Weekend Warriors 2

Last weekend, I was graced with the companionship of Mike Sokol on my Sunday Ride (or the Sunny Day Ride, should it fall on a Saturday and it's sunny; or the Cloudy Day Ride [also occurring on Saturday, aforementioned conditions]), or, simply, The Ride.

The Ride, as I've come to discover over these last few weeks, is a bit different from a ride, in the sense of coming home from work or riding up to Coventry with one's special lady (or gentleman) friend. The Ride is brisk but not exhausting, freewheeling but restrained, deep but not wide, firm but not unaccommodating. The Ride, if it is planned correctly, affords moments of natural reflection and urban exploration. The tandem of natural and urban aspects are most important.

So last weekend, Mike Sokol and I planned a route North towards our Great Lake along the overcultured Martin Luther King Drive. Fall is a good time of year to take this route. Mike Sokol had to work a bit harder than me throughout the course of the day, as he was pushing a mountain bike. I might add that Mike appeared slightly out of his element, as he wasn't in Mayfield Heights bunny-hopping mailboxes and elderly people in carts.

But we made it up to the lake with little trouble and hit the Lake Erie Scenic Bikeway -- West toward the city.











We took a zen break. Mike Sokol, no doubt, vehemently denies any moments of zen occurred during The Ride. Well it happened, Mike, and here's proof:













After being heckled by some women fishermen, we left our little craggy outcropping and pushed forward. I think, maybe, I had intentions of going downtown. But as we approached E. 5-5, that inviting HO-JO, gazing blankly over the lake, waved us off the trail.














So we exited the bike way, and scouted out the rear of the building, where I took this picture before the batteries on my camera died.














A gas station a little further up 5-5 provided the power I needed. Over the fence we went.



We found the place thoroughly gutted, with no traces of habitation, save some pigeons that caused Mike some grief (as pigeons often do) that resided near the roof.


The roof, naturally, was the focal point, but this tree growing out of the lobby was intriguing too.










Here is the view from the top. You've got your lake; you've got your Cleveland.











I would have liked to have gone back down and explored the lobby, but Mike caught sight of a motorcycle cop -- one of Cleve-O's finest, no doubt -- making himself cozy a few hundred feet up the road. Both Mike and I recalled seeing him ride past a few minutes prior and assumed he was there to take us out.

We panicked a bit (I know my heart rate picked up, and it wasn't from the 10-story climb) and beat it out of there -- with VIGOR! It kind of went like this: Me-Fence-Bike-Fence-Bike-Fence-Mike-Fence. We said good-bye to 5-5 HoJo.










There is an abandoned telescope factory on Carnegie near 5-5 that we meant to hit up next, but were rather off-put by a man in a shack seemingly guarding the property. Mike and I stood in the middle of a brick alley -- on one end was an entrance into the factory on the other was the shack with the guy in it. We decided to try the factory another day. On the way out, the man asked if I wanted to buy a tape recorder, which he held up to my face. I declined, politely.

Mike Sokol and I rode the glorious CORRIDOR -- the artery that will once again pump life into this malignant city. As I was taking a picture of the building without a face (below), a passerby asked if I could buy him some food from a nearby Aldi's. I told him I would, as he wasn't trying to sell me a tape recorder, and it seemed like the man could use a bite to eat.














He was gracious, for sure, when I gave him some bread, hot dogs, and milk, but quickly got to work soliciting people in the parking lot for bus fare. Ah well.

Mike Sokol pretty much kicked my ass down the rest of Euclid as his full suspension bike seemed made for that horrible stretch between E.79 and Stokes. We began with zen and ended intense (read: Mike Sokol).