@BikeCLE Ohio City Tour with Great Lakes Touring Co.

HEY CLEVELANDERS! Back in June, I was lucky enough to participate in the inaugural tour for Great Lakes Touring Co. (AKA @BikeCLE). On that tour of downtown Cleveland, our group had a wonderful time and I knew I wanted to take other tours of the area. Good thing for me I had this past Friday morning open and was able to join the company again on their Ohio City bike tour.

The tour started at the J Palen house, where Team BikeCLE met us with all the equipment we could need, including the all important cruiser bikes!

…and who was my guest that morning?

My partner-in-crime, Katie! We snagged some bikes and got ready to ride!

Staring out, we headed down Bridge Avenue to the birth site of John Heisman of The Heisman Trophy fame. I didn’t know he was born in Cleveland!

We then biked over to St. Ignatius where classes were definitely back in session: the high school boys waved at us from the cafeteria as we rolled by!

…then on over to Monroe Cemetery, one of the area’s 10 largest cemeteries.

From the cemetery, we biked up Fulton, pass Johnny Mango, and over to St. Patrick’s Church:

Fun fact: the stones at the top of the church were shipped directly from Ireland!

On our way from there, we stopped at one of the community gardens where produce was being grown by the citizens of Ohio City:

Cutting through Fairview Park and stopping at a few more tour points, we found ourselves crossing West 25th…

…and over to the Glass Bubble Project – a secret gem of Ohio City!

The Glass Bubble Project creates unique works of art from recycled metal and hand blown glass.

Fun fact: they stop operations in the summer time because it’s too hot to blow glass. But they hold events and classes at the space from September to late Spring. Ohio Blogging Association meetup anyone?

We then headed over to two Ohio City institutions: the West Side Market and Great Lakes Brewing Company:

…then finished up the tour back at the J Palen house – which is a bed & breakfast and is ADORABLE inside!

Another fun and informative tour by Great Lakes Touring Company complete – many thanks to Anne and Joe for a wonderful Friday morning!  Visit the Poise in Parma Facebook page to see all my photos from the Ohio City bike tour.

…but my fun with @BikeCLE didn’t end there for the weekend. I joined them for their Bike Aboard get together the next day on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Looks like you have SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO!

Make sure to check out BikeCLE on Facebook and Twitter to learn more about their bike and hike tours.

Full disclosure: Great Lakes Touring Co. invited me and a guest to take this bike tour of Ohio City. As always, my thoughts, opinions and excitement for this great CLE company are 100% my own.