Thursday - Yeah buddy

A blog entry from Ben


Fans, friends and family, todays cycle has been according to Jack his best yet, with his best breakfast so far, the start of Pennsylvania being great and then being left stunned by the generiousity of a random we met in a quiet restaurant/motel. This blog wil do it's best to express and explain his excitement but unfortunately not much happened.

After a disturbed night sleep due to a massive storm, we hit the road and had a relatively quiet morning with the only drama coming from Jack and Tom bickering with each other and having to go on a 3 mile diversion (or detour as its called over here) because of 50 metres of roadworks. Arriving at Wadsworth, Matt spotted an advert in a local bank stating that it was 493 miles from Wall Street. Sensing a photo opp, Matt and Tom went in and were lucky enough to have a photo taken with the bank mascot. Breakfast was in a small restaurant where Jack ordered a small feast of oatmeal (his new favourite), sausages, toast and fries (which turned out to be hashbrowns). After breakfast we cycled into the city of Akron which was a bit dodgy and cycled past a policeman wizzing along on a segway. Tom asked if he wanted to swop and he replied that he would love to as his bike was broken. Seeing as there would be no room for our bags we had to sadly decline. Akron then turned very hilly and Jack decided to use the excuse of looking at the maps to have a cheeky break.

For lunch we had our first Dairy Queen which turned out to be very nice. We asked how far it was to the state border and were told that it was an hour away in a car which was unhelpful for us. The lady behind the counter was impressed by our cycle and we had to pose for photos with our bikes. We got chatting to a trucker whose catchphase was "yeah buddy", which he seemed to say at the end of every sentence. He had been all over the country and said that the rest of the day would be flat for us, something that turned out to be a lie. He also offered us a lift which we obviously had to turn down and warned us about the black bears we might encounter in Pennsylvania.

Pedalling on we went over some big hills and then arrived into Youngstown which again seemed to a bit dodgy and we didn't really fancy sticking around for any longer than we had to. We were told at a service station that the whole area had been issued with a severe storm warning and so quickly got our rain jackets on. We soon took them off when the rain didn't materialise and we were more wet from the sweat caused by them than we would have been if it was raining. Shortly after we arrived at the state border which rather than a sign, had a banner across the road.

The first few miles of Pennsylvania were great fun with fast downhill sections however we soon paid for it with more massive hills. We were distracted from the pain however by seeing several horse and carts going past driven by members of the local Amish community. Feeling tired we stopped at a restaurant and got chatting to some of the people in there. One guy had cycled 100 miles in 6 hours before and after finding out the price of the adjoining hotel, very generously agreed to pay for a room for us for the night! We were astonished by this and so thank you Ralph very much! Tom got talking to a couple next to us and we were shocked to learn that Youngstown has the highest murder rate in the country in the summer and we were lucky not to have had our bikes stolen at gunpoint. We also learnt about the local Amish commmunity and how even though they reject all modern inventions including rubber, they are willing to use other peoples phones and cars, get free school buses to their Amish school and travel all around the country to get cheap healthcare. They then told us about one of them that they met whilst he was on his 2 years out that they get when they are 18, who got a job at a trucking company and earnt so much money and enjoyed drinking so much that he decided not to go back and married an English girl instead!

It was fortunate that we did decide to stay at the motel as when we were eating, a massive storm came through and we would probably have been blown off our bikes! Not fun. Our room was very old fashioned with a shower that was more of a hose than a shower. Jack however was very excited as it had the same design as Josh's and burst out of the shower to inform us of this. The double bed was very cosy for Matt and Tom and whilst watching one of our favourite programme over here, "Married With Children", Tom said that we would be where it is based in a few days. Matt replied he hoped not as it would mean that we would be in Chicago!

Tomorrow promises to be a day of hills, hills and mountains but as Jack has stated that he is becoming a better cyclist each day we should be flying up them.

And now for Matt's daily dose of 5 facts/observations about the US:

1. When people say the next part of the route is flat, they really mean that it is hilly. And when they say scenic or "a nice ride", it means that it is really hilly

2. People like to give distances between places in terms of hours which is not much help when you are cycling there

3. When a place is called a city, it doesn't mean that it is actually a city. It is in fact more likely to consist of just a service station

4. Apparently (according to a geography student) you can get green clouds in America which means hail. We haven't seen any though so are yet to be convinced

5. When Jack hits a rock because he isn't watching where he is going and falls off, it is in fact Tom's fault because he was cycling too close to him