Day 49 Rest Day

We spent the day in Erie, Pennsylvania while following our rest and recovery guidelines.

Herb and Al visited the Erie Maritime Museum. We learned all about the War of 1812 and Oliver Hazard Perry. A recreation of his ship, the Niagara, is also on display. Chad visited the Erie Art Museum.

Jim and Deb Zahler drove up from Edinboro, Pennsylvania to join us for dinner. Jim was a work colleague for my entire career and remains a good friend. It was great to see them again. Deb also gave us each a giant brownie. Thanks so much for the treat!

Stats

• Distance ridden to date: 3,854 miles (6,292 km)
• Number of states: 12

Dad and Bicycles

Today this section is written by Chad. The League of American Wheelmen is now The League of American Bicyclists. They no longer have bicycle rides but focus on education and lobbying in Washington D.C.

Dad got into cycling in the 1970’s when I was a young kid. In 1980, when I was 10, Mom and Dad went to Rhode Island for the 100th anniversary convention of the League of American Wheelmen (LAW). Somehow us kids survived at home alone.

The annual LAW conventions were around 4 to 5 days long and consisted of bike rides during the day and seminars about bike stuff in the late afternoon and evening. I guess Mom and Dad had a good time because when I was teenager in the 1980’s I went with Mom and Dad to 5 of these conventions:

• 1981 Ames, Iowa
• 1982 Dayton, Ohio
• 1983 St. Louis, Missouri
• 1984 Indianapolis, Indiana
• 1985 Madison, Wisconsin

The convention in St. Louis was memorable because Dad, Mom and I rode there on our bikes. I think it took 3 days and was around 260 miles.

The Indianapolis convention was also memorable. On the first day’s ride I had a crash going downhill and broke my collar bone and the front fork of my Beacon bike. Luckily, I was still able to ride around the Brickyard Indy 500 race track with some guy on a tandem even with my broken collar bone.

For the Madison convention my good friend Tom “Goose” Miller also went along. As lazy teenagers we rode maybe one or two days and pretty much slacked off the rest of the time.