Rack 'n' Roll

Crossing into Ohio didn't seem much different from Indiana at first, but I did notice that some areas must have had a more affluent past judging from the size and style of the old houses. Beautiful Victorian mansions sit on the prominent corners of some small towns, many of them must be quite costly to maintain.

These artificial swimming ponds seem to be really popular in rural Ohio

Fostoria

I haven't been impressed with the roads in Ohio though, they're narrower, a bit busier and in some cases built with the annoying practice of putting rumble strips when there are little or no shoulders. It forces me to ride well into the roadway which is fine when traffic is light and courteous, but it makes getting off  the road difficult when there are large trucks behind me and another one on-coming.

These rumble strips make the 6 inches of shoulder useless to me

After making my own route for several days through endless cornfields, I decided to hook up with AdventureCycling.org 's Northern Tier route. I was surprised to find out that the roads they picked weren't that much better than the ones my GPS recommended. At one point their selected route was under water! Some parts went through some excellent paved trails though, so it was nice to ride relaxed away from traffic. This being a fairly popular route, I've also met the first touring cyclists I've seen since leaving the Grand Canyon. I kept on running into another cyclist, Hannah, who was cycling from Seattle to Maine.

Switched to my sandals to ride across this flooded road, the water was almost a foot deep

After spending one night inland in Findlay, I was anxious to set my sights on Lake Erie which offered welcome change of scenery. If I had more time I would have loved the thrill of some of the world's best rollercoasters at Cedar Point in Sandusky, but that'll have to wait for another trip maybe with friends and/or family. Glimpses of the lake itself are rare along the route, obscured and made inaccessible by private property, but occasionally a park would provide public access. Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, and I noticed it has more of a greenish tinge compare to Lake Ontario. Some nice beaches but not a lot of people swimming — I know I would have issues with bathing in Detroit's effluent :)

Cleveland is the self-declared "Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll" — in 1951 Alan Freed, a DJ in one of the city's radio stations popularized the term to describe the new musical genre he was playing on the air. Although the city itself isn't particularly a hotbed of musical talent, Cleveland managed to snag the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of this heritage. Well, getting into Cleveland and its waterfront attractions was a rock and roll performance for me, avoiding cracks, rough patches and storm drain grates along the way. Despite its fairly flat terrain, the city doesn't seem to have invested much in cycling infrastructure. The "Cleveland Lakefront Bikeway" was mostly just a bunch of signs along ordinary streets that had no particular provisions for cyclists.

The classic Trek 520 should be inducted into Rack and Roll fame

I spent a bit of time hanging out in the waterfront area before heading down more bumpy streets to find a place to stay. With no campgrounds within this stretch of urban sprawl, I settled for another one of those motels along an Interstate junction, with the usual fast food and chain restaurants — kind of like the experience of listening to Top-40 radio :)

Why is it called Eat 'n Park when you're supposed to park and then eat?

Hoosier navigator

Admittedly, I had not planned my route through Indiana, and as a result my ride through the state has not been terribly interesting. I could write "cornfield" a hundred times for this post and it would be an apt account :) I doubt Indiana is this boring, it's just the unfortunate route I chose.

Originally, I had wanted this to be a coast-to-coast ride ending in New York City, but my meandering out west has eaten up more time than I expected and work is knocking on my door at home. My intention was to cross Indiana farther south and get into Ohio via Cincinnati and eventually get to Washington DC then New York. Maybe I'll fire up that plan some other time, and do a Part 2 of this blog.

From Gilman IL, I persevered with following the US24 corridor, which had narrow shoulders and large trucks. Occasionally I would go along the parallel county roads where I couldn't see much past the tall corn plants, I felt like I was travelling along a giant corn maze (amazing maize maze?). My intentions for going a longish distance evaporated with the heat of the day and a considerable headwind, and I ended up in Remington IN which was so similar to Gilman — both are truck stop towns at the junction of the Interstate highway, and had the same setup of giant gas stations, motels, fast food restaurants and vast parking lots for trucks. I felt I had gone nowhere after pedalling for an entire day.

Being back in the eastern, more populated half of America, I get a sense of how restless of this country is. Constant convoys of FedEx or UPS trucks on the highways tell of the ease of transport; someone's Amazon.com order is always on its way. Out West I had to get my meals before 9pm because most places closed early, here so many things are open round the clock or at least up to midnight. I find these mega truck stops fascinating in their own right, there's something quintessentially American about them, from the forest of incredibly high neon signs visible for miles, to the diversity of people who stop for food and fuel. I had a chuckle overhearing a Dutch tourist who was questioning the gas station clerk why it was so hard to buy vegetables. She was looking at all the corn growing all around but could not find any fresh corn to buy.

Corn, corn all around; but not an ear to buy.

I had a terrible night's sleep at the motel in Remington, and I blame a late afternoon iced coffee and the Mountain Dew refills I had with my burger. Too much caffeine late in the day, I really have to watch out as they tend to lace most soft drinks in the US with unnecessary caffeine. In Canada there's a regulation that only dark-coloured soft drinks can have caffeine.

The next day started out more cornfields and dowdy farm towns. It got a bit interesting as I got into the Wabash valley which had a more rolling terrain. This area had some glory days in the age of canals, when they built a waterway that connected Lake Erie to the Ohio River. It was the longest canal built in the US, the first link between the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It was only viable for a decade or two until the railroad came and and much of it was demolished by citizens who hated the mosquitoes breeding in the stagnant water.

I decided to camp in Logansport, which again was a shorter distance than what I had aimed for, but I was tired from lack of sleep. I was miffed at the woman at the campsite as she charged me for a serviced site because their primitive sites were flooded. It's not my fault they're flooded, and she could have put me  in any grassy spot anywhere. Despite the fact the campground was next to the railroad with trains sounding their horns at the crossing near the entrance gate, I actually had a great sleep and felt refreshed the next morning.

My camp mess; Sometimes I wonder how it all fits back on the bike

US24 turns into a busy 4 lane divided highway heading towards Fort Wayne, and after a morning of meandering small roads parallel to it I decided to give its wide shoulders a try to make up some time and distance. What a mistake! The shoulders were littered with debris, and sadly ended my record of not having a flat tire since Los Angeles. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty sharp, as it went through a spot where my tire liner overlapped. I had brought 3 spare tubes with me and I was starting to question having carried that extra weight, but after I changed the tube the first time, something went awry with my pump gauge and I overinflated the tire and it exploded. Tube #2 was a dud, it would not pump up, which left me with my last spare! I carefully inflated it by feel and rode on until Huntington which had a bike shop where I checked the pressure and bought another tube for insurance. I guess I have some patching to do.

This century old diner was a nice place to have lunch in Huntington

Even with the time wasted changing a tire 3 times, I made decent distance getting to Decatur, 15 miles from the Ohio border. One more night amid the cornfields!

Land of Lincoln

I was a bit disorganized leaving East St Louis, I didn't really figure out my route properly since I was more intent on finding decent accommodation the night before. I had to wind through some minor highways to get back on to the recommended Bike Route 66 which I should have followed directly from the city centre. Madison County, Illinois, just outside of St Louis has an extensive network of bikeways (mcttrails.org) that stretch from the Mississippi River to its rural fringes, and once I was on pathways it was a peaceful car free route for miles. Riding northeast out of the metropolitan area, I didn't picture this area as prairie, but I certainly wasn't complaining about the lack of hills. Unlike the arid high plains, though, this area is well watered; the the corn seems to be doing well on regular rain without much artificial irrigation.

Madison County Transit Trails

I guess this means no smoking guns as well

Much of Route 66 through Illinois sadly has become a frontage road for Interstate 55. But despite having the stream of cars and trucks on the freeway in constant view, the road itself gets little traffic. Even though there are no shoulders on the two-lane roadway, I had little concern being on it, as most vehicles took extra care in passing me. The freeway does curve away from the old towns which has somewhat preserved their main streets but they are largely bypassed relics. Some of the more famous landmarks are being kept alive by nostalgic aficionados.

Looks like I missed last week's donuts

A long day of riding took me to Springfield, Abraham Lincoln's beloved town and the State Capital of Illinois. Route 66 merges with the interstate getting into the city so I had to find a way around through rural roads, some of them unpaved, past cornfields and farmhouses in the fading dusk. A glowing Motel 6 sign was a final beacon that led me to a comfy bed for the night.

I spent the next morning exploring Springfield, starting with Lincoln's home. The National Parks Service has done a great job of preserving not only the house, but the entire 4 block neighbourhood quadrant so that it sits in context. The cross-street is gravelled and closed to cars, enhancing its quiet period charm. I signed up for a free tour and watched a half-hour movie which gave me a new appreciation for one of the most iconic US Presidents, and America's great turning point when it was faced with a crumbling union and the pending Civil War.

Lincoln's former Law fim before he became president

I like these life-size, unpedestalled statues that make Lincoln very human

I make it out to Lincoln by mid-afternnon, a town named after Abe before he was even president. It has a charming historic courthouse square, the scene of the painting "Lincoln in Lincoln". Abe practiced law here, having influenced its location as the county seat and a railroad station.

Back on the frontage road, I took risk ignoring another "road closed" sign but this time I was met with a bridge that was completely torn out. I managed to wind through a farmer's field, asking permission to take the shortcut from an old woman with a walker who seemed to be keeping busy with the futile attempt of weeding the edge of a vast farm field. She was concerned whether I was going to make it to Bloomington which was 12 miles away, but I told her I had already gone 50 miles from Springfield. Before sunset I made it past Bloomington, to Normal — definitely nothing abnormal about the place, but it had a decent cheap motel.

A nice bike path just beside Rout 66 leading into Bloomington

The next day it seemed like I got into a trance following Old Route 66 that I overshot my turn by 15 miles. With about 100 miles to go the start of the "Mother Road" in Chicago, I left the historic route and turned east into the endless cornfields towards Indiana..

The town of Towanda  took a portion of the original Route 66 roadway and turned it into an interpretive pathway. as the bike route develops they may do more of this.

Left the highway for these super quiet county roads

Meat, Me and St Louis

Missouri is like the nexus of America. It sits at the dividing line of what Americans consider the east and west, and north and south. I've heard an interesting mix of accents in the different parts of the state in my short time travelling through it. There's an impressive layer of history here enough to lay claim to sophistication, but beneath it still lies the memory of the frontier. 

Despite a lack of sleep from the raucous night in Mokane, I actually did well the next day. After breakfast at the country store, I was back on the trail with a light tailwind. One motivating factor to keep constantly moving was the vicious mosquitoes . As soon as I stopped they would swarm, especially along the swampy parts of the trail. Sometimes the landscape reminded me of rice fields, a flat wide humid valley bordered by high bluffs on either side.

Someone slower than me

People in eastern Missouri are super friendly and I enjoyed chatting with people at every little stop I make. Powered by some great ice cream in Augusta, I got my second wind in the afternoon and ambitiously made it to St Charles, an 88 mile/140km day on unpaved trail which is far more strenuous than riding on paved roads. 

The underbelly of bridges leading into St Louis

I had planned to camp out, but I soon found out that there was no camping in the vicinity of the old town. It was also threatening to rain hard and all the motels and hotels in the are were booked solid. I went into the local bike cafe to ask for advice and they told me my best bet would be a pricy bed and breakfast. With my legs caked in sweat and mud, and the day fast getting old, I decided to pull out my free pass to Buy-Myself-Out-of-Misery™ (my personal expression when I'm in "reward mode") and took an expensive room (for my budget anyway) right in the historic main street of St Charles. One bonus was it was just across from the brew pub, so in for a penny, in for a pound, I lived it up with a dinner of barbecued ribs and a couple of pints.

A bicycle built for seven

A full rack of ribs

Breakfast with the other guests was hearty and lively the next morning at the B&B, and we all chatted around the table about a wealth of subjects. A few people were in a similar bind of being desperate to find accommodation, so I felt somewhat lucky to get the last room in the inn. It had rained hard during the night, and another thundershower came around just as I was about to leave. I went back to the bike cafe to wait out the last of the rain and met two other long distance cyclists.

The Bike Stop Cafe is a meeting place for cyclists doing the Katy Trail and beyond

Getting into the City of St Louis was circuitous and confusing. I followed instructions i found on the web and I did not realize how relatively hilly the metropolitan area is. I was expecting this city in the confluence of two great rivers, to be a well eroded topographically (like Montreal or Winnipeg), but it was quite the contrary.

I had three things I wanted to do in St Louis: 1) Ride around Forest Park, which was the site of the 1904 World's Fair, 2) See the Gateway Arch and 3) have more St Louis Style Barbecued Ribs. I happened upon Forest Park first and went into the Missouri History Museum which had a hall dedicated to the World's Fair. I was a bit hot to fully enjoy the ride around the park but it was easy enough with the bike paths crisscrossing the vast greenspace.

Ribs again, this time a classic St Louis cut

The Gateway Arch was surprisingly the most difficult place to get to since the monument is currently going through a renewal/expansion project and was fenced in except for a single access point. It was crowded with tourists and I did not have the patience to buy tickets to go into the arch itself. It's best appreciated from the outside anyway, and after going around the base and seeing the flood damage on the banks of the Mississippi, I crossed over into East St Louis, Illinois to view the skyline from the other side. It's rather unfortunate that most of the recent buildings are quite ugly compared to the elegance of the 50 year old arch.

The view from East St Louis

East St Louis is a sad looking place, a hollowed out shell of a city that seems to have been abandoned in favour of the fresher suburbs. Its decaying and boarded up buildings look like a set for a post-apocalyptic movie. I had to ride far out into its fringes to find a place that didn't look like I wouldn't be attacked by zombies :)

Sad how a beautiful building could be in such disrepair that trees are growing out of it