Day Two - Wonderful but Rainy

We had a great century ride today for Day Two of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride. The 7am start was delayed nearly an hour due to a HUGE rain storm passing through the area. We left College of Wooster a few minutes before 8am in a steady but ridable drizzle. The rain picked up from mile 2-30 but we plugged away. Note to self - don't apply lots of sticky sun block on a rainy day (it took a good 15 minute shower to clear the road grime off my legs).

The highlight today was riding on nearly 30 miles of "Rails to Trail" of railroad grade which has been perfectly paved to non-motorized use. They take the 'non-motorized' seriously as we had to yield to horse & buggies on the path going through miles of gorgeous Amish country. As the paths dried up from the morning showers, we had some great pace lines going with everyone taking pulls (Bob, Matthew, Andy, Anne, Kelsey & John). Lots of laughs and stories along the way. For five of the team, it was a first-ever century distance.

Lunch was at the Danville, OH Subway (yes -that one) and not too fast with 200+ riders and only 3 Sandwich Artists. Fortunately we spotted a $1 drive-in car wash next door which doubled as a great bike cleaning station. Our team record has been set for power-washing six bikes in 120 seconds (4 quarters in fee!).

8AM departure and arrival as a Team was not until 5:25PM. It would have been 15 minutes earlier but Matthew had a flat just 12 miles from the finish which gave a chance for all 6 to rendezvous. When we got to our Otterbein College, no one had registered 100M on their bike computers so we had to do an extended lap of campus to make it a full century.

Only 67 miles tomorrow but the foreast is dry. Bedtime...

Matthew