Day 39 - Tuesday, June 19th - Wooster to Niles, OH
Distance: 93.8 miles
Elevation Gain: 3461 ft. or 36.9 ft./mile
Another long day in the saddle as we stair stepped our way to the Northeast. Tomorrow will also be a 90 mile day as we get to Erie and a much needed, and final, rest day on Thursday. Rain overnight broke the heat and it was a good 10 degrees cooler all day. At the start the roads were still wet but by 10 miles in the roads were pretty well dried out. The clouds stayed with us all day which helped keep it cooler but did little for the humidity which was a bit better but still pretty high. The sun finally did come out once we got to Niles.
A very light picture day today. Weather made it problematic at the beginning and there are fewer unique or picturesque opportunities especially later in today's ride. Frankly, at times today it felt like I was riding in my old stomping ground of Burlington County, NJ.
We headed north out of the hotel on a two mile climb and passed along the western boundary of the campus of The College of Wooster before turning east for about 5 miles where we “stepped” north and then northeast passing through the northern portion of Orrville, a city of about 8400 and the headquarters of the JM Smucker Company and boyhood home of Bobby Knight (aka The General). He was the, some would say infamous, basketball coach of the Indiana Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000. While incredibly successful his combative nature led to his firing in 2000. Let’s face it throwing a chair across the court during a game is problematic behavior 😊
Another “step” north came at mile 15 and two miles later we headed east once again where at mile 23 we reached Canal Fulton and cross the Tuscarawas River. Canal Fulton is a city of 5500 that is actually the amalgamation of three villages in the area.
Our first SAG stop was at mile 35 (in the parking lot of the Mt Pleasant Church of the Brethren) in North Canton, a city of 17,500 that is southeast of the Akron-Canton Airport. North Canton got its start in 1831 as the Village of New Berlin as the residents were primarily of German descent. North Canton is home to the Hoover vacuum cleaner company that started in 1908 and shut down operations in 2007 when Techtronic Industries acquired the Hoover floor care business from Whirlpool Corporation.
We headed north out of the hotel on a two mile climb and passed along the western boundary of the campus of The College of Wooster before turning east for about 5 miles where we “stepped” north and then northeast passing through the northern portion of Orrville, a city of about 8400 and the headquarters of the JM Smucker Company and boyhood home of Bobby Knight (aka The General). He was the, some would say infamous, basketball coach of the Indiana Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000. While incredibly successful his combative nature led to his firing in 2000. Let’s face it throwing a chair across the court during a game is problematic behavior 😊
Another “step” north came at mile 15 and two miles later we headed east once again where at mile 23 we reached Canal Fulton and cross the Tuscarawas River. Canal Fulton is a city of 5500 that is actually the amalgamation of three villages in the area.
Our first SAG stop was at mile 35 (in the parking lot of the Mt Pleasant Church of the Brethren) in North Canton, a city of 17,500 that is southeast of the Akron-Canton Airport. North Canton got its start in 1831 as the Village of New Berlin as the residents were primarily of German descent. North Canton is home to the Hoover vacuum cleaner company that started in 1908 and shut down operations in 2007 when Techtronic Industries acquired the Hoover floor care business from Whirlpool Corporation.
A few pictures from the ride to this point.
Dairy cows being fed
I'm guessing a root cellar or maybe an ice house
Not your typical lawn ornament - Oversized Milk Cans
We continued on local roads stair-stepping our way when at about mile 45 we turned east on OH-619. More “steps” gets us to US-224 at mile 60 where we headed east to our SAG stop in Deerfield at mile 64.
Park in the center of a roundabout in Deerfield
We reached the eastern shore of Berlin Lake at mile 66 and passed through Berlin Center at mile 69.
At mile 78 we turned north onto the Mill Creek MetroParks Bikeway in Canfield, a suburban community of 7500 people located about ten miles southwest of Yougstown. Canfield was originally settled around 1798 by natives of Connecticut and had major immigration's by Germans in 1805 and Irish Catholics in 1852.
Some pictures from the bikeway.
At mile 86 we left the Bikeway and headed north on OH-46 into Mineral Ridge, a community of just under 4000 people and named for the coal deposits near the original town site.
Shortly before getting to the 90-mile mark we cross the Mahoning River and entered the city of Niles. Another three miles got us to our hotel.
Sneak Peek At Tomorrow
90 Miles to Erie PA with the first 59 miles going due north and running parallel to the Pennsylvania border. We then turn northeast and two miles later cross into Pennsylvania for our tenth state line crossing and eleventh state. Fortunately the elevation gain is minimal. I've had two more rest days in this week then all the other riders and I know how tired I am. Everyone is ready for a break.
Erie, is the county seat of Erie County and home to nearly 100,000 people, enough to make it the fourth largest city in Pennsylvania. Named for the lake and the Native American Tribe, Erie is halfway between Buffalo NY and Cleveland OH. European settlers arrived when the French built Fort Presque Isle to defend New France from British colonists. The translation of the French presque-isle literally means “almost an island” and refers to the peninsula of land that juts out into the lake and today is protected by Presque Isle State Park. The French abandoned the fort in 1760 and the British moved in later that year, three years before the end of the French and Indian War.
Erie is in the what was known as the Erie Triangle, a parcel of land comprising over 202,000 acres that Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut all laid claim to after the Revolutionary War, and was also claimed by the Iroquois and the Seneca Nation. New York and Connecticut relinquished their claims and the Iroquois and Seneca Nation were paid about $155,000 by Pennsylvania. Not even a dollar an acre.
Erie became a critical hub for shipbuilding, fishing and the railroads in the mid 1800’s. At the time there was no standard for the width (gauge) of railroad tracks. In Erie three different rail gauges came together. Obviously, this caused delays for cargo and transportation, but it generated a lot of local jobs. In the Erie Gauge War, the citizens of Erie, led by the mayor, ripped up tracks, burned bridges and rioted in an unsuccessful effort to stop standardization.
Erie continued to grow for most of the 20th century because of its industrial/manufacturing base and attracted several waves of European immigrants for those industrial jobs. Erie became part of the rust belt and suffered a major population downturn in the 1970’s as the importance of American manufacturing, steel and coal production and commercial fishing declined.
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