Hey, I have an idea! …fuck, shit, fuck, shit.

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Plonker

Hey…it’s Plonker.  In this Plonker Sez, you’ll be amazed…at how I leap from one train of thought to another to another.  I’m like that Discount Jennifer Lawrence chick in that ripoff of Hunger Games with the fat bitch from Titanic jumping around from trains to buildings and back.  That was worded terribly.  Fat Bitch wasn’t jumping around, Discount Jennifer Lawrence was.  Seriously, what the fuck was that all about?  Why were the kids allowed to CHOOSE their faction after they were given a test to determine to which one they belonged?  Of all the stupid…  Anyway, Jennifer Lawrence, if you’re reading this, I might consider my “don’t get married again” stance for you…CALL ME!

So Seasonal Affective Disorder is in full effect here, appropriately named “SAD”.  Yes, that’s right, it’s fall.  Time for pumpkin everything (seriously all of you basic white bitches need to stop with the pumpkin everything), hot apple cider, cold rain, and cleaning leaves out of the yard.  Son of a bitch, I hate this time of year.  Well fuck that shit!  All I’m doing this fall is watching what I hope is a LOT of baseball.  I’ve been an Indians fan my entire life, so almost 55 years now, and have never seen a world championship.  Some people count the Cavs in June but I’ve never been a basketball fan, so fuck that.  Plus, Lebron’s a prick.  Anyway, onward because I don’t want this to be a sports post.

When I bought my house (another collossal mistake – Fujupz.com: A lifetime of bad decisions), it came with an old POS riding lawnmower and two push mowers (one was self-propelled).  Of course, I said “Hey, I have an idea!” and quickly sold them all.  Subsequently, due to the fact that I was on the road 17+ days a month at the time and trying to spend time with my little mini-me offspring (yes folks, they let me reproduce…holy fucking shit!) I hired a lawn service.  Honestly, they did a great job, but it was a bit expensive.  You’d think “once a week no big deal, but $45/week adds up.  Add in leaf cleanup for a few hundred dollars and a big spring doohicky for $800 and it was pricey.  So this year, I’ve been protesting.  Oh, my grass has been cut.  The kid next door came over in the spring asking for work.  He offered to do the yard for $20-$25 (which turned into $30) per cut and I happily agreed.  It’s been nice, again.

He’s done a fine job and I really can’t complain.  But now that I’m full time employed and working a part time schedule, and the offspring is old enough to be left unsupervised in his playroom for an hour if necessary, I’m thinking about getting back into it myself.  Truth be told, I actually enjoy it.  I like cutting my grass as short as the mower can handle and leaving it that way for a few weeks at a time, even if it dies in the summer (that’s even better, actually).  I ran the numbers in my budget and it turns out I’m spending quite a bit of money.  Enough to buy a really nice riding mower, and maybe one with a snow plough attachment, which would be awfully convenient.  The problem now is that I don’t have a place to store it since my two car garage is now a golf studio and my one car garage barely holds my car and my “workbench” (that’s a mess…).  What to do, what to do…

“Hey, I have an idea!”

So Josh and I have been discussing moving my golf studio to a different part of the house and turning my golf studio back to a garage.  Easy enough, actually.  The garage door is still there.  I’d need another exterior door and I’d have to move the garage door opener to the two-car garage and…well, I’d have to remove the golf stuff from the golf room.  No big deal, if…  if we can knock out a load bearing wall without collapsing the back of my house.  I’m sure this is all expensive, which cuts further into my lawnmower budget.

Ironically, I wanted to do the golf studio this way in the first place but I opted not to.  Remember our slogan?  A lifetime of bad decisions.  Actually, that’s not even ironic.  Just like that fucking song “Ironic”.  Rain on your wedding day isn’t ironic, it’s good luck dipshit.  Anyway…

Moving the room really shouldn’t be too bad.  Remove the ceiling (and figure out what to do with the insulation during construction), remove wall paneling, throw in an electrical subpanel, rip up the old (hideous – some people like it, I don’t) carpet, figure out a way to take out a load bearing wall, wire for electrical outlets and overhead lights, add an exterior wall where the current garage door is, drywall (ugh), decide what to do with the ceiling (drywall is what I’d prefer, but I don’t prefer the taping/mud/finishing process involved in that), paint, new carpet (which will be putting green carpet mostly), install the projection screen/impact net for the simulator, screw in some lightbulbs and relax.  This should be reasonably easy, right?  …right?

Some things about Plonker:

  1. I ain’t never done this shit before,
  2. I don’t like enclosed spaces with spiders (like crawl spaces where I’d have to somehow run electrical wires and ductwork…),
  3. I’m not sure I even have the money for it,
  4. Even if I do, I’m not sure I want to spend it.

So while I’d like to do this project…now.  I’ll probably start it sometime around the time I’m ready to sell the house.  I’m just not much of a “project” kind of guy.  My idea of a good time involves food, alcohol, and pussy.  Not all at the same time.  In fact, they don’t all have to be involved.  Delicious food is always good and women (sorry, but…), y’all just screw it up.  If I had the rooms moved around, maybe I could relax and do more cooking but something tells me I wouldn’t.  I’d eat just as poorly and work out just as little as I already do and I’d still be a lazy fatass.  But fear not, because (say it with me)…

Hey, I have an idea!

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The Road FROM Sandusky – Days 6 and 7

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Hoff

After the Day 5 post was written, we wholeheartedly planned on heading to Toft’s for some delicious ice cream.

We, regretfully, did not make it. The pizza from the Pizza Challenge was too much. There was just not room for any more food. Eventually we settled going back to the bar across from the hotel for some alcohol. We each only had a couple drinks. This certainly didn’t turn in to an Augusta trip.

We planned on leaving early the next day. In True Fujupz fashion we didn’t actually leave until about noon. Breakfast consisted of, for me,  leftover pizza challenge pizza. The smell made me want to vomit, but to also eat at the same time. I ate a few and left the rest. The unopened bag of Doritos from the night of day one was left for the maid. Plonker really wanted to just rent a car, perhaps visit Cedar Point again. But I was insistent on finishing this trip via bicycle.

The original plan was to head south then east, as a different route from the first, for variety. After Day 1, we had concerns about the terrain. So I augmented the course to predominately follow the course we came in on through Downtown Cleveland. From there we would follow route 322 to Orwell, OH, where we could catch the Western Reserve Greenway for a while. I wanted to Ride the WRG because of it’s flatness. Actually, my original intent was to follow the lake until Ashtabula and take the WRG down. That should have been really flat, but it also would have added a shit ton of miles, so it was scrapped. The only hotels I could find, however were near Mayfield, about 72 miles into the trip. I would have liked to do the 80 again, but what can you do.

So off we go, following the route we came in on, and it seemed much easier than the first time. About 20 miles in we stop for lunch at Burger King, because, if nothing else, we make horrible decisions. A little after lunch, within a 10 mile stretch, I had a flat tire, Plonker had a leak in his valve stem, and then I got another flat tire. Our hand pumps don’t work that well on our new high pressure tires/tubes. They worked ok with the old tires, they didn’t need as much pressure. Gas station air pumps apparently don’t usually go to 100 psi. We really need to get those CO2 inflators.

Shortly thereafter, Plonker finds a hotel where he can use his Marriott points. It’s a little further south, but it has the advantage of being free rooms. So we set our course that way. Instead of 322, we’d follow 20, work our way to 87, head a little south to the hotel. It worked out well. At some point during this leg Plonker’s knee started to hurt. We think tendonitis. We pressed on.

Miraculously we retain appetite this time, a little late for the god damn pizza challenge when there was $100 on the line. We ate at Bahama Breeze, which was in walking distance of the hotel. It was pretty good, the mojitos were, it was the most we drank in one sitting during this trip.. still not that much though. Fail. It also didn’t numb the knee pain. Fail again.

Since we changed the route again, I needed to figure out how to proceed. We could head north to 322, where it should be flatter and catch the WRG, or go on 87 and catch the WRG. The quickest way to 322 took us basically to where we were going to stay originally. Right past that the elevation chart shows some massive hills. Following 87 to a point past the hills, then north to 322 took us though Newbury and Burton, which is where the massive hills from Day 1 were. Getting past those hills again then going north to 322 would only succeed in adding 10 miles to the route with no other real gains. In the end we decided to not go on 322 at all, just follow 87 to the WRG. We would see the hills from Day 1 again, but after that it should be flatter. Instead of entering Middlefield from the south we’d be leaving to the East.

Our bright and early start again came some time after 11, Plonker’s knee was still hurting him. Initially the ride wasn’t too bad… until the hills came. I was able to conquer them better than I was on Day 1, for Plonker it made things worse for his knee. After lunch (Burger King again.. yay bad decisions!), Plonker decided he’s walk the hills if need be. We also got him a knee support and ibuprofin, neither of which helped much.

Going through Middlefield Plonker noticed the Arby’s we intended on eating at Day 1, the one that was closed, was now open… of course.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Plonker questioned his life decisions. He was then chased by dogs 3 times. The weather held out amazingly – no rain on us on the return trip. It was a little colder than the other ride days. But all in all, we made it. Over 130 miles each way, 2 days to complete each way. Three tire tube changes. Tons of Gatorade (never drinking it again). Three separate hotels.

And 2 fat guys.

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The Road to Sandusky – Days 3-5

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Hoff

Wow, has it been a busy few days.

Day 3 started with the need of a rental car. Plonker called Enterprise to schedule a car until Sunday morning and a pickup, but he had called Enterprise National, apparently, so he had to be transferred to the local office. Also, he was informed that they’re only open until noon on Saturday and that they don’t have after hours drop off, so we had to get the car back to them by noon on Saturday. Fine, whatever.

The local Enterprise had a car, but it wouldn’t be ready until 3:30. We planned on going to Erie, PA for CelebrateErie, but mainly for the Here Come The Mummies concert. Since it’s a 2 1/2 hour drive there from Sandusky (1 1/2 hours if we had just stayed home) it would work out fine.

Since we had a few hours to kill we decided to take a walk since the hotel is on a main business road, as opposed to the Camp that we stayed at last year, which was in the middle of nowhere on a highway next to a McDonalds. Neither Plonker nor I are shoppers (that’s what the interwebz is for) and since we hadn’t eaten (yet another free hotel breakfast missed) we decided to look for a place to eat.

There were mainly your normal chain places, but we tend to like to go to the local joints while on the road. I can (and do… a lot) eat at the chain places at home. Before arriving we really wanted to eat at Andy’s China Dragon…

andybuild

Nothing says “Authentic Chinese” like Andy’s in the former Taco Bell!

But the only Chinese food I really like is Chicken & Broccoli, and a scan of the menu online didn’t list it, so we didn’t go. We did hear good things about the place, so, go? I guess? Let me know how it is.

We realized we were pretty close to Chet and Matt’s, and since we weren’t going to do the challenge anymore we decided that’s we’d still have lunch there. So in we went… through the wrong doors. We entered the lounge side, which had no one in it, so we scooted through the dining room to the proper entrance. Since we didn’t enter in that doorway the bell didn’t ring, so it seemed most employees didn’t realize we were new customers. They were pretty busy and we’re rarely in a rush, so we waited. when the rush of leaving customers died down we were seated, and offered the buffet which we took.

Plonker generally doesn’t like buffets, and, although I still eat at them, I try to stay away, mainly because I’ll eat too much and the food is generally not at good. But the buffet was pretty good. It’s a fairly thin crust pizza, if you like that – and I do. Plonker decided that after tasting it that it was indeed good and that we should try the Challenge Saturday.

By the time we left it was 2:15 with a 45 minute walk back to the hotel, plently of time for the 3:30 pickup by Enterprise. Only, Plonker then said the car was ready at 3:30, but they were picking us up at 3. So we had to quickly waddle back a few miles, bellies full of pizza.

We made it back in time to head to our rooms, flirt with the front desk girl, and have new keys made for Plonkers room (dumbass). Plonker signed the paperwork, got full coverage insurance on the vehicle, and we took off to Erie.

Riding in the car with Plonker is…  an experience. Especially when it’s not his car and with full coverage. Normal Plonker driving is 90% handless normally. In a rental throw in high speed gear shifts, parking brake application, and hairpin turns.

Although the car didn’t have GPS, the routing from Sandusky to Erie isn’t that difficult, so we made it without dying, killing anyone, AND with the car still in one piece. Parking was a little difficult, with the fest blocking the main street, coming in from a different direction, and me not knowing jack shit about Erie. We did find a “PNC Customer Parking Only” lot.. Good thing Plonker is a customer, right!?

This was Plonker’s second Here Come the Mummies show, although he’s been trying to get to more, work usually screws it up. If you’ve never seen them, or even heard of them (you’re probably never heard of them) go to a show. No, go to a show. Now. GO. Stop reading this, go to the tour page, and find a show close to you. Or travel, it’s worth it. You can listen to them on youtube and soundcloud, but it’s never the same experience as the live show. Yes, they dress as mummies. They play funk/rock/variety of genres of all original music. You can meet some great people in the audience. It’s, it’s great.

That being said, I can never find people willing to go to with me (preferably beautiful women). Plonker agreed we definitely need to find women to go to these with us (as most AT the concert were either old or with boyfriends and that’s no bueno), so that’s why we will be holding friend Auditions! Keep your eyes open! The audition process will be grueling and we fully expect less than 20% of all applicants to drop out before the end.

After the kick ass concert the 3 hour drive back to Sandusky consisted of Taco Bell and HCTM car seat karaoke performed by yours truly (that may or may not be one of the physical challenges of the audition process). I passed out a couple hours later to wake up early for Cedar Point.

During last years non-bike-ride Sandusky trip Plonker couldn’t fit on Top Thrill Dragster, Wicked Twister, Raptor, or Millenium Force. This year he could ride the Raptor, so some improvement has been made! Luckily the lines weren’t bad at all being as it was the end of August and a Friday. There was NO line for Top Thrill Dragster as an example. I think it took longer to walk from the entrance to the station than I spent waiting to be seated. Good times.

I noticed there were a lot of Amish. Just strikes me as odd.

Valravn was pretty cool. The wait was one of the longest of all the rides that day, with Maverick being the longest (because that ride’s the best). Valravn was, in my opinion, overhyped. It had pretty cool drop, and broke some records for being the first in a few categories for a dive coaster… FOR A DIVE COASTER. Compared to other coasters it’s pretty tame. Instead of having the car 3 rows with 10 people across and had it like a regular coaster you’d probably say “oh that’s all that was?” I mean, I’m guessing the technology is different in the way the coaster works? Maybe? Engineers might get hard-ons over it, but if you took a Ford Fiesta and threw a Mustang body on it and made a few tweaks to the undercarriage – it’s still a Fiesta. Same with Rougarou. It’s the same coaster as the Mantis, with a paint job and different cars. The Mantis was a stand up coaster and I never had the opportunity to ride it. When I DID have the opportunity my buddy that day refused based the the lameness factor. The switch over made it a floorless coaster, but it’s still not that thrilling. But not everyone likes the high thrills, I suppose.

We ate at TGIFriday’s and had full racks of ribs, but, lamely only one adult beverage. I’m going to say the waiter was trying to flirt with Plonker, it’s funnier that way. A couple cute girls came in that we had seen multiple times throughout the day and were sat by us. The one had a rock on her finger bigger than Plonker’s head (very, very large) so that was the end of that. Back to the park to walk around for 7 more hours.

The plan after the park was to go to Toft’s Ice Cream Parlor as the park closed at 10 and Toft’s website said it closed at 11.

Nope. Closed at 10 also, didn’t update the site. Stopped at the same bar as day 2 and had some foods and a couple drinks.

Saturday comes and we need to return the rental car by noon. I also want to ship all my shit back home, as all the extra weight really made riding difficult. More so on the balancing than anything. I repeatedly fell over while trying to get on the bike, usually at intersections with many, many witnesses. After a stop at staples, the gas station, and some wrong turns, we made it back to Enterprise… where we learn that they do have after hours car drop off, so our last day in town we’re carless. Luckily one of the Enterprise people offered to drop us off at Walmart (where were headed anyway) on his way home for the day. I picked some essentials that I had already dropped off at Staples for shipment back home (because we make horrible decisions) and went back to the hotel.

Chet and Matt’s Pizza Challenge was next, and yes, we still have very little appetite. Like one normal persons meal for the day is good enough (one Fujupz meal is usually enough for 2-3 normal people). No guts, no glory. Now, if we weren’t complete morons, we would have had the Enterprise driver drop us off at the pizza place, walk to Walmart then to the hotel. They’re located in that order. But, we didn’t. Plonker found an Uber driver, who was a pretty cool guy, and he took us for pizza. Plonker offered him to come in for pizza for when we failed the challenge, but I think he thought we were joking.

We called ahead so it wouldn’t be long for the pizza to come out. I think it was Chet that was talking to us and going over the rules, one of which was “don’t get sick in my restaurant”. We told him about the bike ride and how a side effect of that was the loss of appetite, but we said fuck it, we’ll try it anyway.

 

Fuck

Fuck

I, myself, have been know to eat full 16″ pizzas, and almost 2-12″ pizzas.This is 29″. It doesn’t sound like much more, but when you do the math it has nearly the same area as 6-12″ pizzas, or the equivalent of 3 each.

14102579_10210132799579510_7399008543845036673_n

We failed

To be fair, we knew we’d fail. And to be honest we were all surprised we got as far as we did. They were getting worried about where they keep the shirts and other winnings since it’s been so long since they’d had a winner. Maybe next time, when we drive to Sandusky, we can attempt the challenge again.

Until that day.. I don’t want to see pizza ever again.

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The Road to Sandusky… Day 2

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Hoff

Plonker and I left Lakewood yesterday morning, about quarter to noon. I still had a bag of Doritos that I had from the night before but had never opened. Plonker opened his, but only ate a couple. We had 50 miles to go to Sandusky on fairly flat roads. We figured it was going to be an easy day, especially after all the hills and rain of the day before. We decided to stop some place for something to eat since we missed the hotel breakfast.

Apparently all the restaurants in town were the opposite direction of which we were headed. A few miles in we stopped at a little gas station for Gatorade and pressed on. It was pretty flat and most of the trip was one road. One thing we hadn’t counted on was muscle fatigue and tightness from the previous day.

Normally back home, with the hills and everything, we can average 12-13 miles an hour. We’re not racers here. Hell, I never ever said we were good! Flat areas, however, we’ve always been able to go at least 15 mph, even up to the mid 20’s when we hit our stride.

Here? Flat surface, one road? 12-13 mph.

We optimistically assumed that it was going to be basically an easy day, and that was the problem. Being optimistic.

It certainly was flatter. WAY flatter than the day before actually. But my muscles only had one speed. They didn’t hurt, but they were tight. Not in a way where you wake up and say “Holy fuck Batman! My legs are fucking TIGHT!” By all accounts we both felt good when we left. It was only after pedaling do you realize that they are lacking some strength that day.

So, anyway, we were still looking for a place to eat. Siri was not being a helpful bitch that day, the road sign that pointed to “Dining” didn’t lead to anywhere helpful except a skeezy little bar. Unless it was farther down the road, but fuck, we don’t want to ADD miles to this trip.

About 15 miles in we came to a little plaza, next to the power generation plant. There were a couple bars and a Mexican joint. Initially heading toward the bar, we opted for Mexican. Because, hey, we only have 35 miles to go!

It was a small place, and kind of smelled like.. I don’t want to say “ass”, but ass? Maybe backed up sewers? The building showed some water penetration issues so it was probably black mold or something. The food was pretty good though. I had 2 beef quesadillas and Plonker had a steak fajita with peppers. We would burp of lunch for hours afterwards.

We stopped at a Farm Market on the outskirts of Vermilion because Plonker ran out of water. I didn’t go in mainly because my bike was so back heavy it was a pain to get back on it whenever I got off. Plonker and the cashier got to talking and she said that she rides 100 miles on holidays in one trip. When relayed to me I said, “yeah, we could do that.. around here. We did 80 in one day with huge hills, in the rain. We could definitely do 100 on relatively flat ground.”

Going through downtown Vermilion we started seeing signs about the road being closed in 6 miles, local traffic only. We didn’t see any road work actually being done so we pressed on. Also, we didn’t really want to add a ton of miles. Also it gets more hilly the further you get from the coast. Onward, Buttercup!

After passing some cottages, where one lady literally yelled to me asking if I needed a place to stay for the night (which I’m really hoping meant a cottage, although the main sign said “no vacancy”) we came to the end of the line. The road was indeed closed. And gone. No passing that. DETOUR!

We backtracked to the previous road (where Plonker had called me from (since I was far enough ahead of him) and asked if we needed to take the detour. I said I wasn’t sure and I was checking it out. Indeed we did. Indeed we did.

The detour wasn’t too bad. Straight south, straight west, straight northwest. It was noticeably more hilly than the road we were supposed to be on. I’m guessing it added a couple or few miles to the trip. It took us to Huron.

Next up after Huron would be the hotel. I changed the route a little back in Lakewood, it would have cut off some distance, but with the detour it was probably a wash.

One the final road to the hotel Plonker had a bee get lodged in his helmet. I just find that funny.

Finally we reached the hotel. It was around 5:30. About 5.5 hours on the road. A little longer than the 4 hours we figured on, but we also some for the greasy, but tasty Mexican. So not too bad, and a whole lot better than day 1.

With thousands of calories burnt again we could gorge ourselves with food! That’s the entire point of riding! For months we envisioned riding in to Sandusky and gorging on everything. Wings! Pizza! Drinks!

We went to the restaurant right across from the hotel. We got Cheese and Bacon filled Tater Tots and the Pig Pig Cow Burger, which was a burger topped with bacon, pulled pork, and cheddar. Very, very good. Plonker didn’t finish one tot (I ate it) and left a bite of burger. I had a couple adult beverages and he had one. Not exactly the party we had in Augusta (post to come at a later date).

We both had to be way under calories for the day again. I’m still not really that hungry this morning. Our plan for the day was to to the King Kong Challenge at Chet and Matt’s Pizza, which under normal circumstances I’m positive we could complete. However, this heavy riding has limited our appetites, much to my dismay. I wanted to cram stupid amounts of food into my gullet! Perhaps next time, when we drive to Sandusky, with full appetite intact. We will be on the wall of fame! Or web page, if they update it past 2011.

 

Whatever. Bragging rights, like the rest of this trip.

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The Road to Sandusky is…. all Hills. Day 1

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Hoff

Ahh yes, the fabled “Cedar Point trip.”

Since we started riding bikes last year we’ve talked about riding them to Sandusky/Cedar Point. In fact, at originally we were going to make it last year, mere months after we started riding bikes at all. That’s a little ambitious, even for 2 guys that generally make horrible decisions.

So we were determined we’d do it this year. Spending hundreds of pesos on bike upgrades, and bags, and racks, phone battery cases, a GoPro to record the trip, and extra GoPro Batteries. Not to mention making and editing the routes.

We’ve talked about it for a year. We had to do it now. Put up or shut up time.

So finally yesterday was the day. We left Brookfield, OH at roughly 11:3o am. Which was good because it was before noon, and we planned on leaving at 9. We’re always running late, but at least this wasn’t too late. Calling that a win.

Our 72 mile July 2nd trip was the first 33 miles of the planned Sandusky trip. So we know what to expect. Basically one major hill, plenty of farm land. So far we’d been doing well avoiding the rain.

Past the 33 mile mark is when the hills came. Almost immediately. From the intersection you can see a down hill, but RIGHT after the down was a major up. We both had to take a couple rests to make it up the hill.

Eventually we made it to the outskirts of Middlefield, OH. It was about mile 37 or so, and stopped at a gas station for Gatorade. As we’re sitting on the curb drinking our gatorade and having some light snacks it starts to rain. It lasted all of a minute and barely got us wet. This gas station was at a point where we were supposed to turn off the main road, but if we kept at it we would reach Middlefield. We could then meet back up to the route with minimal difficulties. Why go to Middlefield? Last year the plan was to stop every 20 miles for something to eat. Or munch anyway to keep strength up. At the very least rest. At Mile 20 I had a Nutrigrain bar, Plonker had a granola bar, that he took one bite of and didn’t like it. So, at this gas station I google food in Middlefield and found an Arby’s.

Now eager for some Roast Beef in about 3 miles, we leave the gas station. I should mention that I have (too many) clothes in my duffle bag, which is strapped to my bike. It’s gotta weigh 50 pounds. I didn’t even pack that much! But its so heavy it won’t stand up on the kickstand and its very hard to move, wanting to tip over without warning. Compounding issues was the crosswinds which also wanted to tip me over. And the headwinds. But they were just creating extra effort of our end.

So at only about halfway through Day 1’s leg we hunt down Arby’s and find it… Closed for remodeling. Googling comes up with a few local restaurants, most looked closed. We settled on a little cafe, I had banana bread (which was ok but kind of dry) and a pizza panini, which was just meats and no sauce, so I don’t know why it was a “pizza” panini. It was good, very good, at this point I would have eaten anything and everything. Plonker had a Chicken Salad Sandwich. We managed to not overeat and then ride like we normally do. yay!

Leaving the cafe and heading to meet up with our route we went past every chain restaurant you could think of. Damn you Google!

The Hills kept coming. The road heading into Burton was horrible, requiring multiple stops for breathers. Finally we met up with where our route was supposed to come out…  with another major hill looming right ahead. Oh, and it starts to rain.

Press on we did. The hill of course was also a killer. I’d occasionally wipe off the lens area of the GoPro. Even when it stopped raining the cars driving by would mist it up again. Oh and the cars seemed to like to play the “Lets see how close I can get to these cyclists” game. Cars are bad enough; the semis are a bit unnerving.

Near mile 55 it started raining again. More hills. Bla bla bla. Stopped at a little creepy gas station for Gatorade and to change the GoPro battery. We were nearing Cleveland, it’s going to get flatter.

But not yet! More killer hills. I knew a girl that called Ohioans flatlanders… apparently she never road a bike through Northeast Ohio.

So after a few more torturous hills, we finally reach the outskirts of Cleveland, and it does, indeed, level off pretty decently. Cleveland riding made me nervous leading up to the trip. Any time I’ve ever been to Cleveland, driving, traffic had always been a nightmare.

We came in on Shaker Blvd/Buckeye Road/Woodland Ave before turning up E 79 Street. That was probably the sketchiest area of the trip. At one point I lost Plonker for a while and I figured he was jumped. Before speeding away I at least sent him a text asking if he was ok, at which point he came around the corner. He pulled a leg muscle.

From Euclid on though the downtown there was a bike lane, which was awesome. Also traffic was minimal. At this point it was after 8 PM on a Tuesday, so maybe that had something to do with it? I don’t know, I don’t go to Cleveland.

The only hill-like structure was the Superior Avenue bridge. It wasn’t too bad considering all the shit we’ve put up with up to this point.

Another 10 or so miles and we reached our hotel. It was about 9 PM. So it was about 9.5 hours for 80 miles, though we stopped at that cafe for a half hour or so. So about 9 hours for 80 miles. Much slower than our normal of 10 miles in 45 minutes. I’m going to have to blame the hills on that one. BRU-TAL.

After getting rooms we went to CVS for drinks/snacks. We had thousands of calories burned, and dying of thirst for anything other than Gatorade. Plonker decided he wanted Chinese, and the pretty girl at the reception desk at the hotel recommended a place that delivered. It was 9:55 and they closed at 10. Plonker offered a $20 tip and they agreed to make and deliver our food. Yay!

Oddly, despite minimally eating during the day and burning so many calories neither of us were that hungry. I ate most of my chinese, but didn’t finish my snacks. I believe Plonker was the same. I was pretty dehydrated though despite the constant drinking, my pee was pretty dark. And I was hot. The AC wasn’t even touching it.

We’re just about ready to leave for Day 2 of the trip which will take us to Sandusky. It’s about 50 miles and should be flat.

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