Friday, October 11, 1996: very cold morning--around 32°. Departure 9:54 AM.
I awakened with a splitting migraine, and despite taking medication, I was forced to delay our departure.
It is almost halloween. There are pumpkins for sale and displayed at homes all along our route.
All the way from Williamston, Michigan, we've been seeing halloween decorations. We saw some of the best today.
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The ride between Hamilton and Cincinnati was really tough. The urban traffic on US-127 was very heavy; cars every 50 feet. Surprisingly though, the drivers were real courteous. We think that our white beards and my sign are big helps.The white beard might have to go though. A young lady in a passing car today yelled to me in a friendly way--"you crazy old man." Even if I am crazy, I'm not ready to be old.
I had my sign made by Michigan Stamps & Signs in Lansing,
Michigan and then I made a bracket out of scrap plastic to bolt to my rear
rack. The sign is made of plastic with the same reflective yellow reflective
covering as road signs.
The public response to the sign is phenomenal. There is no doubt at all that the nature of my endeavor, once known, causes a very positive reaction.
In such heavy traffic it is nearly impossible to hear and riding has to be every man for himself. Ritt and I had our first fight today. Ritt carreened around me and almost crashed into me when I stopped for red light. He yelled that I should have shouted "stopping." I responded that if he had been watching where he was going, he would have seen the stop light for himself. I told Ritt that I wouldn't be yelling "stopping" when I was stopping for a red light, a stop sign or the car in front of me--only on the occasions where I was stopping on my own volition. I told him that he had his own duty to keep his eyes on the road and that if he'd spend less time focusing on what was happening in his rearview mirror, he'd be able to see what was happening around him. The riding tension level and the proximity to one another every night is making us a bit shorter with each another.
As he rides, Ritt is constantly worried about the traffic approaching
from behind. 
I don't worry about it much at all. I'm more like
Fast Food Bob, who doesn't even have a mirror on his bike or helmet. Ritt's
helmet mirror stays with him even off the bike. He told me that a British
newspaper ran a story about him with the headline: "Three-eyed man."
After more than 2 hours of urban riding, we finally reached
the City of Cincinnati.
It took us another hour or so (who keeps time when gripping their handlebars with all their might) to get downtown. Ritt was cut-off by a car turning right. I had a couple of cars pull out in front of me and a couple of others open their doors in my path. I ride real defensively. I take my lane and don't care what the cars think. I did experience some speedy (34.5 mph with a 35 mph speed limit) downhills on Cincinnati city streets. We asked directions at a police station, from a mounted policeman and from a Riverfront Stadium security guard. We rode right straight through the downtown, right past the Federal Building where I practiced law on several occasions, then down to the Riverfront Stadium and along Pete Rose Drive to the entrance to the ramp for the bridge across the Ohio River.
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We stopped for the night right across the river from Cincinnati at the Covington, Kentucky Holiday Inn ($79). For dinner, we walked 3 blocks south to Main Strasse Village (a restored 19th century German neighborhood) where we ate at Wertheim's Gasthaus Zur Linde. The "champgnon schnitzel" was fabulous.
Total miles today: 60
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997
