OTET, Part 2: Indigestion, hummering and bike paths

We finished the second half of the Ohio to Erie Trail in early September. 

To refresh, the OTET is a 326-mile trek from the Ohio River in Cincinnati to Lake Erie in Cleveland.

A buddy of mine (hi Jace!) and I decided to do this earlier this year. The first time around, we tried to finish it in under 30 hours. We didn’t. Instead, we pedaled for 22 or 23 hours straight for a total of 191 miles. We ended up getting lost in Columbus, meeting a friendly Waffle House server, running into a family of skunks on the bike path at 2 a.m. and talking a Mount Vernon hotel clerk into letting us sleep on plastic loungers next to the indoor pool. (Every single hotel room in Mount Vernon that night were taken, apparently. It was either the plastic loungers or the great outdoors.) 

The second time around was much less … I don’t know … exciting? 

We didn’t get lost. (We got turned around briefly in Akron and Cleveland.) We didn’t ride through the night. We didn’t stop at a Waffle House and get free waffles. No skunks this time either. Just a bunch of amish riding e-bikes, herons, a snake and a chipmunk that ran into me. (No lie.)

The ride was still great. Epic, even. 

We logged 151.79 miles and 3,083 feet of elevation over 10 hours.

This time, the journey started in Mount Vernon, at a co-worker’s apartment (hi Grant!) that was about four miles away from the path. We arose from the couches from which we slept at 4:30 a.m. Well, sorta slept. Couch sleep isn’t always the greatest.

We had some coffee and hit the road, our hearts set for McDonald’s egg sandwiches. We rolled up to the drive-thru and placed our orders. When we rolled up to the window, they said they couldn’t serve us because we were on bikes. And the dining room was closed until 7 a.m. 

What discrimination! What inequity! The injustice! This is oppression of the lycra-donned cyclist! We must resist the Man!

Anyway, we got over it pretty quickly. We went to a gas station that had some breakfast pizza. Scarfed it down and we were off. 

Jace and me rolling out of Mount Vernon in the wee hours post gas station breakfast pizza.

This stretch of the OTET felt different. I don’t know what it was — whether it was the Speedway breakfast pizza or the 8.2% beer we drank the night before, or the lack of sleep from Grant’s couch — but I started feeling pretty rough about 100 miles in. 

Strong beers, gas station breakfast pizza, coffee, hours of hunching over the handlebars … and well. Yeah. You get an acidic mass of explosive indigestion. We also stopped for Subway in Dalton about 50 miles in. I piled my sub high and wolfed it down, along with a bunch of water mixed with Lemon/Lime hydration tablets.

I felt better for a while. And I made sure to keep eating snacks and drinking when I thought of it. 

But I think the damage had already been done. It hit me as we rolled into Akron. It was like the lizard that had clawed its way up my gullet for hours had finally made its way to my mouth. And he was a-knockin’. I tried to stave it off by downing a bit of Coke. It didn’t work. So at some point just before rolling into downtown Akron, I stopped because I thought I might puke. 

I didn’t, but the dry heaving was pretty intense. But after that, I felt like a different person. Now, the only thing I had to contend with was the fatigue setting into my muscles. Painful, but not debilitating. 

Also: a note about these bike-path, rails-to-trails type rides. 

This ride was mainly done on bike paths. Straight. Long. Relatively flat. Same speed. I never thought that riding on a relatively flat and straight path would be so hard. But it is. It’s just … constant hummering. 

This is a made up word — a hybrid mixing both “hammering” and “humming.” Because riding on a bike path is not an intense, hammering activity. I guess it could be. But if you’re a cyclist in need of a good intense effort, otherwise known as hammering, you would probably do that on a road with hills and curves and more hills. Nah. Riding on a bike path is more like humming. You’re not singing. But you’re also not lollygagging. You’re hummering along in a constant, rhythmic thrum.

hummering (verb): constant physical exertion done on a flat, boring bike path by a cyclist. //the group of cyclists could be seen hummering on the bike path

The bike path offers no respite for the cyclist as he coasts down a hill. There are no cows to moo at. No cars and potholes to dodge. 

(On the other hand, when there is a bump in the bike path, the cyclist must hit it. Because if he does not hit the bump, he will swerve into the grass, thus totally interrupting the rhythmic hummering.)

Just straight-up monotony. And so here’s what I learned on the second half of the OTET:

I’m learning that I don’t do well with monotonous bike rides. My roadie soul needs color. Hills. Vehicles. Sounds. Please hear me: I don’t have anything against bike paths. They are generally good. And actually, it’s amazing to know the entire state of Ohio can be traversed on a bike that is mostly bike path.

The bike path encourages travel by bike. It connects communities. It connects states. 

And so the bike path is not so terrible. We saw a lot of cool stuff along the bike path. The horse and buggy. The horse’s chips. Wildlife. The canal towpath is cool. And every once in a while, the bike path opens up like a curtain showing the viewer Ohio’s grand panorama. 

Brief stop by the side of the road, along the OTET route. Somewhere near Dalton. The cooler had water and Gatorade. Score!

Having someone else to ride with really helps. Especially when that someone has a good sense of humor. Jace, it was fun. Even when we rode a quarter-mile up a highway ramp in downtown Cleveland as we made our way to Lake Erie, where, ultimately, we dipped our front tires.

And so, OTET, thank you for showing me parts of Ohio I’ve never seen and for teaching me something about myself and for inspiring the word “hummering.”

Aw. Two grimy dudes dipping their front tires in the Lake Erie, officially becoming OTETers. Photo cred: my wife, who drove 1.5 hours with two toddlers to pick us up. Respect.