Wandering around Northern Ohio

[klaviator]

Last week I headed up to Ohio to visit my parents and help them with some stuff that needed to be done around their house.  They are in their 80s and can't do all the stuff they used to be able to do.  Last time I visited them I got a bad case of PMS from not riding for a week.  This time I took along my Super 8 so that I could do a little riding.  I brought my smallest bike because the speed limits are really low in the North east and enforcement really high.

On Sunday I got out for an hour or two in the morning and rode out to Gates Mills.



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That afternoon a storm passed through with a cold front behind it.  It would be cooler that week than the week before which had some 90 degree days.

The weather cleared up and temperatures were in the 60s so I headed out for another ride that evening.



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Eventually all these rusty old bridges will be replaced but I think they are cool and will be sad to see them go.

[kdtrull]

That first bridge looks familiar....maybe from one of your previous reports???

[klaviator]

That first bridge looks familiar....maybe from one of your previous reports???

Good eye.  I have posted pics of my Sport City and my Majesty by that bridge.

[klaviator]

Rode around town some Monday evening at the tail end of rush hour. I did not really consider how chilly it was and only wore a sweatshirt, textile jacket and jeans. I froze my ass off. I think it was in the 50s. On a busy road a deer just casually wandered across the road oblivious to all the traffic. It was going slow enough that I was able to grab my camera, turn it on and take this pic while riding.

[klaviator]

Normally my idea of a ride is to head out into the country where there are curvy roads, scenery and a minimum of traffic. On Thursday I did something completely different. I wanted to go visit Cleveland Moto which is on the west side of Cleveland. My parents live on the east side of town. Normally it would be pretty simple to just get on the interstate and head over there. I didn't want to do that on my Super 8 and I didn't know if it would even be legal. So I came up with a route right through the center of Cleveland.

I was still in the eastern suburbs when I saw something I hadn't seen in many years and had actually forgotten about.

So I snapped a pic.



What I was trying to get a pic of is barely visible in the pic (bottom middle).  What's just as important is what you don't see in the pic.  I took another pic.  See anything unusual?

[Hammerdown77]

I don't see any mailboxes

[klaviator]

I don't see any mailboxes

That's right.  I was riding along and saw a mailman (or maybe woman) walking house to house with a mail bag.  That's how it was when i was growing up in Cleveland but it's been a long time since I was that.  In the top pic you can just see the mail man if you have a decent size screen.

[klaviator]

This was straight line riding with very low speed limits and one traffic light after the other.  It wasn't exciting riding but the scenery was very interesting.  Cleveland is mostly very old.  What would be considered the historic district in  most Southern towns is pretty much the norm here.  It's been a long time since I really went into these old parts of Cleveland so I found it very interesting and I managed to take some pics on the go.



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This next pic reminds me of a scene from Lord of the Rings when they are going down the river and see the two giant statues.

[klaviator]

Now I was on the west side of Cleveland.



my destination.



So why did I want to come here?

Because we have nothing like this in or near Huntsville.



An actual scooter shop.  Not a motorcycle shop with one or two scooters somewhere on the floor.

[klaviator]

One of the scooters I really wanted to check out was the Kymco Like 150i.  I had seen one at the Barber Vintage Festival last year but I wanted to see it again.  Luckily they had three of them on the floor.



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When I sat one the one at barber it seemed really cramped.  This time it felt a lot better.  Maybe I have shrunk since last year???

I talked to the owner of the shop for a while.  He told me had had been riding one of these scooters and was really impressed.  He checked the Speedometer against GPS and found it to be dead accurate.  He said he had seen a top speed of 71 MPH.  That's nearly as fast as the Smax and probably better than any other 150cc scooter.  On top of that the MSRP is only $2599  ???   If I didn't already have 2 small scooters I'd be real tempted to buy one of these.

[klaviator]

This place had a lot of interesting stuff.



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Anyone looking for a nice BV500?



I forget the mileage on this scooter but I think it was under 5,000.

400 2 smoke.



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That's the owner behind the Vespa.  We talked for while he was assembling the Vespa.  Notice the racks full of Givi boxes in the background



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They had some riding gear aimed at scooter riders. 



This was just a cool shop.  Besides all the interesting bikes this shop really gets involved with their customers.  They do a weekly podcast.  They host and participate in rides and other events.  If I lived in Cleveland I'd be a regular there but it's a bit of a commute from Huntsville :(

[klaviator]

Time to head back.  I took  a slightly different route back and got some more pics.



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That's the B. F. Goodrich Blimp near the top of the next pic.



Tour bus on the left.  While that is one way to see the sights I was glad to be seeing them on my scooter.



interesting bike.



Before I went on this ride I was a little worried about going through some pretty bad parts of town.  It turned out to be a really interesting ride even though the riding itself was pretty boring.  A small scooter is perfect for this kind of ride.  The speed limit was almost always 25-35 MPH.  I did find out from the Cleveland moto owner that technically my Kymco is legal on the interstate highways in Ohio but I would have missed seeing all the interesting historical stuff.  I also would have had to run full throttle for 20 minutes or more and still be going slower than traffic. 

[klaviator]

Friday was our the day in Ohio before we would have to head back home.  I went for one last ride.  I headed out to the town of Chagrin Falls.  It's a nice ride but the roads in Ohio tend to be in really bad condition.



This road is a bit rough but looks really cool.



I used to drive out to Chagrin Falls regularly because I worked in a paper mill on the edge of town.  This is all that's left of the paper mill.



Then I rode back into town and found a place to park.  This place is just a small town but it's real busy even on midday Friday.  There are a lot of people with money here as I saw number of porches and even one guy in an old Rolls Royce.

This town does have one main tourist attraction.



Another shot from a different angle.

[klaviator]

I wandered around town a bit.  It looked like they were setting up for some kind of event over the weekend.



Probably my favorite tourist attraction in town is the ice cream shop.  I didn't get any ice cream this time but did get a pic.



Then I headed back.  This was along the way so I stopped for a pic.  It made me wonder what it would be like to play scooter Polo



Did I mention the roads here were in really crappy condition?



At least the scenery was nice.



That's it for this trip.  I enjoyed the cooler weather in Ohio.  I only wore my mesh jacket a couple of times later in the week.  It was too cold for mesh my first few rides.  I was really glad I brought my Super 8.  With the low speed limits it would have been way to hard to obey them on my other bikes. 

Thanks for reading.