Start:  Loveland, OH

Finish: Yellow Springs, OH

Weather:  90 degrees, sunny

Miles:  56

Distance to date: 1985

Today was touring cycle nirvana along the bike trail trial in Ohio.  No trucks, no traffic, the sun filtered through the trees, the gentle slope up as I followed the Little Miami River north.  The trail is beautifully
maintained, the trailheads have bathrooms and there is good food and services all along the way.

I cleaned up after my camping last night at the facilities at the Loveland Trailhead and was on the trail by 6:30 am.  I stopped
in Morrow for a great breakfast, then on to Xenia which is touring cycle Mecca.  Four different rail trails meet in Xenia, the town has bicycles everywhere.  I enjoyed a great lunch of barbeque and spent the afternoon in the Library mapping my route through Ohio to avoid being without a hotel again. (Once was fine, but I don’t need to make a regular thing of it).  There is this concept of an Ohio to Erie bike trail that will connect Cincinnati to Cleveland, but it is not finished yet, so I had to understand the gaps.  It is all well documented online, but there are no printed maps of the entire route, which is frustrating for us old school guys who want a piece of paper in our hands when we come to the intersection of four cornfields and want to know which way to go.

After I planned my future, I biked up to Yellow Springs, counter culture haven and home to Antioch College (which went belly up and is now reformulating itself).  I enjoyed dinner at a street café chatting with other guys. There are probably three times as many bicycles as cars in Yellow Springs.  Bikes rule.

I am staying at the most perfect roadside place, Springs Motel, a mile south of town.  Twelve rooms, each with a little rocker in front. As I type I am rocking and watching the sun set on the field
across the road.  My neighbors come and go, we chit chat, exchange our stories of the road.  When do you ever meet your neighbor at the Holiday Inn?

Springs Motel  Yellow Springs, OH