Bike Nonstop US 2021 – Day 19 – Stoychev Ultracycling

Day 19: Cedarville,OH – Bolivar, OH, distance-190 miles , climbing – 4292 feet

In the morning of day nineteen, 600 miles remained until my final destination – Washington DC ! No lie, I wanted badly for this to already end. My wounds have almost healed – the Achilles and knees were not bothering me as much and I was ready for one final push. Maybe I can go back to back days above 200 miles and finish with a short third day? Goals were necessity, they really motivate but one should never be disappointed if things don’t worked as planned. Doing my very best daily is what mattered.

A race this long is best approached if split into small pieces while chasing smaller goals. The objectives can be as simple as next water or food supply, bed for the night, historic site, bike repair shop, mileage and so on. My desire was to finish before Sunday as Monday was to be my first day back to work.

On this very day, I received a call about funeral of a dear friend on Monday. It was in the middle of the night and during another rain storm. This was totally unexpected and sudden while being an emotional wreck already. Instead of allowing it to break me, I keep on fighting. It wasn’t easy ,but I did not signed up to look for an easy way out?

Nothing else was happening during that day so the report will be brief. The trail was paved, super fast and I was rested. It felt like being in a tunnel with narrow pavement surrounded by vegetation. Upon exiting Cedarville, I passed by a few small towns & villages along the train tracks running parallel to the bike trail. The rail was still vital for the economy in the area and looked very active.

Around noon, I entered Columbus, OH and then headed Northeast. Being on the trail helped a lot with city traffic. My only stop was at a local Subway restaurant to reload on supplies. It was funny to see the other patrons looking in disbelief as I swallowed two foot long sandwiches and stuffed 2 more in my bags in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t resist and filled up one of my feed bags with cookies as well. Looking at my pictures from that day, one can really tell that my face was not near a razor for nearly 3 weeks 🙂

The Columbus riverfront near North Bank Park Pavilion was really beautiful.

On the outskirts of town, I started gradual climb for the next 3 hours until my arrival in Mt Liberty. It looks like a big 25 mile hill on the elevation profile but the picture is deceiving. There was no gradients above 2%, so you can hardly call it a climb. For this area however, it was considered high elevation at just 750 feet above sea level 🙂

_{Mount Liberty was laid out in 1835. The community was named for the lofty elevation of the town site, and for its location within Liberty Township}

Ten miles further up the road was situated Mount Vernon, a town named after the estate owned by George Washington. There seems to be some sort of love relationship with storms and floods here.

_{In May 1953, the telephone exchange for the entire city was destroyed by fire, disrupting calls for months. In January 1959, a severe flood caused 500 homes to be evacuated and caused $5 million in damage}

Mount Vernon is home of The Woodward Opera House, the oldest opera theater of its kind in the United States.

This is also the birthplace of Cooper Industries. A large industrial complex in the western part of the city that manufactures and repairs products for the gas and oil power generation industries. After being acquired by a big company in 2014 and changing ownership few times, in 2018 was apparently announced that the facility would close by 2019. To read that this factory existed for 200 years and provided for so many families was really sad. It reminded me of all the closed factories in the town where I was born. At least the empty buildings were acquired by a startup called” Ohio Mint” – a private mint company that produces gold and silver rounds and bars.

I reached the 3000 mile mark around Massillon, OH and started heading south. The Ohio to Earie trail goes further north towards Cleveland and I was now back on normal roads. By this time, it was already dark and I was getting tired and sleepy. The progress made that day was still good and actually one of my strongest days when it comes to mileage. However, there was no pre planning on where to sleep for the night and I kept pushing until I couldn’t continue no more.

Light rain started as I approached the town of Bolivar and entered another trail. It must have been early morning and I was feeling like crap. Luckily, I came across office building near the welcome center with public bathroom.

What a glorious life I live, sleeping again on the floor of a bathroom hallway 🙂 There was a roof over my head , I was able to wash off in the sink and charge my devices.

As daylight breaks, three hours later, I was back on the road. The current bike trail was a bit lumpy. Another dotwatcher was here to greet me and I was elated. Thank you Heather Kathleen for welcoming all of us during this race. Apparently, I nearly missed her that day. She was so confused with my actions following the live tracker. I mean, who bikes all night and stops at 3 am near bathroom, then sleeps for 3 hours?

There was a cooler full of drinks and snacks so my breakfast was covered.