By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
As they loaded up on their bicycles for the second leg of their 50-mile ride on Sunday, the Wenz family from DeKalb, Illinois, was refueled for their journey by ice cream at Rita’s Dairy Bar in Grand Rapids.
This was the second Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure for parents Shawn and Melissa Wenz, and their children, Parker, 9, and Kallen, 5.
The seven-day trek, which began in Bowling Green over the weekend, is a blast with their kids, the parents said. And it ranks higher than a cruise on their kids’ top vacation experiences, Shawn Wenz said.
“The adventure with them is so fun. This is their favorite vacation,” Melissa Wenz said, beating out a trip to Florida and a cruise last year.
For Parker, the long rides require her to join pedaling the tandem with her mom. “Her feet are clipped in, so she has to,” Shawn Wenz said.
Kallen is still too young, but is confident that his dad benefits from his pedaling on the back of his bike.
“I have to give him a big boost up hills,” Kallen said, with his dad nodding in agreement.
The Wenz family is among the more than 800 cyclists partaking in the annual Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, which explores different regions of Ohio each year on a seven-day bicycle tour.
This year, Bowling Green was the host community for the starting and ending point. On Sunday, many bicyclists took a route from Bowling Green to Weston, to McClure, then Grand Rapids, Waterville, Tontogany, then back to BG.
The riders average 50 miles per day. Each night, riders camp in tents at “GOBAvilles” along the route, usually set up at schools, colleges, fairgrounds or parks. Showers in trucks and indoor floor spaces for sleeping are available. Luggage trucks transport riders’ gear between camps.
Some long-time bicyclists said that GOBA is actually short for “Get Over Being Attractive.”
For many participants, the ride is an annual tradition. For Paul and Cindy Scheibelhut, of Bettendorf, Iowa, this is their ninth GOBA ride.
“You’ve got a lot of nice country roads,” Paul Scheibelhut said. On Saturday, the pair rode the Slippery Elm Trail between Bowling Green and North Baltimore. On Sunday, they stopped midway in Grand Rapids.
They are experienced pedalers, having ridden the full 468-mile RAGBRAI annual bike ride across Iowa three times.
They learned long ago – 44 years – that they can make better time if they work together on a tandem bike.
“We can go a little bit faster,” Cindy Scheibelhut said.
Plus a tandem puts them at the same pace.
“We ride at different speeds. This way we can ride together,” her husband said.
For many GOBA participants, the annual ride is a labor of love. That’s true for Tom Oberhouse, of Pemberville, who is on his 21st GOBA ride.
Along with exploring more rural parts of Ohio, it’s also allowed riders to create long-term friendships that get renewed each summer.
“We do it together every year,” Oberhouse said. This year, he was riding with a group of friends from Ontario, British Columbia, West Virginia, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. And since Monday’s GOBA leg goes through Pemberville, about 15 bicyclists are camping out at Oberhouse’s and Laura Landry Meyer’s home Sunday evening – feasting on fried chicken from the IGA and Meyer’s triple berry pie.
GOBA has another side benefit, Oberhouse confided.
“I get to eat as much as I want and I don’t feel guilty,” he said. On Sunday morning that included a chocolate milkshake on the pit stop in Grand Rapids. “It will sustain me.” If there would have been pie, Oberhouse confessed he would have eaten that, too.
“It’s really relaxing,” he said – which is hard to imagine with the daily rides averaging 50 miles. Oberhouse said he averages 15 to 17 mph, but has reached up to 40 mph with a good tailwind and hill.
“I get scared after that,” he said, adding that with this region’s flat terrain there will be no breakneck speeds this year.
“We can’t keep up with him,” said Candice Jones, 75, of Parkersburg, West Virginia. But this week is not about finishing first.
“I’ve gotten to the point that the biking is secondary to hanging out with friends,” said Laura Vermilya, of Columbus, who is on her 14th GOBA.
“Now I have a GOBA family,” said Jones, who is on her 21st ride.
Also along for the ride was Dan Duffield, who lives on a farm just north of London, Ontario. Duffield has been riding GOBA for nearly 20 years, but decided to try something different this year with an electric-assist bike.
“I got that on Friday and I’m kind of liking it,” he said. Of course that didn’t help when he got a flat tire on Sunday’s ride.
GOBA can also provide important reminders about human nature, according to Robin Starr, of Columbus.
“It’s still my favorite week of the year,” she said. “It teaches me that being around a lot of people is good. People are good. And we can do hard things.”
By noon, some riders were already back at the GOBAville camp at Wood County Fairgrounds. Many were showered and freshening up with a quick shave and toothbrushing.
Dan Schoeffler, from the Cleveland area, said he left Bowling Green around 7 a.m., and returned by noon on his third GOBA year. That allowed him to wind down and catch up on the news before going out to eat for dinner somewhere in BG.
“It was a beautiful long ride along the Maumee River,” he said as he sat outside his tent.
The camps offer a little bit of pampering for cyclists, like massages, yoga, and towel service. But for the newbies, not accustomed to riding for hours each day, the buttocks pain is just a discomfort that must be tolerated.
GOBA has been taking bicyclists across Ohio for 34 years, according to Michael Kahrl, president of the Columbus Outdoor Pursuits board, which organizes the annual rides. Each year, a “route meister” is given the job of finding a scenic route on empty country roads – offering glimpses of little seen areas of Ohio.
“You drive around on the freeways and you miss them,” he said.
Kahrl praised Bowling Green as a host community and Mary Hinkelman, executive director of the BG Chamber of Commerce, for her assistance. “She’s fantastic,” he said. On Sunday evening, a community festival was being held in Wooster Green for GOBA participants.
On Monday, the cyclists will head to Port Clinton, then on Tuesday they will travel the Marblehead, Lakeside, Catawba Peninsula loop.
Wednesday routes take the bicyclists south or east, with options to take a ferry to islands or a shuttle to Cedar Point. On Thursday, they will head to Fremont, with a barbecue planned at the Rutherford B. Hayes Museum. And Friday will be a trip to Tiffin, then back to Bowling Green on Saturday.
