened up and it began to pour. We opted to get our heads shaved instead. Following all of this fun we fell asleep. P.S. Thanks a lot, Steve!
(Photo: Ryan and David)
Daily Mileage: 53.71 miles
Total Mileage: 3,150.9 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 4:04 hours
Average Speed: 13.1 mph
Maximum Speed: 38.5 mph
Pressing on this morning's agenda was finding a bike shop to inspect my headset. Trying to find one was a bit difficult though because it was Sunday morning and not many bike shops are open in the morning, if at all. We found one shop near where we were staying. Some guy answered the phone and then handed it to a lady who gave us directions to the shop. We piled into Steve's car with the bike and made our way to the shop. By following the directions, we found ourselves in a neighborhood, and then all of a sudden at the correct address. This run-down house had two or three vans sitting in the driveway, the shrubs weren't trimmed, the grass hadn’t been mowed in quite some time, and the screens on the windows were torn. We debated turning around and leaving right away but decided to stay because you never know, they might know a lot about bikes.
When I knocked on the door some guy answered it and then called to the woman. (We were never sure what the relationship between the two was.) The lady told me to bring the bike around to the carport. It was at this point that I started to realize that we were working with an amateur who knew enough to maintain a three-speed bike or a Huffy, but not one that was trying to get us to the ocean and had already made it over 3,000 miles. Little red party lanterns hung all around the backyard like they just had a party, three years ago. She clamped my bike to a rusty bike stand—now remember, our bikes were the dearest things to us during this trip. They got us from the west coast and were going to get us clear across the country. Imagine your new car that you don't want to dent, and imagine that if you dent it you'll be stranded far from home. She pulled out these big tools and proceeded to unscrew my headset. It was at this point that she needed to go back downstairs and get another tool. By this point, I had lost all faith in her bicycle maintenance ability and was ready to get out of there. Plus, David, Steve and I couldn't stop laughing long enough to talk because the sequence of events was so random.
With the home shop option shot, we went back to the phone book. All of our traveling was done with our hotel checkout deadline looming. We couldn't bring all of our stuff in Steve's car because there wasn’t enough room, so we had to get all of this done before noon. As we were driving the forty-five minutes to the next (hopefully) legitimate bike shop, we spotted another one that was open. They quickly took my bike into the shop and inspected it. I felt that I could really trust this shop with their articulate diagnosis and rust-free tools. They tightened everything back up and said the headset wasn't ovalized.
We packed the bike back in the car and high-tailed it back to the hotel to pack up and checkout. Steve stayed with us until 1PM today. We followed the Cleveland Metroparks road south of the city for the better part of the afternoon. It was a great road with lots of bike traffic. We've seen a lot of road bikers here, more so than in any other place we've been on the trip. (The guy at the nice bike shop said it's because everything on a mountain bike is illegal—I still have no idea what he meant.)
Toward the end of our day, David called his old friend, Ryan, who is staying an hour south (by car) of where we were at the time. He's spending the summer at Kent State for the Kent Blossom Music Festival. Ryan drove the hour to pick us up on the side of the road and drove us back down to Kent State. Once there, we showered, ate Taco Bell, and were about to walk over to the sight of the Kent State tragedy when the skies opened up and it began to pour. We opted to get our heads shaved instead. Following all of this fun we fell asleep. P.S. Thanks a lot, Steve!
(Photo: Ryan and David)
