biketravel – Deacon Matt's Blog

The BnB in the old bank in Falmouth was a comfy place to stay. We waved goodbye and started the long journey north. Today’s ride was more challenging than yesterday’s ride. We clocked a little over 70 miles with a couple of decent climbs and many rolling hills.

Leaving Falmouth, we had to climb out of the Licking Valley to get over to the Ohio Valley. Nearly all of today‘s elevation came within the first 10 miles. Everyone did great – no mechanical issues and no leg cramps.

One thing I forgot to put in the blog yesterday: dogs. Lots of dogs. I don’t know what it is about the back roads of Kentucky, but people generally let their dogs roam free. We had several chases yesterday. Today, we had just a bit more. One dog decided to follow Zubby about 1/3 mile up a decent climb. I nicknamed the dog “motivator”. I hope we’re done with dogs for the trip.

The longest single stretch of the whole trip was on the Mary Ingalls highway today. About 30 miles on this road that hugs the Ohio River on the Kentucky side. It rolls along with mostly gentle ups and downs with the occasional view of the river. There isn’t much along this stretch, just a couple of very small towns.

In my past rides, I’ve noticed an abandoned school along the highway. We decided to check it out and take a generous break for snacks. Billy deployed his drone and we checked out the building from the air. The school was built in 1926, with some obvious additions in the 1950s or 60s.

We made our way up to Newport KY and stopped for a late lunch at a pizza place. The food was excellent and we all ate well.

To cross into Ohio, we took a pedestrian bridge, the Purple People Bridge that connects Newport KY to Cincinnati near the stadiums. This old bridge used to carry trolly traffic but was repurposed for pedestrian and bike traffic. The people voted on the name and it became the Purple People bridge. Funny, I didn’t see any purple people on it.

We stopped for a few pictures on the bridge before heading over and dipping our tires in the Ohio river. We’ll do the same when we reach Lake Erie.

Now that we’re in Ohio, we’re following the Ohio To Erie Trail (#OH2Erie). This is a well established set of bike paths with a few country road connectors that will carry us all the way to Cleveland. It will be generally easier riding than we’ve had the last two days. No big climbs and mostly gentle grades.

We stopped at an AirBnB between Milford and Loveland for the night. It’s clean and comfortable, but not near anything for dinner. So after we got cleaned up, we got back on the bikes and backtracked about 3 miles to the Trailyard restaurant. They had great live music and the food was good. I had some fish tacos. On a normal day, they would have been perfectly sized. But after 75 miles, I probably could have eaten twice as many tacos!

We’ve settled back in and the laundry is nearly done. Our destination tomorrow is Cedarville, OH. I think it will be about 60 miles in very familiar territory using the Little Miami and Prairie Grass trails.

I’m looking forward to hopefully a very long night of sleep. My body could use it!

As we pray in compline, May the Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.

– Dcn. Matt

If you’re reading this, you probably know that I have been doing a long distance bike ride each year since 2010. This year’s big ride is from my home in Lexington, KY to Lake Erie in Cleveland, OH. As with the last few years, my riding buddies are JB, Zubby, and Billy.

Our route is using less travelled roads through Kentucky up to Cincinnati. Once we reach Cincinnati, we will use the well established route across Ohio called the Ohio To Erie Trail. I’ve done this route before.

We decided to meet up at my house and roll at 8AM. The weather today was just about perfect for cycling. It was overcast and very cloudy all day, with temperatures in the 60s-70s. Although I enjoy blue skies, the clouds kept the sun from making us too hot. There’s a sweet spot for weather that we call an ‘epic day’. We decided that today was slightly below epic, but fantastic. The grey skies took a few points off of epic.

A few days ago, JB surprised all of us with a handlebar mounted jet plane to mount to our bikes. We each found a way to put them on our bikes. I mounted mine under my trusty GPS on the front of the bike. I don’t think the airplanes are a ride mascot, but they sort of are. Can an airplane be a mascot?

The route I plotted is fairly direct while trying to stay off busy roads as much as possible. There were a few miles into Cynthiana, out of Cynthiana, and into Falmouth. The rest of the route was quiet and great cycling.

As we rolled away, we took some well trodden roads from Lexington to Paris, KY. After a short break, we picked up some rural roads to carry us to Cynthiana, where we stopped for a break to eat and hydrate. The last leg took us from Cynthiana to Falmouth mostly using back-country roads.

Today’s ride was uneventful. No cramping, no mechanical issues, no problems. We rolled into Falmouth a little after 2PM and settled in at the Smoking Pig for some late lunch. We all ate well, then walked over to our B&B to get checked in and cleaned up.

The B&B is over an old bank in the old downtown of Falmouth. I’ve stayed here before and the host does a nice job of making it a clean and comfy place to stay.

Tomorrow’s route will take us from the Licking Valley up over to the Ohio Valley. We’ll then follow the Mary Ingalls highway into Newport,KY before crossing into Cincinnati. Tomorrow’s destination is just south of Loveland, OH.

I’m really sleepy, however 5:30PM is not a reasonable bed time. A great day of riding and now I am going to try to stay awake until a reasonable bed time.

Peace,
– Dcn. Matt