Ohio To Erie Trail

In May I had the opportunity to ride the Ohio to Erie Trail than spans the length of Ohio south to north from the Ohio River to Lake Erie. This trip was with a few of the folks I did the Erie Canal with two years ago, which meant a bit more of a relaxed trip than my usual camping template as we would be staying in hotels and eating out. While I like roughing it camping, this is a nice change, especially because you don’t have to carry as much gear. And to make it even easier, my van traveled with us to carry any gear (and most importantly) post ride beer at the end of each day. Also, this was a little unfinished business because I had intended to do the section from Massillon to Cincinnati last year as I noted in my ride to Cleveland.

The crew leaving downtown Cleveland on a cold wet morning. The weather would only get better!

This is a very popular trail for casual bike tourers because it’s mostly flat and virtually all paved except through the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation area, but even that was a very nice crushed limestone surface. It nominally gets its name from the Ohio to Erie Canal but despite this moniker, the trail only runs along a small section of the original canal towpath (Cleveland to Akron), and after that, the trail deviates quite a bit to the west and runs more miles along the Little Miami Scenic Trail in the south west part of the state into Cincinnati. Like many long trails, this moniker is really a branding overlay on top of a collection of local and regional trails and it really works as it’s very popular.

We chose to do it in 6 relatively relaxed days, staying in hotels each night except for Columbus where we had an Air BnB because it was OSU commencement and we could not find any available hotels. The six riding days were:

  • Cleveland to Akron – Wed, 5/6/2026 – 43 mi – Strava
  • Akron to Millersburg – Thu, 5/7/2026 – 68 mi – Strava
  • Millersburg to Mt Vernon – Fri, 5/8/2026 – 45 mi – Strava
  • Mt Vernon to Columbus – Sat, 5/9/2026 – 53 mi – Strava
  • Columbus to Xenia – Sun, 5/10/2026 – 61 mi – Strava (note I actually rode 87 miles)
  • Xenia to Cincinnati – Mon, 5/11/2026 – 72 mi – Strava

I was a little circumspect about riding in Ohio so early in May, but after driving to Cleveland in the torrential rain the next week was mostly dry and cool, all in all pretty lucky. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug! Of course as we went south, the temperatures warmed up a bit and on the last two days, I dispensed with the knee warmers.

The first day was pretty familiar territory that I rode last year and a variety of other times, but it was fun to play tour guide in the Flats! It was typical canal towpath trail all the way up to Akron. Interestingly, the highest point on the canal is in Akron and as a result the numbers duplicate going up and down. North of Akron, the canal follows the Cuyahoga River and on the south side, it follows the Tuscarowas River. And when I lived in Cleveland I always wondered why the called the lakes around Akron the “Portage Lakes” (we sailed on Turkeyfoot) and the reason is they used the lake to “portage” between the up and down sections of the canal!

The “Wendy Bridge” onto Whiskey Island one of the official end points of the trail. This bridge basically made Whiskey Island accessible from downtown. Very transformative.
Goofing around on the Carter Rd lift bridge. It was open for a long time to let the Goodtime III pass in and out.
Leaving the Flats and hitting the trail proper. Had to get the iconic Terminal Tower in the shot.
A fun overlook just south of Cleveland.

On the second day there was a lot of flooding on the trail along the Tuscarowas River and we got our feet really wet a couple times, with one section above the bottom bracket. Waxed chain to the rescue! Once we deviated west from the canal towpath, we had about 18 miles on the road in Amish farm country with a decidedly different rolling hilly topography. Eventually we ended up on the Holmes County Trail that is heavily used by the local Amish population. While we did see a few typical horse and buggy rigs, now almost all ride e-bikes. So many questions…

Beautiful morning!
Getting our feet wet in the COLD Tuscarawas River. One section was up over the bottom bracket!
The typical Amish e-bikes. Often we’d see a whole family on them including trikes.
The Holmes County Trail caters to the local Amish. Note the short bollard that can go underneath a buggy.

Day three ended in the cute little town of Mt Vernon, which was a “2 brewery” night, my favorite! I did a little tour around to see some of the fantastic small town architecture. On the way, we went through Kenyon College and did a little tour around. A quintessential small, verdant college campus.

Another to add to my album of my bike leaning against trains. This was at Kenyon College.
Love this Victorian in Mt Vernon.

Day four was down into Columbus and on the way I decided to divert off course as we were going by Hoover Reservoir, the home of Hoover Sailing Club, a place I’ve raced Snipes many times. It was the home base of the Fisher clan back in the day and Matt still races MC scows there. It still looks the same and seems pretty active, but sadly no more Snipe fleet. There was a Thistle regatta going on that blustery spring day and it looked like pretty nice sailing. Once in the Columbus area most of the ride in and out was on the suburban/urban Alum Creek trail which is very much like riding on the Anacostia trail system in Washington. We had really good (hot! even at 3 on a 5 scale) Jambolaya at a local Caribbean place in Columbus. The Air BnB had a little funky setup and I ended up sleeping in my happy place (the van). It definitely was nice to have a communal post ride space to hang out and socialize, despite the funkiness.

Haven’t been to the Hoover Sailing Club (didn’t it used to be called Hoover Yacht Club?) in 25 years, but looks the same as I remember.
Thistles having a sporty spring regatta at HSC.
The Air BnB was in a “transitioning” neighborhood of Columbus which seemed to be getting a lot of love as noted by comparing with the older Street View pictures we looked at.

Day five was the “long” day at about 71 miles. Since it was the flattest and straitest section, I ended up riding about 87 miles as I rode ahead to stretch my legs a bit deciding I would get to the first Xenia city sign and turn around to go back and meet the last group on the trail. There were only two possible lunch stops, London and South Charleston. London was a really nice trail town, but it was too early (greatly violating the Valade Rule of stopping for lunch after > half the daily miles), so Steve and I pressed on to South Charleston where the only thing open on a Sunday was the IGA grocery store with a little lunch area inside. But they made great sandwiches and were very friendly. We really enjoyed that.

London is working hard to be a nice trail town. They allow you to camp in this little park, nice!
IGA for the win, including a real sugar Coke!

Day 6 took us into Cincinnati. There was a potential gnarly detour on the trail due to a small washout section – a really steep hill that I kinda was looking forward to – but we were able to slide around it between dump trucks of dirt being removed. Other than that the trail had a lot of new buttery pavement and an awesome lunch stop at the Cartridge Brewery in the old Peters Cartridge Company a former manufacturing facility that is now apartments and some mixed use right on the trail. Once we got into downtown Cincinnati, it was a bit anticlimactic as we all got scattered looking for the “End Point” that I never found. But we got a good tour of the waterfront before eventually heading to the hotel on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. We hit the Hofbräuhaus (evidently the original in the US) for dinner.

Out of character, I had two beers at lunch.
The Peters Cartridge Factory. The building on the far right is a “shot tower” where they would drop molten lead drops to form balls. A microgravity fluid physics experiment 100 years before the microgravity program!
Reds Stadium, downtown Cincinnati.
Ending group shot on the Purple People Bridge over the Ohio River.
The last supper at the Hofbräuhaus Newport.
The final dusk view of Cincinnati from the hotel.

Thankfully, we had Van*tastic there and the next morning the Annapolis-ish crew drove the 8 hours back. It was a really fun and social trip, a nice break from my solo camping fests.