Wednesday now, just four days before the start of the Ohio Odyssey. A lot of people have asked me exactly how the route was created. The answer is not too surprising.
Last summer, my boss Jan Leach suggested that I plan a bicycle trip in conjunction with Ohio's Bicentennial in 2003. She had heard of a successful project in Charlotte, N.C., and thought it would be good for Akron Beacon Journal readers to receive something similar. That's all it took for me. I immediately started work on this project - spending many evenings and most weekends working on it.
Around September, I proposed a project involving a 20-day trip. Nothing special -about the number - 20 days ... 200 years. At the time, it seemed appropriate. In October, I had the route sketched out. I wanted the project to involve all of Ohio's distinct areas, though none of the big cities. That meant time spent along the Lake Erie shoreline, the western farm area, old Rt. 40, southeastern coal country, the Ohio River and the central part of the state.
Using 50-70 miles per day as my guide, I plotted the trip using DeLorme's Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer. Then I purchased a 60-day trial license of Microsoft's Mappoint software. Together, those two tools gave me everything I needed to plot the route.
However, as every long-distance bike rider knows, maps can be deceiving. For example, both DeLorme and Mappoint show an old road going across Sandusky Bay to Marblehead Island. Well, guess what? My bike would have to sprout wings to get across that road, seeing as there is about a 150-foot gap in the road, with only water below.
As a result, I spent several weekends over the winter driving about 10 of the 20 legs of this trip. I have driven the Lake Erie legs all the way to western Ohio. Another weekend I traveled the coal country and a couple of the Ohio River legs. Each time I learned a lot about the roads and places to avoid.
Still, more than half of this trip is on un-driven roads, if not uncharted. That's part of the adventure - going forward into the great unknown. Not to mention the weather. Not to mention all of the other various unknown variables that could affect this journey. As Dennis Gordon, the photographer on this trip, says, we will have no safety net. We don't know how this will turn out, only that we'll be sharing it - live - with readers of the Beacon Journal ... and with a worldwide Internet audience.
As you will hear me say many times, come along for the ride.
6:05:32 PM 
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