Top of Ohio Ride - Trainwreck Sunday

We had good intentions for the Top of Ohio Ride.

Unfortunately I stayed out later than I expected and woke up at 6AM for the ride. Midway through coffee and bagel I fell asleep. I took a cat nap for 20 minutes, and was late out the door. We met downtown and Jonny kinda knew where the start of the ride was. I followed Jonny in my car and headed out 670 toward Hilliard. Once we passed 270 and then Rome-Hilliard Road and then Plain City I thought we had gone too far. So we turned around and finally made it to the start.

I was putting all the crap on my bike and noticed that the crank was not turning smoothly. I could not figure out what it was, but Jonny saw that the bolt for my new rack was making contact with the cassette.  A swap of bolts and we were good. Then my stomach went south. I swear the toilet was broken when I got there. As soon as I sat down it almost fell over, it was so loose. After that incident we went to sign up for the ride and they were out of maps. So we were mapless, and clueless.

Before we made it out of the lot I realized I had forgotten to put my rear blinky light on the rack. Forget it! We moved on to the start but then I couldn't get my speedometer to work. Magnet slid down the spoke. We rode a few miles and stopped at a Giant Eagle for food. Coffee sucked.

At about 25 miles my IT band started to make me squeal like a little girl, so we pulled over in some unsuspecting persons yard and stretched on the driveway. It was nice sitting on a warm pavement eating snacks and stretching.

We passed a lot of farms with cows and stopped to see a whole herd hanging out in a field.

At 50+ miles we got to Bellefontaine (pronounced Belle Fountain or Bell Fontane?) I don't know. It is really tough to find local restaurants in small towns. Of course all fast food giants are represented. I don't know how that is called progress. We ate at a local Mexican restaurant off the beaten path.

Did I mention my bottom bracket decided to start making a whirring noise every time I turned the crank? It did for 40 miles.

So we leave Bellefontaine and start the climb to the "Top of Ohio." Anti-climactic to say the least. You can't even get to the top because it is part of campus which was locked up tight. We headed out and down into a valley and turned southeast. We crossed over 33 and this is where the fun started. Two words, "corkscrew hill."

I downshifted to climb and Jonny attempts to shift. A cacophony of metallic sounds emanated from the rear wheel. Then all of a sudden a single spring sound broke open the chain (no pun intended) of events. The spring on the derailleur broke causing the sprockets to be pulled into the cassette and bent the hanger. Not something that is field repairable. We thought about making it into a single speed, but we didn't have a replacement chain pin to put it back together.

Hitchhiking didn't seem to work so we decided to call for help. Everybody we know was either busy or out of town. So we called in the cavalry. The Ohio Highway Patrol. I didn't think that they would do anything for us, but after two calls to verify our location a patrolman showed up. Trooper Stanley drove me 45 miles down 33 to Hilliard back to my car. I unloaded all of my crap into Jonny's car and then took off. 45 miles back to the Mad River ski resort. Then after tracking down Jonny at the ski resort we loaded up and then drove, you guessed it, 45 miles back to Hilliard.

We ended up with 68 miles. We averaged 15.2mph. Not bad for the issues we had. We also logged over 160 miles in the car.