Day 75: Olmstead Falls to Kent

August 14, 2021

Another day on Trails and Bike paths

“Hi, that shirt you are wearing, he fixed my bike frame,” Patrick says to the cyclist stopped at the red light. He is wearing a riding shirt with Methow bikes in Winthrop WA.

John rides with us through the city streets and Metropark bike paths to the trail we will need for the first part of the day. It’s nice to have an escort who knows the bike routes as this saves us the time we would be stopping to look at the GPS. After about 5 miles, we are on the Mill Stream Run Reservation bikeway and John turns back towards home.

Eventually we turn onto the Valley Parkway with one big climb and then on the other side lots of coasting to the Cuyahoga River. Here we pick up the Towpath Trail and follow the historic Ohio and Erie canal way along the river, first to the town of Boston, then to Peninsula. The trail follows the river and there are still old locks along the way. We stop at the Historic Visitor Center in Boston for ice cream. Local cyclists on an overnight ride tell us there is also a scenic train that goes from Cleveland to Akron and will take bikes.

At Peninsula, we climb for 3 miles on highway 303, out of the valley and onto to the Summit Trail that takes us towards Kent. Our hosts live south of town. We have a sandwich at an Italian Deli downtown and find our way on a quiet, but very hilly road to our hosts.

Fritz welcomes us into their beautiful house and garden. His wife Jo Ann is out of town today but will be back tomorrow. We are shown to a comfortable room upstairs, take a shower and get cold drinks. In the evening we eat food partially grown in their own garden and share a bottle of homemade Chianti wine. Patrick also takes a first ride down the zip line Fritz has built in the back yard for his grand kids. There is a tree-house where we could have slept if it wasn’t so humid, and there is a tall platform with a telescope from where we look in detail at the craters on the moon.

It feels like we are visiting friends we have known for years. Tomorrow will be a restday.