Day 18: Painesvile, OH to Westlake, OH

This is the day I make my dash through Cleveland and do my best to get away with only one or two additional bullet holes in me.  Lightning storms were still moving through, so I got started later than I would have liked.  I was in the city exurbs within a half hour and pedaling my way through one busy commercial strip after another.  I was lucky enough to receive my first volley of verbal abuse from a woman who made a right turn in front of me and yelled, “Get on the sidewalk!”  I had to wonder what part of the word sideWALK her car-centric brain couldn’t comprehend.

I made my final approach into Cleveland on a service road that ran along the lake with a small airport between me and the water.  This route easily took the top spot for the worst “paved” road I’d encountered so far.  It was striped with foot-wide cracks spaced about every 20 feet.  I had to slow to a crawl to keep from rattling my bike to pieces.  It felt like ten miles of bad road, but was probably only a mile and a half at te most.  At least there were no hills.

The Miss Universe of crappy roads deposited me in front of the majestic glass pyramid that is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I took a couple pictures, but had no desire to go inside.  I might have thought about it if it was free, but being soaked in sweat after a morning of riding isn’t exactly conducive to playing the tourist in enclosed spaces.

Once in the guts of the city, all I had to do was make a left, then a right, and it was pretty much a straight path through and out of the city.  As a nice surprise, my ride took me through some affluent neighborhoods at the west side of town, putting me on idyllic tree-lined boulevards flanked by gorgeous mansions to left and right.   It turned out that Cleveland wasn’t as harrowing as the war stories of a particular E.R. physician had led me to expect.  Maybe next time I’ll try going through at night just to up the excitement factor!

What I Learned: There are some wicked friendly folks working at Circle K (Hi, Huck!).

Distance Today: 45 miles
Total Distance: 821 miles