Day 9: Steubenville, OH – Bolivar, OH

Back on the road today, I set my sights on Cleveland which would be my next stop. I knew I wouldn’t make it in one day but I wanted to make a fair amount of progress.

The day started with climbing up the same hills I had ridden before getting my bike troubles two days ago. I mapped out a route of side roads I could take instead of the main road, and those were a much better alternative.
Once reconnected to the main road, I got honked at a few times. I don’t really understand why drivers are so antsy about me taking up a full lane on a 4 lane road, just go around. Once I got out of town, traffic died down but I faced a pretty big climb that I had to stop and rest halfway through. It depends on the grade of course but it seems I can’t do hills with more than 300 feet of constant climbing without having to stop and rest. Hopefully I’ll get better about that. With all the hills I did manage to break my top speed twice – first 41.2 then 42.8 mph.

I made it to the Ohio countryside and the hills continued but were more manageable. I didn’t find anywhere to eat lunch so I just stopped at a bench and ate a bag of gorp. Kind of amazing that those little bags have 900 calories, but that’s exactly what I want.

I continued through the Ohio countryside and got chased by dogs a couple times. My current strategy against dogs is to dismount and keep walking. They usually keep barking that way but don’t get too close. I haven’t had to use my pepper spray yet but I moved it closer to my right hand in case I need it.

Fuck dogs.

I connected to an 11 mile bike path which was a nice break from the traffic but it went by too quickly and before I knew it I was back on state highways with 6 inch shoulders. At one point, the passenger in a red pickup truck threw what looked like a biscuit at me. He missed. But America, if you are trying to make me not hate you, you’re doing it wrong.

Fuck people.

Not to say i had a terrible day or anything, it was still pretty good. I connected to the Ohio-Erie canal towpath for 5-10 miles before heading to a campground for the night, where the attendant was amazed I had biked there, since they typically just get RVs. It was kind of expensive but they had showers so I took one and called it a day.

Today’s mileage: 82 miles
Total: 508 miles