Day9: Gmaps strikes again, Defiance to Maumee OH

Saturday June 22, 2019

A day really messed up by Gmaps that ended up saved, if too long, by asking for routing advice from locals. I really wasted a lot of time and energy today by trusting a Google maps route to be viable. It was not, as it turned out, reality based. When playing with routes, I saw one that used the Wabash Cannonball Trail. It also went by a bike shop on the trail and that gave me one last chance - today is Saturday and US bike shops are traditionally closed on Sunday and Monday - to get a new seat post before I have to ride with that annoying click for at least several more days. Not only did that not work out, but the first section of that trail that Google routed me on has never existed and much of the rest of trail is not rideable. After discovering some of that, I retraced my route and then took a shorter route back to get to US 24 which I had crossed twice, once getting to Napoleon where my phone lost its route again because of a routing error on my part and got it back after I got us back on route quite a while later just after crossing Us 24 heading for the place where the trail was to be my route to that bike shop and beyond.

Just before I was about to reach US 24 again, there was a Marathon Station. I stopped for a snack and routing advice. There was a good sign when I rolled up the station. It had a rack for parking bicycles! when I explained what had happened, the fellow at the station asked "did you get stopped by a 'squishy' part of that trail? and told me it wasn't paved till the next county which was at least 10 miles away and the unpaved trail had, because of all the rain, sections that weren't rideable. I explain that I was stopped by a section that was simply missing and by seeing that the section after that was simply two track through the woods.

He suggested I not get on US 24 but continue on down OH 109 to the old US 24 which was now the official bike route. It is CO 424 here just as it was before Defiance. He also pointed out that Grand Rapids had services and it was 9 miles away via CO 424 and a bridge across the Wabash. I followed that advice.

At Grand Rapids, which is a small, very touristy, town. I got a good supper and local advice from the couple in the next booth who lived in Maumee, that the nearest motels were in Maumee, 16 miles away and on the other side of the river. As a result of that advice, I had a very nice ride on the south side of the river that got me to yet another $60 room with wifi strong enough to work with my computer. It is now 10 PM and I'm crashing as I type this, but I should be able to get the day 9 web page up tomorrow morning.

After supper, riding along the river on SR 65, I was reminded of how much I used to enjoy riding after supper. Today's ride was 67 miles long, with 5-10 mph headwind most of the time and a moderate amount of climbing at the end. That part was fun, but 67 miles into the wind was too much. I actually rode for almost 7 hours. I'd like to take a rest day, but the weather is nice today and forecast to be lousy tomorrow.I'm heading north towards Ann Arbor. Hopefully I'll have an easy and short ride.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	2
Comment on this entry	Comment	0