Day 58

51 miles Policemen called Matt, life and death on Columbus Parkway and a full on soaking. 

A nice morning because of the people we met. We said goodbye to Monica and Gayle at the Miami Motel and cycled to a nearby petrol station to have a morning cup of coffee. We met a policeman called Matt and a nice man whose name I forget. He was very proud of his Model A Ford :

Matt

The lovely old model A with unlikely driver.

We all chatted for a while (too long) before we headed off.

We had taken quite a bit of advice re routes and decided to ride on the 50 running south of but also into the city. This was perfect at first.

We made it onto 5th street in Cincinnati on our cut through then stopped for food. Where else but: 

We hopped back on the bikes and continued down 5th. This became the 50 again as planned. We were well and truly committed to the road when it became Columbus Parkway – no bicycles, no pedestrians! There was nothing we could do , we carried on until finally making it off this crazy section of highway lunacy. We took the beeping horns and accepted our error. We live to ride another day. 

Once off this section we took a break to allow our heart rates to become sub 150. Here we met a second policeman called Matt!

We didn’t mention the whole ‘parkway event’. He did however give us some route tips. 

We called at two great bike shops as Tracey needed some new tops, thank you to the kind and helpful staff – Steve at  Smittys and  Patti and Cheryl at 50 West Cycling.

We headed north towards a town called Milford where sadly we had another flat tyre. This made me significantly unhappy. 

This time it turned out to be a damaged valve and was not the return of the mystery tube holes. We did however call into Bishops Bike shop where we got Jonathan to retape the rim of the back wheel and put on a new super duper Marathon Plus tyre. This will hopefully mean the end of Tracey’s woes. 

Jonathan

We pressed on aiming to reach Wilmington but got caught in the rain. 

Pouring unrelenting rain which soaked us to the skin and caused us to halt our progress and sort a place to stay for the night. We will be back on the road super early tomorrow come rain or shine. 

* a note to our pal Kathy, we couldn’t mess you about in the pouring rain but we regret not being able to stay with you. Your company and the opera would have been remarkable. xxx