Dayton

Erin and I decided to load up the bikes and get one more Summer road trip in. We picked Dayton because neither of us had been to the downtown and the bike lanes, trails and brewery scene looked strong. As my friend Rick said, "An experiment in breweries making any place a destination". Which, I do find to be true, and not just because I travel other places to try out their breweries, but also because every time I do I usually meet people at the breweries who know Akron(or Cleveland) because of our brewery scene. Breweries and bike infrastructure are tourist draws. Every time there is an article in Akron about improving bike lanes or adding trails there are always so many negative comments - bike lanes make our community a better place to live but they are also a draw. I've yet to ever have someone tell me about how they enjoyed visiting a city because the traffic flowed so well or that there was really good parking. It is always about friendly, walkable neighborhoods, cool local shops/restaurants/breweries, and great parks with hiking and biking. Anyways - if fast cars and strip malls with up front parking are your thing there are plenty of suburbs for you.

We stayed in an old neighborhood on the edge of downtown - it was really cool with many of the houses dating from the 1800's. I just realized I didn't photograph it at all - but I will have footage of the hood in my video. This photo is from Ghostlight Coffee Shop where we got our caffeine fix each morning.

Erin at Ghostlight

The stretch of street that this shop was on looked like it might be ripe for redevelopment.

After coffee we rode along the river out to Carillon Brewing which was in the Carillon Historical Park. The brewery brews their beer as it would have been done in the 1800's - when brewing first moved out of the home and into production facilities.

Ingredients

Stoking

It was a really cool space - as you can see.


Taps


I had a rye pale and Erin had a porter.


The Deed Carillon - a bell tower built in 1942 to commemorate the Deeds family.

It was a perfect day.

Our next stop was Fifth Street Brewpub - we had a few really fantastic beers on their patio.

Erin and Beer

After we cruised around a little more we went back to the house to get ready for dinner and more exploring. We had diner at Lily's Bistro.

Erin at Lily's

There was a skylight over head which made for great light.

It was chicken dinner night and the food was awesome - the restaurant also focused on local food and listed the farms where it came from.

Walking

Our next stop was Warped Wing Brewing.

Awesome beers with an awesome view.

Looking the other way.


Our final stop of the night was Toxic Brew Co.

The beer was very good here as well.

Toxic was on East 5th Street which kind of reminded of a Short North in Columbus on a slightly smaller scale.

Kiss Selfie!

Toxic

Kicking off day two at the Coffee Shop.

We then rode out on the trail that followed the Mad River towards Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

My Schwinn on Huffman Dam.

Erin mapping the route.

Huffman Dam

We then rode to Wright Hill and saw the memorial honoring the Wright Brothers' and checked out the visitor center too. There was view of the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers really learned how to fly - sorry North Carolina - controlled flight was invented in Ohio.

After our ride we headed back to town to check out the Wright Brothers Bicycle shop.


I need an "Akron" chain ring like this!


We made a few more stop, which apparently I only took video of. Anyways - on our way home we decided to stop in Columbus and check out the New Platform.

Platform Columbus