June 15 Cincinnati to Mason

Getting out of Cincinnati was not as difficult as yesterday’s arrival.  We were fresh, the temperature, while hot, was still much lower.  Once we got back on the rail-trail we saw lots of people out for their morning exercise.  A group of roadie cyclists pulled along side of us and inquired about our journey. One woman, a self confessed competitor, decided Jeff was going to slow so she moved up next to Joe. Joe is not one to skip a challenge and they were off to the races.  We all ended up in Loveland, OH, where they asked us to join them for coffee. Some of the group had already done the OTET and the GAP trail in Pennsylvania but were also talking about cycling the C&O trail in Maryland and the New River trail in Virginia. We shared our travel experiences on these trails before they headed back south and we continued north.

After yesterday’s long 70 mile day we were thankful that we had planned to cut our trip back to Xenia into two segments of about 35 miles each.  The town of Mason was the best we could find with lodging and required us to cycle 5 miles off the trail.  We were surprised to see a large amusement park called Kings Island and a stadium along the way.  We thought that we selected an area with nothing going on but we were wrong.

Finally, we decided to take advantage of the hot weather and hang our wash between our bikes in the hotel parking lot.  Yes, we know that we are 2 classy guys.


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Map


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