June 27, 2005

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Our quiet campground and good night’s sleep wasn’t to be. A group was camping at the bottom of the hill near Clark Lake and at 1:30 AM we were treated to red neck music blaring from their van’s CD player about 100 feet away. I fell asleep listening to my radio so I first I thought it was still on. I listened to a few of the tracks (it was a comical twangy style of country) that were pretty funny. Nick got up and dressed and went down to ask them to tone it down about 2,000 decibels. They said they didn’t know any one was camping up there. That was surprising, as they drove up the hill to use the outhouse two times earlier in the evening. They turned the volume way down but a half hour letter they started setting off fireworks. Nick called the police and things quieted down after that.

<-Tim Riding in OH - - - Jim riding in IN->

We rolled out at about 8:15 to another hot day in the making. About ten miles in we hit a section of rough road and I mentioned: “That’s not too good for Nick’s wheel.” As we were riding into Zanesville there was a slight rise, Nick jumped out of the saddle and “ping”, broke a second spoke on the rear wheel. That’s two broken spokes now on the wheel, it needed to be fixed. Off to our left was Stinson Auto Repair. We took the wheel off and walked into the garage as Dan Stinson was working on a vehicle on the lift. I figured we could find some way to get the rear cassette off with the tools in his garage. Our first couple of attempts failed. First we wrapped a serpentine belt around the cassette and used a wrench for leverage - - no go. Next we put the cassette in a vise with the serpentine belt around it - - no go. As we were giving up Dan came over and asked: “Would some bailing twine work? I could use the impact wrench to loosen it up.” We wrapped bailing twined around the cassette, Dan gave it a rap, rap, rap with the impact wrench and wallah!, off came the cassette. From there I replaced the two broken spokes, trued up the tire the best I could without a truing stand, and Nick’s bike was good to go.

Unconventional Tools for Bike Repair

As we were preparing to leave the general store next to Stinson’s opened so we went in to snack up. Under a glass on the counter previous cyclists passing through left log notes on pieces of paper. We left one also. Another rider named Pete Hidas came in while we were there. He is doing a solo ride east to west from Maine to California and riding 50 to 60 miles a day. He is a 57-year-old CPA who sold his practice. He was bitten by a dog along the way. He stayed the previous night at Monroeville, IN where we planned to spend the night had to change our plans. We wished each other well and were on the road again.

Talking with Cross Country Cyclist Pete Hidas

We took one of our brakes in Monroeville and met Warren Fluttrow who is a trail angel for cyclists. In Monroeville they have a town shelter at the city park that caters to cyclists. It has plenty of air-conditioned space inside, cots (if needed), and a bathroom with a shower, and washer and dryer that is reserved for cyclists. Warren took us to the facility and showed it to us. It was quite nice. Too bad we couldn’t make it there yesterday. If any touring cyclist going through Monroeville, IN wants a contact number, call Warren at 623-3388. He’ll set you up real nice!

Trail Angel Warren Fluttrow

We arrived in Independence later than we planned at around 7:30. We rode the ninety miles in just over six hours but the stops and a time change made it later than planned. Independence Dam State Park showed camping on our maps but when we arrived there were "no camping" signs. It was late; we were tired and hungry so we camped anyway. With no other campers around it was a quiet night.

Jim

Cycledog (Ride the extra mile!!)

© 2005 - JNS