Day 1 - Sept. 18, 2006 Oberlin to Butler, Ohio - 60 Miles In
The first Long Trek began 18 years ago, on September 18, 2006.
Day 1 - September 18, 2006
Oberlin, Ohio to Butler, Ohio - 60 Miles Total
The backstory is that Aunt Fran was sick. The first ride had hoped to inspire her, but she passed two weeks before we left. And so it became an homage to her, my only aunt on my father’s side, and mother of my cousin Michael, who had long past. It seemed long then. Hindsight the eight years between his death and her’s were a blip. And here we are.
So the homage, which she herself had told me she supported, was afoot. A bicycle ride to ring in my adulthood. Or what I thought was my adulthood. The adventure I had always dreamt of. Oberlin to LA to San Francisco, channeling the historic Route 66 where we could, and following it through the southwest. I had been waiting for this.
We would raise money for an organization called PanCan - The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Again, the cause inspired by my Aunt Fran. We had a goal to raise $5,000. We would raise about $15,000 overall, when all was said and done.
I had orchestrated the ride, having long imagined a cross-country ride like that when I was finally an adult.
Aside: I waited my entire childhood to become an adult. Hindsight I wish I had been more present in the carefree beauty of childhood. Maybe I took myself too seriously. I was also quite anxious.
I worked 90 hours/week for months leading up to the trip, saving as much money as I could. Jobs included: The Apollo Theatre, where I started working when I was 14 and basically ran until I was 21, The Oberlin Bookstore: where I was a manager of a strangely kept inventory, and The Town Money Saver, where I dressed in a button-up shirt but generally did not sell ads.
So I worked five very hard months and saved all the money I could. It wasn’t that much. I was also buying bikes and gear.
Originally I picked an undersized road bike from The Fremont Cyclery (or something like that). It was a dusty older-model Trek 520. Still “brand new,” but so old that it was half off. WORKED FOR ME! The gents in the shop fixed it up with some adapters to make it taller in front, and I bought it. It was a nice dark forest green, and rode LIKE BUTTER. I wanted a Trek 520 - Trek’s only touring bike. But not a tiny one…
While I was planning the trip, I was simultaneously trying to convince my best friend Eddie to come with me. He seemed to share a similar spirit of adventure. We had a bond because we were both half-Irish half-Italian kids with fathers named Joseph and moms named Maureen and Noreen. Felt like brothers!
Eventually Eddie was in, he was coming. This was getting exciting! He also worked The Apollo, and had gotten me my job at The Bookstore.
Our friends Joe and Justin built us a nice website. www.ridetothebay.com. It’s now defunct! Anyway, Eddie needed a bicycle.
I think we were stocking books when he suggested it. He reminded me that we used to have an old Schwinn Twinn tandem as kids. It was green and Rusty. We rescued it, after someone abandoned it for several years at Oberlin College.
“We could fly on that thing!”
So we started looking for a tandem. The Trek 520 would stay behind, destined for another ride. We looked all over eBay, and Craigslist. Eventually we found one in Michigan, near Detroit. The guy selling it told us an ominous story about trying to do a big bike ride with his friend on the west coast, and stopping after a few days when his friend blew his knee out near Seattle. They had planned to bike the whole coast and only made it a few days in. It made me nervous.
The Trek T100 became our prized possession. After some upgrades to transform the upright tandem into a road bike, we were more or less prepared. We did not train much, but we worked a LOT to save money.
Eventually the day had come. We had borrowed panniers (saddle bags for cycling) and a rack from my neighbor. We had some Bontrager Hard Case tires. We had time off. It was now or never.
We left on September 18, 2006. The whirlwind of work and enjoying time with friends came to an end. And there was nothing else to say or do. We were kids in hindsight. But the spirit of adventure took hold!
I remember the strange sensation as we rode around Oberlin, running errands and testing gears. We left in the late afternoon. A stop at the bank, and then by Eddie’s house. And we were off.
We headed west out of Oberlin on 511. The road, which I had traveled my whole life felt completely different. Like a strange conduit. And we rode it. Past all the familiar farms and intersecting country roads. Out into the unfamiliar Ohio countryside.
The first stop established a staple for the trip and all of my bicycle tours. The bike had six water bottle holders, but we had no bottles. We went into a gas station and bought six Gatorade sports bottles, probably some Party Mix and Combos too. The Gatorade Sports Bottle… endorsed by That Long Trek.
Quickly we had realized that the bike was packed too heavily, and too top heavy. We jettisoned a bunch of gear and extra baggage, after struggling to ride the bike the first forty miles. It was unstable and HEAVY. Once we shook the rig down, it was better balanced, but part of the problem is I did not know we should have had wider tires.
The trip would be plagued with flats as a result of my inexperience. But 17 years later I would take another bicycle trip and leave with even shittier tires, stubbornly, almost looking for trouble. So I guess you don’t always live and learn.
We slept the first night under a picnic pavilion in Butler, Ohio. Having grown up in the bubble of Oberlin, I was shocked by some of the discussion I overheard in Butler. It was racist. I was saddened.
That night we played rummy, used the bathroom and computer at a public library (no smart phones yet!) and ate cold spaghettios. It was about how I imagined an adventure, basically The Christopher Lloyd version of Dennis The Menace, when he gets kidnapped and lives by the train tracks with the bad guy. We even had the tin can to eat out of. Though Dennis ate baked beans.
Day 2-Sept. 19, 2006 Butler-Marysville, Ohio - 130 Miles
Day Two - September 19, 2006
Butler, Ohio to Marysville, Ohio
70 Miles - 130 Total
We shoved off early, snacking on junk food from a gas station near downtown Butler. The day is not terribly memorable. We rode a lot and settled into the reality of what we had gotten ourselves into. It was not easy. The bike was heavy. The traffic was sometimes intense. And not everyone was friendly.
We pulled off into the brambles beside an old farm, and set up camp. The digs were good, but we did not investigate the flora. We each had a small personal tent, and we set those up in the tall grass. We had a nice bonfire and ate whatever we had. It was fun, until we woke up.
When we woke up we realized we had set up camp and burned a huge circle in the middle of a field of poison ivy. Ed informed me that he gets it, bad. So there was some looming doom approaching.
That Long Trek will ride again!
Day 3-Sept. 20, 2006 Marysville-New Paris, Ohio - 237 Miles
Day Three
Marysville, Ohio to New Paris, Ohio
107 Miles - 237 Total
We were both Honda fans, so we appreciated that we were in Marysville; where The Honda Accord Wagon was built! Or so I think. We stopped at a dollar general in Marysville and picked up some white dry-fit shirts, cause we were cold. Then we pedaled on.
Midday we stopped near Dublin, Ohio for our bicycle service. That is when I learned about the eccentric bottom bracket, which allows for chain tensioning of the upper chain, and some slight height adjustment of pedals.
The bike shop mechanics were sorta jerks. Highly skeptical of out cycling skills. One smirked at the other when we told them we were headed to San Francisco. “They’re goong to San Francisco…” he said skeptically. I also remember not being that impressed with their service We didn’t know it yet, but we would get much worse service in LA!
We ate Subway and it was terrible We swore it off for the rest of the trip. I don’t think I ate another til they were $5 during the 2008 recession…
We made it to New Paris, and our first hundred mile day. We pulled into an RV park, where we were greeted by some very excited doctors who had just bought the place. They were all in fancy Mercedes.
Mercedeses? Como se dise: Mercedeses. Sorry distracted by rhyming wordplay!
One of the doctors decided we were allowed to stay for free, but later another questioned as to “who said that?!” It was awkward!
We stayed the night, and the next morning Eddie woke up with horrible, horrible poison ivy. His whole face was swollen up. Like he had lost a boxing match. Badly. It was the poison ivy. So more to come on that tomorrow, when we run into a little luck at the end of the day, and ride straight to Indianapolis!