Ohio at last!

Today, Team Portland finally left the brutal hills of Pennsylvania behind in favor of flat Ohio!

Day 5 was rough. A local cyclist made our route and had us go straight through Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was a disaster. Tons of traffic, crazy drivers, confusing streets, and to top it all off - pouring rain. Everyone got lost almost immediately. My group got lost in the ghetto. It was really scary. You could tell that it was an area that people don't typically ride through on Cannondales. Our vans were busy racing around trying to help people and we were left without food for 8 hours. After a lot of frustration and rerouting using Google Maps, we finally made it to the lunch stop, cold and wet and at 5 pm, where all the groups met up eventually. I honestly have no idea how people used to bike across the country before cell phones, and even before smartphones. We rely on them sooo much on this trip. I have a battery booster case because my phone would be dead before the end of the ride without it. I don't have any pictures of this day because it was depressing but here's one another rider took that pretty accurately sums up our feelings on this day.

Wahhhhhh.

Day 6 was a great fresh start. The weather was chilly and the skies threatened to rain again, but we made it without any rain. We biked only 50 miles (though hilly!!) from Grove City to Turtle Bay Lodge in Tionesta, PA. One of our riders, Jared, knows the owner of the lodge and was able to hook us up with some awesome arrangements here. The owners cooked us dinner and breakfast, and we had a whole hunting lodge to ourselves for the night, which had 9 full-size beds and several couches. Everyone got a bed! The location was also a bit off the beaten path, and no one had cell service or wifi for almost 24 hours. It was nice to be able to bond with teammates without the distractions of our electronics. It was also nice to go to bed at 10 pm. We did buzz cuts for some of the boys (and a mohawk for one), and I learned how to cut hair. A couple of my teammates told me they only let Italians cut their hair... so I'm glad I now know how.

Sleeping arrangements at the lodge!

Day 7 was a VERY long day, and I cycled longer than I ever had before -- 84 miles!

Immediately after getting on the road from Tionesta we had to do an extra 7 miles just to cross the river (the only bridge was 3.5 miles in the wrong direction). I suggested swimming across the river with our bikes over our heads. I mean some of our team is triathletes. That idea wasn't received very well.

Route from Tionesta to Erie.

BTW, here's an FAQ: How do you make the route?? How do people know where they're going while riding?? Well, we make the route in Google Maps. We usually start with whatever Google suggests as a biking route. Then we zoom in and examine all the roads. We do Google Street View wherever possible to see how road conditions look (i.e. traffic, shoulder size, pavement quality), and also talk to our local hosts to ask for recommendations. We make changes as needed (very easy, just by dragging the route around in Google). Google then allows us to print out the directions, which we also call cue sheets. BUT being tech-savvy individuals who also don't have access to printers, we save it as a PDF instead and email it out to the team. The team downloads it (95% of us have smartphones) and then we don't need to have cell service, nor does it take much battery, in order to reference it on our phones during the day. We also map the route in MapMyRide, only to get the elevation profile to be prepared for the millions of questions from the team: Is tomorrow hilly?? How many hills?? Steep or long hills?? Where are the hills? What mile numbers?? etc. We do the directions with mini-maps for each step, which helps a lot, and the water van also chalks in the road to indicate turns when they can. You'd be surprised how bad my generation is at directions and navigation.... we still have groups getting lost alllllll the time. 

Example page of directions

Anyway, back to Day 7: The day had lots of turns, as there wasn't a very direct route from Tionesta to Erie. Also, apparently Pennsylvania doesn't believe in paving their roads or putting up street signs. That was rather frustrating. Luckily, our water van did an EXCELLENT job of chalking (drawing chalk arrows on the road) and we did okay with the complicated directions. We did have to do over 20 miles of dirt/gravel roads, though, which was noooot fun. That included a huge climb on a dirt road that happened at mile 6 and really tired out the team from the start. Rolling hills the rest of the way made for a long and difficult day, though the temperatures remained cold.

Our day was supposed to be 76 miles, but due to a few wrong turns, everyone on the team did at least 80. My group did 84, which included climbing an unnecessary 2-mile mountain. Oops. The funny thing is that we are so used to this that we weren't even mad when we found out.

Wooo!

On this day I was pushed physically harder than I probably have ever been before. I was in a fast group that included Chris, one of the two strongest cyclists on our team, who pushed our pace the entire day. I kept convincing myself that I only had to go that pace for 5 more minutes, and then just kept starting the counter over. It worked. There were some points when I fell behind and thought I just couldn't keep up anymore, but I was always able to get back with the group and into the pace again. We were pushing 17-18 mph for at least 3/4 of the ride, which is a BIG improvement for me. Chris was thrilled that we all kept up (though if he had it his way he'd still be going at least 3 mph faster) and was proud of us. 

I'm also getting a little more comfortable with drafting, which is riding really close behind the wheel of the person in front of you, in order to not work as hard (same concept as getting better gas mileage when you drive behind a tractor trailer). The idea is that the person in the front works the hardest and you take turns being the leader (called "taking point"). The strong riders want us to draft all the time, but it is nerve-wracking, even if it does make the ride easier. I will draft when we're on a reasonably flat road with no traffic, but I'm not comfortable doing it when we're around traffic. I've also realized that I can work SIGNIFICANTLY less when drafting off of Chris... he is 6'4" ;) His legs are basically up to my shoulders.

It's one thing to push your pace for 10 miles... but it's entirely another to push it for 85. I was EXHAUSTED when the day was finally over. My group rolled in first, around 4:30 pm, and I just wanted to collapse. Before showering we went down to check out Lake Erie, which was REALLY exciting to see, but it involved going down 94 steps to the lake... going back up the stairs was the most painful thing ever. We stayed in a cabin at a YMCA cabin that had 12 bunk beds. We were able to get S'mores materials donated and made an awesome campfire... though it only lasted like an hour before everyone collapsed into bed after the long day.

4K campfire :)

After that, I was convinced I wouldn't be able to walk today. But we had a great pancake breakfast cooked for us by one of the managers at the YMCA, the sun finally showed itself after 3 days of clouds, AND we were about to enter Ohio!! Ohio for us has been the light at the end of the tunnel for the past 7 days. It has been synonymous with flat ground.

Today's ride was great - sunny and cool and an easy, FLAT 60 miles! We were along the coastal Ohio Lake Erie trail for most of the way, with a cool breeze off the water and a nice view! The Ohio state line appeared at mile 14.

Our destination was Jared aka Princess's house in Perry, Ohio. I'm writing from his house, which is the first GREAT wifi we've had so far! WOO! We all got in super early because of the easy ride and are relaxing before dinner, which Jared's aunt and uncle are feeding us!

The team has been getting along quite well and we already have several additions to our morning cheer, which we add when something funny happens. Our team has also come up with many variations on snapchats (if you don't know what Snapchat is, ask your nearest under-25-year-old):

• napchats 
• snackchats
• flatchats (taken when someone has a flat tire OR when we see flat ground - rare in PA)
• crabchats 
• slapchats
• fatchat

Napchat example: Gavin

The next week promises to be very mild. Tomorrow we have an easy ride through some parks, to Dan's house in Westlake, OH. We will be avoiding Cleveland entirely in order to not recreate our Pittsburgh day. We then have our first rest day!! Wednesday we ride to Sandusky, and Thursday we have another rest day -- CEDAR POINT!!!! Then we head to Columbus where we have a Service day. It's not common that we will have this many rest days -- after this it will be once a week.

Here's to a good week in Ohio!! Thanks for reading! :)