Day 97 Millersburg

August 21, 2018

We climbed hellacious hills, we battled a hellacious headwind, but we stayed dry! We really expected to get wet today. We actually had a team meeting after breakfast to discuss options and ultimately chose just to gear up and ride. It was the right choice. We waited until the rain had stopped in Massillon at 9AM and then rode the whole route without rain.

We left Massillon on a nice paved bike trail. It allowed us to avoid a big climb going out of town. It was good riding for the first five miles, then the surface turned to crushed stone, so we headed for the paved road.

The first leg of our route took us to the JM Smucker Visitor Center in Orville. We indulged in large make your own sundaes with our BOGO coupons Marilyn gave us yesterday. It was the perfect lunch today.

This woman working at the store was very interested in hearing about our trip. She told us her name was Sally Smucker.

After leaving Smucker's, we turned south. There was a very strong wind from the south that seemed to grow in intensity as we rode. We got to enjoy some 7-10% grades just to make it even more fun. Team S had to use our lowest gear (four on the floor!) on the last hill coming into Fredericksburg.

Our scenery today was almost all farms. Many of the farms in the area are Amish. There are also a number of Amish woodworking and furniture businesses.

All that climbing gave us some really nice vistas. I didn't get a very good picture to capture what we saw.

Once we reached Fredericksburg, we had a wonderful flat to slight downhill grade the last ten miles on the Holmes County Trail. The Holmes County Trail is unique in our trail experience. It has separate lanes for bicycles and buggies.

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 4,419 miles (7,112 km)

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