For Father’s Day this year, my wife gave me time. Enough of it to go on a weekend cycling adventure across the entire state of Ohio (via the Ohio to Erie Trail) with a friend.
I love my wife.
The OTET is a 326-mile trek that starts at the Ohio River in Cincinnati and ends at Lake Erie in Cleveland. It was a trip both of us have been eying since last year. He actually attempted to do the entire thing by himself last year in less than two days. (He got 157 miles in before getting lost in the dark and eventually cutting it short.) I was scheduled to do it with him, but Melvin just had to hit me with his SUV while on an early morning ride. So … yeah. That obviously put me out of riding for a while. (Read that full story here.)
This year, our goal was to finish the OTET in 24-28 hours. We figured if we held a consistent 13-mph pace, we could make it. We also didn’t plan on stopping to sleep, because that would have meant carrying extra supplies that would slow us down.
Spoiler alert, we didn’t make it.
There are a few reasons why, and looking back I can honestly say I’m proud of us for making it as far as we did, which ended up being around 195 miles.
I’m not going to give you a play-by-play. That’s just terrible storytelling.
What I will do, however, is write down some things we learned and what we’ll likely do differently on long-pedal voyages in the future.
Use a bike computer that enables turn-by-turn route directions.
This is probably the most important lesson learned. We’re both parents with a rather small (read non-existent) cycling budget. So dropping $300 on a bike computer just wasn’t in the cards this time around.
We both have watches that track our activities, but unfortunately those do not provide turn-by-turn directions.
So we got lost a couple times, having to pull out our phones to figure out where to go. This happened a lot in Columbus, where the OTET has you riding through downtown and many neighborhoods.
Having something to navigate would have saved us time and energy.
Stop to sleep.
We were freakin’ tired. I don’t think there’s any way around that. Especially because we did the trip over July 4th weekend and there are parts on the trail where you are totally exposed to the sun. It got hot, fast.
And I think we just assumed that “sleeping” meant camping out. Not necessarily. I guess you could just stop at a hotel along the way, even for just a few hours to get some shut-eye and that complimentary continental breakfast.
The only sleeping we did was at the end of our journey, in Mount Vernon. We rolled into town around 3 a.m. After discovering none of the city’s five hotels had beds available, we opted for plastic pool loungers beside the indoor pool of one of the hotels. We suckered the clerk into letting us.
But she didn’t let the next shift know … and so we were kicked out at 6 a.m. I think we got about an hour or so of sleep.
Keep hydration tablets in the plastic tube they come in.
To save space, I took my hydration tablets out of the plastic tube and into a plastic sandwich bag.
They melted. Keeping them in the plastic tube might not fix this problem. (Stay tuned on that, I guess.)
Use chamois cream.
I’ve never really felt like I needed chamois cream. But I definitely developed saddle sores after being in the saddle for 23 hours straight. I bet my bum would have felt a tad better.
Give ourselves more time.
I had another commitment that weekend that I needed to be home for. That’s partly why we decided to attempt to finish the whole thing in under 30 hours.
The OTET website recommends setting aside four to seven days. So, maybe next time we’ll do that.
We still need to finish the ride, and we plan to. But the next time we plan a trip with as many or more miles, we’ll definitely give ourselves more time.
Having said all that, there are many aspects of this trip I think we did “right.”
1.) We traveled as light as possible.
This meant no bike trailers and panniers. My buddy had a water pack on his back, which had extra space for other items. I opted out of using mine because I have done long treks with my Camelbak and it just got too hot and annoying.
Instead, I stuffed my jersey pockets and carried a smaller fanny pack.
We also each had small bags that attached to our frames.
2.) We stopped at a Waffle House in Columbus.
Our waiter, John, was the best. He was inspired by our journey and decided to give us free waffles while we charged our dying devices.
3.) We had fun.
We didn’t finish the voyage, but man we had a blast — from dodging cars through Columbus to a family of skunks at 2 a.m. in Centerburg.
There’s a lot of thinking and sorting out logistics involved in a trip like this. Which, if done right, is part of the fun and sense of adventure. So if you’re planning a bike adventure like this, don’t think too hard about it. Just find the right crew and the right time and go for it.