Biking Brian’s Blog

Unlike most of the tour, today’s riding was mostly fairly urban, starting in the far western and ending in the far eastern suburbs of Cleveland. But NO CORNFIELDS today – yippee! The first part of US 6 is a four laner near the lakefront. But surprisingly, the Cleveland-Sandusky road becomes a mostly residential tree-lined street…

(Apologies in advance to non-bike people for the excessive technical content for this update.) No more rivers to follow on this part of the route; therefore, I was in cornfields for most of the day. I had a minor problem with the cleat on my right shoe. The part of the cleat that restricts the…

I had a tough time getting up this morning. Maybe it was because I lost an hour with the time change. Or because I lost an additional hour staying up to watch “Highlander” on TV. The forecast was for another pleasant day, so at least I didn’t have to get up early to beat the…

I had my sleeping bag and mattress pad on the wooden platform where the band or disk jockey sets up. A pretty hard surface, but better than the concrete floor. Regardless, I was tired enough so I slept well. To “check out”, all I had to do was turn off the lights and lock the…

The thunderstorms last night were weaker than expected, but the cooler air behind them still came as promised. So I was in no hurry to leave in the morning. It was five miles on US 24 until I rejoined the official route in Lagro. Now to one of the benefits of following the Adventure Cycling…

Indiana has a network of farm roads similar to Iowa’s. They’re on a grid, starting from a reference point (either the county seat or the geographical center of the county, I’m not sure which) – an east-west road one mile north is called 100N, two miles north is 200N, you get the idea. Yesterday I…

Sometimes in my haste to get these out I forget to provide insights as to my state of mind while on tour! During my Chicago stay my wife’s Uncle Bob had asked me (Bob’s always asking questions!) if I would have a hard time on the bike right after the two days off. I told…

Being about 15 miles west of downtown Chicago, today’s challenge was to figure out which way to go. So today’s ride was mostly southbound to get as much rural riding as possible. Although Highway 83 is three lanes in each direction, it has a good shoulder and was a good direct route out. Later it…

I went to Lickton’s bike shop when they opened on Monday. Talking with the staff I knew they had good experience with building wheels. Although they were busy, they were able to build a new wheel for me the same day – the guy who did it had also toured before, so he knew the…

Sunday was spent with family and waiting for recommendations for bike shops. I got several good bike shop recommendations, but Lickton’s in Oak Park was the best combination of being a good reference and closeness to my location. Furthermore, the recommendations I received indicated that they were a bit on the conversative side when it…