We crossed off a bucket list item!
Taking a long bike ride and staying somewhere overnight has been on our list for at least 15 years. Due to COVID-19, other travel plans got scrapped.
Plan A
We were supposed to go to Florida but Tim visited after a family reunion and Chuck was here at the same time after a wedding reception. The risk to the parents was too great. We had to change plans.
Plan B
A trip to Cape Cod for just the two of us. During the hotel planning, we discovered that Massachusetts was instituting a new policy where visitors from Ohio must either get a COVID test or self-quarantine for 14 days. Neither of those sounded like good ideas.
Plan C
This became a local bike ride to Yellow Springs on the Ohio Rails-to-Trails path. We mapped and planned, planned and mapped. From the house it’s 58 miles one way, from Loveland it’s 50 miles. At 10 miles per hour (Lynn’s average) it would be 5 hours in the saddle. We opted to start in South Lebanon at 43 miles.
We loaded up the bikes on Sunday morning and drove to South Lebanon. The only supplies we brought were a very small overnight bag, water, and a couple powerbars. The weather was iffy the whole way. The goods news the cloud cover kept the temperature moderate. The outbound ride took 4.5 hours. We arrived at the the Mills Park Hotel around 3:30 and we were wonderfully surprised how nice the hotel was. A real surprise for such a small town. We had dinner at Ye Olde Trail Tavern. We were so tired, it didn’t matter where or what was available.
The weather on Monday didn’t look much better so we didn’t stick around long. We were on the trail before 10:30. The ride back felt much, much shorter. We finished in just under four hours and averaged 11 miles per hour. The peddling wasn’t the hard part, it was sitting on the tiny little seat.
Overall, it was a great experience. Lynn was amazing the whole way and made it feel easier than it was. I thrilled we were able to do this.
