Yesterday we took our planned day off, the only one of the trip. Jeff headed home and we picked up Nat Clymer at the airport. It felt good to have a day off.

Nicole decided to end her trip and went home. So today Dan and I headed out for a ride in Cleveland's Metropark trail system to make up the 100 miles we skipped in order to make the driver exchange.

Being from Indiana and having lived in southern Ohio for five years, I'd heard plenty about Cleveland and my couple of visits here confirmed the negative stuff I'd heard. “Mistake on the lake.” Where else has a river caught on fire?

But Cleveland rocks! Downtown looks great, they have great parks and then there's the best part. As I was finishing my ride today, I was standing while pedaling and a carload of women passed me yelling. “Hey, nice butt,” I heard coming from the car. As I looked over I see one of them hanging out the window screaming “Great legs.”

Ain't Cleveland wonderful?

OK, they were 17-year-old girls, but there wasn't any doubt they were yelling at me. They were excited to see my finely sculpted legs. Well, at least until they saw my tired, droopy 48-year-old face.

The ride through Cleveland's parks was really enjoyable. They have created several “greenways” that connect to each other and have multi-purpose paved paths throughout. We took one that follows the Cuyahoga River, which is actually quite nice since they extinguished it in 1969.

We had visited a nice bike shop on Sunday, which turned out to be a good thing. Dan broke a spoke after about 30 miles and he has been having problems with his gears, so he took the bike in and got a good tune up.

I kept riding and stopped at a Quiznos for lunch. There were two friendly people working behind the counter and the gal asked one of my favorite questions. “Where you riding from.” Thanks for playing the game. San Francisco, but not all today, my usual witty reply. They gave me that “you're an idiot” look and made my day by coming right back with my other favorite question, “Where you going?” Cleveland rocks!

I got back on the trail and soon it went from paved to gravel. That's the end of the road for me, so I turned around and headed back to where we started. Cleveland has some pretty big hills, which I hadn't expected. My heart rate got higher than climbing the Rockies but at least they were short hills. They were good practice for the upcoming Pennsylvania mountains.

I must ride well in the heat, because I was just flying along. As I came to busy road, I pulled up beside a couple of other cyclists waiting at the stop sign.

They were cute, gray-haired gents wearing jerseys from big benefit rides. We chatted a little and one of them did it. “Where'd you start?” Yup, I did it. San Francisco, but not today. I am sooo clever. And there it was. “Where you headed?” Hoo boy! They had several questions about the trip and said they have talked about doing it someday. They proudly told me they were riding 70 miles today and I told them it was great. There was a break in the traffic and we crossed the street. One gent bid me good luck and the other said something that I haven't heard during the ride: “Congratulations.”

Cleveland rocks.

Nat and Dan exchange phone numbers before we start the day's ride.

Dan attends to some business back home.

A Great Blue Heron waits for lunch in the Cuyahoga River.