I’m riding my bike across Ohio again. This time from south to north. To learn more about why I’m doing this ride, read my 2015 blog below. To get involved, donate or learn more about it, please click here: Martin’s Pan Ohio Bike Ride

This year, I’m also proud to support the American Cancer Society through our company, Canada Rail Vacations. Our company is donating USD $25 to the Pan Ohio Hope Ride for every guest from Ohio who books a rail tour  with us in 2017. After seeing the benefits of the funds raised firsthand over the past two years, I wanted to do more to help in the fight against this disease.
The Pan Ohio Hope Ride was a beautifully organized bike ride that I rode in July 2015 and 2016. The first time we did the ride, it started in Cleveland and went to Cincinnati. Each day we rode between 115 – 167 km on our bikes. The route is now Cincinnati to Cleveland. I’ll share stories via photos and links to limit the writing, otherwise I could go on for days about how nicely organized this whole trip was. To learn more about the reason this organization was started and how it has grown, please click on the following link: Pan Ohio Hope Ride’s Story

To sum it up, here are a few points about what makes this ride so awesome:

• All meals and accommodation were included for the duration of the trip
• Door to door luggage delivery was included for all accommodation
• Three to one volunteer to rider ratio helped us stay safe, watered and fed
• Full mechanical support team by the Bike Source to help with bicycle break downs
• Rest stops with full supplies including food, water, snacks, toiletries, lotions, etc every 15 – 25 km
• Great people!

Yes, we’ll be back…

Why did we ride the Pan Ohio Hope Ride?

In 2014 we had a customer named Eddie Arsenault at Canada Rail Vacations who was diagnosed with cancer. He had to cancel his trip with us on relatively short notice. Rail cancellation fees are very high and I fought hard to do my best to reduce the costs for him. While there were still costs involved, I put in a lot of time to make them as low as possible for Eddie. He was thankful. I told him a little about what we do in Alberta, as our team, the Keller Holly Rollers have raised over $185,000 the past four years by riding our bikes for cancer research. Eddie donated to our ride in 2014. Here’s more on our team: Keller Holly Rollers

As a way of saying thanks, I wanted to do something for Eddie. He donated to the Alberta Cancer Foundation and I wanted to do something for the American Cancer Society. I don’t remember my exact search terms, but I did an internet search that included American Cancer Society and bike rides. That was how I discovered the Pan Ohio Hope Ride.

Eddie and Martin finally met in real life in August 2015.

Our Team

Our team is comprised of Shawn Middleton and Martin Flanagan. Shawn and I have trained together in the past and we both ride at a similar speed. He’s a better long distance rider and mechanic than I am, but I’m a better sprinter and hill climber. My bike mechanical abilities do not exist.

Superman was created in Cleveland. This was a good start to be greeted by him, it made us feel stronger.

After an hour in the hotel, Shawn’s bike was already put together.

After an hour in the hotel, I was still trying to locate all of the parts to reassemble my bike. (Note to self, next time don’t unscrew everything)

We figured we’d use the day for some sightseeing of Cleveland in our new cycling attire.

Cleveland

Shawn is a big Cleveland Browns fan and I love sightseeing. We had two nights in Cleveland prior to the first day of riding. My lack of mechanical abilities were highlighted again on our arrival day as I couldn’t put my bike back together after travelling. I had a lot of leftover parts. By 3:00 am, I had what resembled a bike to make it rideable. Luckily, the great guys at Joy Machines in Cleveland helped, taught me what I did wrong and gave my bike a quick check. A day of sightseeing on our bikes showed us how well Ohio’s bicycle infrastructure is laid out. Calgary is presently striving to create a better bicycle infrastructure and would learn a lot by going to Ohio.

Shawn has always been a Cleveland Browns fan, thus it was good to go to First Energy Stadium.

Shawn Middleton and Jim Brown.

I got my bike put together and it worked, but I had left over parts, so I took it to the pros at Joy Machines to reassemble.

The Pre Ride Dinner

We had the pleasure of meeting the founders of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride at the pre ride dinner. Kathleen Bond, the founder, along with Dennis Hoffer, the co founder were both there. In fact, Dennis was one of the first people we met at the event. We also had the pleasure of meeting some folks that we both have followed on Twitter prior to the event. Brian Bortz, one of the event’s top fundraisers, and I had followed each other on Twitter for a few months leading up to the ride. I rode day two with Brian on the Challenge Route. Stacy Keyerleber (aka “The Instigator”) and I had followed each other on Twitter. Upon becoming Facebook friends we also learned that she was friends with my sister in law (small world). Cory Murphy, who we met on the first night, ended up becoming a riding partner as we rode all four days with him.

The pre ride event with Brian Bortz, one of the top fundraisers and Dennis Hoffer, the co founder of the race.

Kathleen Bond is the founder of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride. She’s a very inspirational women. Her husband Jim has battled through cancer. Her son James is the Pan Ohio Yeti.

Shawn and I met Stacy Keyerleber (aka The Instigator) on our first night there.

Steve is a rider. His wife and daughter are volunteers. He looks like a friend of ours who is a lawyer, so my first words to him were, “Are you a lawyer?” He is a lawyer.

This was the original James Bond. A cancer survivor and the reason behind the Pan Ohio Hope Ride as his wife is the founder.

The ride was sponsored by New Belgium Brewery. Not only did they provide free beer, they donated a bike for the raffle.

Our favourite sponsor deserves extra recognition. Five days of free beer.

Pre ride dinner

Shawn modelling our new jerseys

Riding Bikes

In total, we did about 540 km. There were “challenge routes” with hills and there were amazing trails. Throughout the USA, there is a move to turn old railway lines into paved bicycle trails. You can learn more about it here: Rail to Trails. We spent a lot of our time on these trails and the remainder of the time on the roads.

We made a lot of new friends out on the trails and roads and hope to stay in touch with the folks we met in Ohio.

Andrew #TeamUSA and Shawn #TeamCanada

New friends and riding partners – Cory, Martin, Shawn, Andrew

This is how great the lunch stops were.

Lunch stop on Day One

Martin and Brian – at the end of the Challenge Route on Day Two

The Honey Badgers

Rumours were abound about the team called The Honey Badgers. They were the “crazy nastyass” team that everyone was talking about. To learn more about a honey badger, I suggest watching the following video to see how bad ass this team is. Honey Badger Video Now that you’ve seen the video you know what to expect on a bicycle. The Honey Badgers team captain is Julie Stephens. Word is, she feeds her team cobras for breakfast. I don’t know if it’s true, but I witnessed them all drinking venom out of a flask one night.

Honey Badger Diane snacking on a piece of cobra. For an explanation of why Honey Badgers eat cobra, please watch the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

This is where Team Honey Badger stores their cobras, which they also eat while they ride. Robert also told me, when he isn’t carrying cobras in his pouch, he can hold a six pack of beer some bottles of wine.

After following it on Twitter for almost a year, I finally met the Pan Ohio Yeti. It stole my bike and gave me a flat tire.

Pan Ohio Yeti wanted to become Canadian and meet Sasquatch, so it stole my jersey to help with immigration.

Brian made friends with Pan Ohio Yeti.

That night, after 167 km, Cory suggested we go to “Just Another eFfen Brewery” so we went to JAFB.

The Bike Source supported the entire ride. Many thanks to Andy, who volunteered his time to fix our bikes. He was a big help when my tire blew off the rim.

For those of you who know Canadian Greg Van Tighem (http://endms93.com/yellowhead-highway-16-the-next-adventure/about/) this is his Ohio twin who rode the entire trip on his fat bike.

We were riding part of the Rail to Trails Conservancy routes, thus there were a lot of trains en route. How appropriate for our sponsor – http://www.canadarail.ca

Lori was at Beerfest and went up to Great Lakes Brewing, asking them if they wanted some advertising. They donated the jersey and got a lot of advertising. Does anyone want some free advertising? I’ve got 2860 km of advertising so far this year that you missed out on and many more to come.

We stopped at the Ohio Stadium “The Horseshoe”. I posted this sign for Eddie, the reason I was doing this ride.

Brian and I at the end of day two, a 167 km day.

Every night, the bikes went to bed in a nice secure location while we slept in the dorms at the colleges en route.

Set up for the farewell dinner.

The bar was a canoe, proof that canoes do get tipped.

Shawn holding up the train.

I met my name brother, Brendan Flanagan.

I met Tom and Christine on day two and rode with them for a few miles. Christine is always smiling so I think it was funny that Tom took this picture of her on her one off moment. It was great riding with you both.

To make it safe entering Cincinnati, we finished on the outskirts of town. Then we had a police escort into the city as a group.

City Tour of Cincinnati – Cincinnati Train Station is one of the nicest stations I’ve ever seen.

City Tour of Cincinnati – The murals inside the train station are beautiful.

Cincinnati City Tour – Many of our cities have statues of bears, orcas, horses, etc. Cincinnati has moustaches. To see a map to all of the moustaches, click here: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2015/statues.jsp

This is Alli. We met her during the ride. As she is from Cincinnati she showed us around, joined us for dinner and gave us a city tour. Thanks Alli!

Canada Rail Vacations will be back next year to ride the inaugural Cincinnati to Cleveland ride. Rumour has it that the Honey Badgers are recruiting and we may become the Canada Rail Honey Badgers. I’ve never had cobra for breakfast.

Progress is only possible with the support of people like you, so please support me with a donation of any amount. I personally had the pleasure of meeting some of the people your donations support. To donate or to learn more about the event, click here: Pan Ohio Hope Ride