The Spokesrider

We just got back from a couple of days in Nappanee, IN. Monday we did things that didn’t involve our bicycle, including a tour of Martin’s Buggy Shop. This photo shows part of the large inventory of wheels. Those parts are built elsewhere — perhaps in Holmes County, Ohio, IIRC. We learned about the place [...]

There were two major destinations for my April 18 ride. This was near the first one, near the northwest corner of the old Mickkesawbe Reserve in Branch County. The north border of that reserve is Jonesville Road. That road is bicycleable enough but it does carry more traffic than other roads in the area. So [...]

On a ride to Upper Sandusky, Ohio last September 29, I was looking for signs of an old reservation boundary in this area. There was one place where the maps had suggested there might be a piece of driveway that still remained from an old piece of road that marked the boundary. I don’t think [...]

It may have been when I took the photo of the Amish buggy in the previous post that I learned that I did not have another full bottle of water in my pannier, after all. Or it could have been at a previous stop. It was a very hot day — in the 90s — [...]

This may look like a google map, but it’s just a screen shot of one, sort of. It shows the route of yesterday’s bike ride and all the places where I stopped to take photos. The temperature was in the 90s with a light wind out of the northeast (the direction where I was headed). [...]

Ben asked me about routes in Holmes County, Ohio. The only experience I’ve had riding there was that time in September 2003. The multi-use trail I wrote about has been completed since then. Holmes County Routes What I’ve done here is mark the route I used in Holmes County that year. It wasn’t a continuous [...]

In a previous article I quoted the 1880 history of Eaton County that said the wife of Edward O. Smith saw a large group of Potawatomi Indians during the Indian removal of 1840, the year before she died. (The county history said she died in 1842, not 1841. I would usually trust the gravestone over [...]