Columbus to St Clairsville in Ohio – Cycling in Ohio

Day 33 – Columbus to St Clairsville

Next morning it’s about 200% humidity as we roll our bikes out of the Comfort Inn at Obetz and saddle-up. I slept nearly zero last night, as there is apparently a softball tournament in town, and there was lots of party spirit all around us. All night. Suffice it to say that I’m making zero effort to be quiet as I’m getting ready to leave at 5:30 in the morning…

Meandering east and north through the suburbs east of Columbus, we eventually make our way back up to Old 40 as it parallels I-70. It’s a four-lane highway that’s essentially deserted of cars. I realize it’s a Saturday morning, which could account for the low traffic volume, but it looks like a highway that doesn’t see much use. After a few miles, the road narrows back down to 2 lanes, and begins to feel very much like The Old National Pike.

It strikes me that right here, this morning, the road around me has shifted a bit in historical time. It was the early 1800’s when this old Pike was commissioned by a young nation, and the remains of history that old is becoming evident. Back then, this was considered “the West”, being “tamed” by this new road reaching out and offering a path for commerce and expansion. Today, as I ride my bike along the pleasant old road, up and down the increasing hills, I’ve entered “the East”.

I suppose it was somewhere back in Kansas that things shifted for me, and it felt like I left “the West”, entering “the Midwest”. From eastern Kansas to central Ohio, things have felt very much like the Midwest to me. Now, entering the hilly terrain of eastern Ohio, seeing the old history from the early 1800’s, it feels like I’m crossing into something like the East.

At about 60 miles we hit Zanesville, where we stop and have lunch/breakfast at Juanita’s. It’s a little local dive – the kind of place Dave and I dearly love. The food at this sort of place is often a real crapshoot – sometimes you end up with really great food, and sometimes you end up with really not-so-great food. But let’s face it, the ambiance is why we’re here. Well, that, and the local “color”.

Turns out the food at Juanita’s is pretty decent, and the local color is more than worth the price of admission, as we eavesdrop on several colorful conversations. By the time we leave, our bellies are full of decent food and our imaginations are overflowing with local color.

Just after leaving Juanita’s, we cross the old “Y Bridge” in Zanesville, and weave our way through historic Zanesville. Old limestone buildings are well-maintained on either side of the road as we meander and gander our way through this grand old town. We stop at the Three Sixty Bike Shop and pick up a couple extra tire tubes, as both Dave and I have had a couple flats over the past couple days.

Just after Cambridge, US40 is swallowed up by I-70. As a result, In Cambridge we’re forced to leave US-40 and angle our way southeast on some state highways, then angle back northeast to rejoin US-40 west of St Clairsville. When planning the trip, I struggled with this little ten or fifteen mile stretch, wondering if we could just stay on the interstate for this section. Another alternative would have been to angle a bit north of the highway, but I chose south.

Turns out these are some of the prettiest roads of the trip so far. Gentle rolling hills, low traffic volume, and courteous drivers. As a bonus, we find a little rail-trail running beside the road for a few miles just as we leave Cambridge. In the little town of Salesville, we get a little turned around and end up on a side street, where we are warmly greeted by a young woman unloading groceries.

Where 99% of the population lives, there’s no way on earth an attractive young woman would warmly greet a couple guys on bicycles outside her home as she unloads groceries, striking up a conversation. I’m not making any judgements of right or wrong, I’m just observing something about our cultural guidelines and the way things work in our society. But here in tiny little Salesville Ohio, this gal is genuinely and innocently interested in who we are, where we’re from, and where we’re going.

One of the regrets I’ll have on this trip is that I don’t stop and chat with her, but instead just say a few words in passing as I pedal slowly. I’ve heard it said that we rarely regret things we do – that regrets almost always come from things we don’t do. I think this gal was just looking for a little conversation from the larger world. Maybe she was a fellow cyclist curious about our route. Maybe she was bored, looking for a few words about adventure. Whatever it was, I’m guessing that stopping and chatting on the curb outside her house would have brought her much joy, and probably enriched my life. At the very least, I’ll bet she would have been one more interesting story for me to share in this book!

Dave and I make our way back to US-40 several miles west of St Clairsville. Pedaling along our primary route, with heavier traffic and more surety about where we are, I’m looking back on the last several hours of wandering along the back roads finding our way back up here. We weren’t wandering aimlessly – I had a route in my GPS that we could either follow or stay close to. But there’s a feeling along back roads that’s missing on a more primary thoroughfare.

Nobody along the back roads has any big Point A or Point B they’re moving from or to, and you pick that up from the drivers as they pass, and the stops along the way. It’s all local traffic – folks going to see a neighbor, or to the grocery, or out to complete a chore. Mom bringing lunch to Dad out in the field as he rakes that last cutting of hay for the season.

Folks along the back roads are living right here, in this little piece of the universe. You feel that as you pedal your way through. You feel them sharing their little piece of the universe with you. They’re hosting you on the road that winds its way through their life. There are more smiles, more waves. More moms with groceries in their arms wondering where you’ve been and where you’re going.

I think this must be what we felt back in the middle of the country, so welcome and safe as we rode across southwest and southern Kansas along US-160. Nobody was using that highway to get from A to B. There were too many other options for moving west to east. Folks along that road lived there, and we were guests in their home as we rode. I do believe there’s something to the general nature of “folks” in that part of the country too – folks are good and nice and decent. But there are good folks everywhere, and we don’t get that same “welcome and safe” feeling everyplace where good folks live.

Back on US-40, I feel the difference. This is still a road that’s more “local” than the interstate, but folks along the road feel more intent on getting someplace. More interested in being somewhere else. Less content with the place they are in the universe at this moment.

We’ve picked up a tiny bit of tailwind, and I’ve got juice left in my legs. We fly along the road at a pretty good clip. I’m out in front of Dave, which is a change. Part of me wonders if this is one of those rare times when I’m a little stronger than Dave, but most of me is pretty sure he’s just letting me ride out front for a change. Either way, it feels good to be in front, and I’m reminded again of that psychological boost we get when we get to be out front, leading the charge.

Like Zanesville, St Clairsville is a charming old town from the early part of the nineteenth century. Old limestone buildings – well built and well cared for – line the road through town. A thunderstorm is building in the west, chasing us along the highway, and we feel raindrops a few times as the front edge of the storm dances along our back.

Our home for the night here is a nice one – one of the nights when we get to use Hilton points to stay. We’ve covered 130 miles today, and we ended the day feeling strong. Bolstered by a big steak dinner with plenty of protein and high-quality calories, we realize that we’re very close to completing this journey. Tomorrow we’ll end up along the southern edge of Pennsylvania, where we’ll take a rest day. Then two fairly easy days of riding and we’re at the salt water on the right side of the continent.

It hadn’t struck me until this point just how close we are. The further east you go, the smaller the states become. Out in California – when I began this trip – I spent six days in one state, including a rest day. The same in Arizona – five or six days including a rest day. That pattern stayed the same until I was across Missouri, when I started crossing states in just a couple days. (Granted, I did lollygag my way across Missouri on the Katy Trail…)

Here we sit in Ohio – which most folks consider “the Midwest”, and we’re just three or four days ride from the east coast. A good day of riding and good food mix to create a euphoria in both Dave and I, and we start to smell that barn at the end of the trail.

The route I have planned for us will take us over into Pennsylvania tomorrow, where we’ll pick up the GAP trail to take us down to Cumberland. The GAP is a nice rail-trail that runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. It’s not paved, but uses crushed rock like the Katy trail did back in Missouri.

Just like our route today, taking this route along the GAP trail will add a few miles to our total route. As we soak in the euphoria of the evening, we realize that if we changed our route, we could make it to our destination a day earlier. In fact, we could make it to our destination a day earlier by keeping the same route, and just not taking the rest day in Pennsylvania. However, as we think about it, we’re starting to like the idea of missing the crushed gravel, and cutting a few miles out of the route instead.

In planning this route, I spent a lot of time researching routes, talking to bicycle shops on the phone, pouring over maps and online information, doing all I could to find the best route I could. One piece of advice I got over and over from folks in this part of the country was to avoid US-40 when it angles down toward Cumberland. This is why I have planned our route to add a few more miles and get us over to the GAP trail.

The feedback I got – consistently – was the US-40 is hilly with lots of traffic. Do everything you can to avoid this stretch of road.

Sitting here at a nice dinner table, bodies bathed in endorphins from a hard day of riding, bellies filled with good food, two dear friends find it easy to talk each other into a bad decision. I mean really, we’re from Colorado and ride in the mountains all the time – how bad can the hills be? We don’t mind hills at all – we like ‘em. Back home, we go out of our way to find long steep mountains to climb. And traffic? How much worse can it be than what we’ve been riding in? We’ve been riding along US-40, and it hasn’t been that bad.

So, in a little hotel in St Clairsville, Ohio, Dave and I talk each other into the worse decision we’ll make on this trip.