GOBA 2000
by Mark Reiter
Part II

A few chance meetings on the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure gives one the feeling that Ohio is actually one big small town.
Jussara deMelo, an exchange student from Brazil, accompanied her American host family from Bowling Green on the week-long ride. At one point, she met another 18-year-old exchange student from Brazil who was cycling with his host family from suburban Columbus, O.
It turns out that Jussara, 18, and Denis Selegatto, 18, live in the same city and attend the same high school in Brazil. However they did not know each other. She went to school in the afternoon and he attends the morning session.
They met up at the park Riverside Park in Findlay, where they had lunch with their host families.
And then there was Jane Gwinn of Kent, O. who said she ran into a neighbor who she didn’t know was going to be on GOBA. “We didn’t even talk about GOBA even though I knew she rides a bike,” she said.
When the 3,000 riders left Ross High School in Fremont, they were always within a half-day drive from the cars that got them there. Even when the tour reached Bellefontaine on Tuesday, they were only 75 miles from Fremont.
That is the beauty of the ride, said Karen Missavage, a vendor who sold jewelry and trinkets. If you can’t finish the whole ride and want to go home, you can likely find someone who can take you back to your car.
“It is a loop instead of a cross-state ride. You don’t start at one end of the state and ride to the other part of the state, where you are 200 miles from your car,” she said.
The ride took on a circus-like atmosphere. It was a traveling city of nomadic bikers. “Gobaville” offered riders a small midway with bike shops, repair shops, souvenir T-shirts, temporary tattoos, and a massage tent.
The reasons given for climbing on a bike and riding over 300 miles ranged from being dragged along by a parent to celebrating a birthday.
Anna Ruhmkoff, 23, who recently graduated from Manhattan College in New York, accompanied her mother, Jane Ruhmkoff, 64, who recently retired from teaching at a private school in Cincinnati.
They did GOBA together three years ago. Anna said it was the first she had ridden her bike since the tour three years ago. “GOBA sounded neat this year. I asked Anna if she would do it,” said Jane as she rested on bench with her daughter outside Rosier’s Country Market in McCutchenville.
Anna swore that she would never do it again.

For Barbara Ferguson, of Perrysburg, GOBA was her first bicycle tour of any kind. Her brothers, Michael and Stephen Rae, of Mentor, O., paid for her $125 registration fee to celebrate her 40th birthday. They had done the tour before. An avid runner, Barbara borrowed a relative’s bike.
It was during the two-day layover in Bellefontaine that Barbara formed a strong friendship with other riders who camped near her in the gym. She said it reminded her of church camp when she was a kid.
Mornings usually began about the time the birds chirped. With darkness still prevailing, tents unzipped and their occupants emerged. They went to stand in line for the portable restrooms or satisfy their hunger with a stack of pancakes from Kris Kakes.
“I don’t get up this early to go to work,” said Rich Snively, 36, of Mentor.
Some campgrounds did have their noisy moments. Like the Tuesday night stop at Lincoln Park in Marion where some 36 trains chugged along the nearby railroad tracks.
“I slept good the first two nights. But those trains sounded like bombs going off,” Vic Evcic, of Cleveland, said.
On most days, John Stahl of Hilliard, O. gave the wake up call for the riders. About 6:30 a.m. and way after most were up and moving, he would get out his trumped and play reveille.
An alumnus of the Ohio State University marching band, he usually followed the military call with the OSU fight song. At night, to signal quiet hours, he played taps. The band director at Hilliard’s Centennial High School, he has provided musical entertainment on GOBA for about 8 years.
The $125 adult registration fee entitled a rider to have two bags of luggage hauled on one of the tour’s four tractor trailers, maps of the route, camping, mobile shower truck facilities, entertainment, and other amenities.
Live bands played every night. One night there was a bluegrass band and another there was rock and roll act, which played along Main Street in Bowling Green.
“Eat, sleep, ride, repeat,” which was seen on the back of some T-shirts, is an appropriate slogan for the ride, especially the “eat” part. There was breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, and dinner.
The ride organizers worked with community organizations, churches, and service clubs to have food and drinks at the stops. They prepared and provided the food, charging reasonable rates.
Each rider could expect to spend $15 to $30 in food a day. The money went to some worthy charities. The donations will help build a church in Richwood, O. and buy Christmas toys for a foster children in Allen County.
Volunteers set up a food stand at Bluffton College. They sold sandwiches, pies, and beverages to buy Christmas presents for youngsters in the Allen Acres Children home near Bluffton.
Fulton Creek Friends Church sponsored the lunch stop between Marion and Bellefontaine to raise money for a new church they are building. Church members had prepared 2,500 bags of carrots and celery, 72 pies, 9 roasters each of sloppy joes and chicken for sandwiches, 500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and 500 ham and cheese sandwiches.
Rick Smith, 16, and seven other members of the Boy Scouts of America Troop 777 in Upper Sandusky, sold cereal and granola bars, coffee, peanut and butter sandwiches. They were raising money for their scout trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Each scout needed $1,000.
The bicycles ranged from $150 Huffys to $4,000 custom-built bikes. The traditional two-wheeler was the bike of choice for most riders. However, the recumbent — with its lawn chair-like seat — was very popular. There were tandem recumbents, three wheel recumbents, including some that have under-the-seat steering.
Ed Eybel, of Upper Arlington, O., hauled his 8-year-old daughter in a three-wheel recumbent that resembles a tricycle with a wood cart. She played video games while her father pedaled the 75-pound contraption.
Recumbents, which are hard to pedal up hill, were nearly perfect for the mostly flat route of the tour.
One of the more popular recumbents is the Bike-E. A family from Oxford, O., were outfitted with the bikes. Jeff Ernschwender, and his daughter, Molly, 7, rode a tandem Bike-E. Jeff’s sons, Jay and Jesse, both 19, Ty, 15, and Eric, 13 and their mom, Connie rode Bike-Es.
Seemingly as common was the tandem, probably because it allowed families to travel together. A mother or father could haul a child in the stoker position and get another little one in a trailer or tag-along.
Take for instance, the Lorsons of Orville, O. John and his wife, Kristin, each were the captain on a tandem. Son, Ben, 6, and daughter, Charlotte, 9, were the stokers. The Lorson’s 15-month-old daughter, Sylvia, was pulled in a trailer behind a tandem.
And then there was the four-seat tandem, dubbed “Quadzilla.” I tried to catch up with the owner and builder of the beast for an interview. But the best I could do was seeing the bike as it leaned against a fence at the quarry in Gibsonburg on the last day of the ride. I tried to lift it, but it was too heavy.
I guess the interview will have to wait until next year.

Return to Part I

Last Updated 03/19/08