Columbus by E-Bike: The Trip We Found Between the Landmarks
We came to Columbus with two e-bikes, a birthday, and a loose plan. We left with a route through the city that no standard weekend itinerary would have given us.
Our Columbus trip ran from Wednesday, August 12, through the weekend, with an apartment near 431 West Rich Street in Franklinton as the center of everything. We were close to the Scioto, close to downtown, and close enough to restaurants and breweries that even the days without a long ride still felt connected to the city.
The e-bikes changed the scale of the trip. Columbus did not arrive as separate neighborhoods visited by car. It unfolded continuously: Franklinton into the riverfront, German Village into downtown, downtown into Ohio State, and the Olentangy corridor north toward Clintonville and the Park of Roses.
That continuity became the real story.
Wednesday: learning the neighborhood
We arrived around midday and began at Club 185, an authentic neighborhood bar where Columbus felt local before it felt familiar. After checking into River & Rich, we walked into the industrial history of Franklinton at Land-Grant Brewing.
Land-Grant occupies a 1920 former elevator factory. Its founders met at Ohio State, began with homebrewing and label design, raised early money through Kickstarter, and opened the Franklinton taproom in 2014. The building and the brewery introduced a theme we would notice throughout the trip: Columbus keeps finding new uses for old structures without erasing all the evidence.
A Kroger run supplied the apartment, then The Walrus supplied dinner, drinks, and sing-along karaoke. The bacon, mushroom, and pepperoni flatbread won. Jason's vodka tonic was very good. Kellie's Cosmo performed less like a cocktail and more like rubbing alcohol wearing a lime.
Read the full food-and-drink review in The Walrus: Flatbread 1, Cosmo 0.
For the complete opening-night route, read First Night in Columbus: Three Bars and a Kroger Run.
Thursday: ten stops for a birthday
Thursday was the centerpiece: ten planned stops, all completed by about 3:00 p.m.
We began at River & Rich, rode south toward Scioto Audubon, crossed into German Village for Schiller Park, and stopped at Brown Bag Deli. Jason ordered the Brown Bag Special. Kellie ordered the Mohawk Stroller without basil pesto, adding vegetables and cream cheese, plus peanut quinoa. The roughly $50 lunch was big, tasty, and generous enough to send leftovers with us.
The Book Loft turned the route inward for a while, room after room of books, before the bikes carried us back into downtown. The Ohio Statehouse, Goodale Park, The Oval, and Ohio Stadium completed the northbound half. Then the river-trail system brought us home.
The route worked because every stop changed the pace. Parks gave us breathing room. Brown Bag gave us fuel. The Book Loft invited wandering. Ohio Stadium supplied a goal visible in the imagination long before we reached it.
After a rest, birthday dinner moved to Cobra for happy-hour dumplings, chicken, and Kellie's dan dan noodles. Dessert belonged to Schmidt's Sausage Haus: German cake for Kellie and a cream puff for Jason. After an entire city loop, that cream puff was less a dessert than a finish-line monument.
Friday: the long ride north
Our second major ride followed the Scioto and Olentangy trail system toward Whetstone Park and the Columbus Park of Roses. The route was simpler than Thursday's loop but longer in one sustained direction—roughly seven to eight miles each way from our base, depending on connections and detours.
The Park of Roses gave the ride a clear destination. The return supplied the improvisation: two cold-brew martinis at Rusty Bucket, then a stop at Wolf's Ridge Brewing that we recovered only by reading the visible name on a photographed draft board.
That metadata detective work matters. Pixel filenames recorded UTC while the other camera used local time, requiring a four-hour correction for Columbus daylight time. Once normalized, 200 uploaded media files resolved into 19 reliable local-time clusters. Twenty-seven exact duplicate families accounted for 28 extra copies. The cleaned chronology revealed Wolf's Ridge and corrected several stops that upload times had placed incorrectly.
Friday evening continued at Parlay with Bang Bang Shrimp, vegetables and dip, wings, a Michelob Ultra, and Garage Beer. From there we went to Huntington Park for the Columbus Clippers.
We left in the top of the eighth because we were exhausted.
It was the right decision and, in retrospect, a perfect ending. E-bikes extend what a day can hold. They do not eliminate heat, accumulated miles, drinks, meals, or three days of curiosity.
Saturday: the bikes finally rested
Saturday began at Tommy's Diner. Kellie ordered spinach quiche. Jason chose Board Special No. 4, the Cuban omelet, with a bagel and cream cheese on the side. The bagel came home. The mustard in the omelet could take over if you let it, but the hidden star was the fries—soft enough to melt in the mouth and far better than an afterthought side had any right to be.
After breakfast came a pool break at River & Rich. The proposed shoe-store loop never became confirmed trip history, so it does not belong in the factual itinerary.
At 4:43 p.m., the photos place us at Little West Tavern inside The Junto. Kellie ordered fish and chips. Jason ordered a smashed burger and fries. We added a cheddar biscuit and an Army Navy margarita, an almond-forward variation that made the drink its own thing. The bartender and staff were great.
Later, we dressed up and took portraits in the apartment. The final images show Franklinton history displays, likely inside The Junto, but the archive does not establish the formal occasion well enough to name it. A complete story does not require pretending every photograph explains itself.
Why Franklinton was the right base
Franklinton gave the trip access and identity. It sat on the useful side of the river trails, close to downtown but distinct from it. Land-Grant, River & Rich, The Junto, Little West Tavern, public art, old industrial buildings, and the neighborhood's flood history kept returning in different forms.
The Great Flood of 1913 explains part of that landscape. Franklinton lies on low ground west of the Scioto, and the disaster shaped both the neighborhood's history and the city's relationship with the river. Our separate flood article gives that history the space it deserves. On the bikes, we experienced its modern counterpart: parks, levees, bridges, trails, and renewed riverfront connections.
What worked—and what we would change
Choosing a trail-connected lodging base worked. We could begin and end rides without transporting the bikes every day.
Alternating destinations with recovery stops worked. Parks, bars, lunch, bookstores, and the apartment itself kept long routes manageable.
Leaving room for ordinary errands worked. Kroger belongs in the story because apartment travel runs on supplies as much as attractions.
Planning a full baseball night after the long northern ride did not work perfectly. We enjoyed the Clippers, but our bodies voted against the ninth inning.
Taking Saturday slowly worked. Tommy's, the pool, and Little West gave the trip a landing rather than another mileage contest.
Our Columbus e-bike route at a glance
Birthday loop: River & Rich → Scioto Audubon → Schiller Park → Brown Bag Deli → Book Loft → Ohio Statehouse → Goodale Park → The Oval → Ohio Stadium → River & Rich.
Northern ride: River & Rich → Scioto/Olentangy trails → Park of Roses → Rusty Bucket → Wolf's Ridge → downtown.
Anyone recreating these rides should verify current trail closures, construction, weather, bike rules, and battery range. Walk bikes where pedestrian traffic is heavy. The routes are best treated as flexible story lines, not turn-by-turn navigation.
The Columbus we took home
We remember the obvious landmarks: the Statehouse, Ohio Stadium, the Park of Roses, and Huntington Park. But the trip lives most clearly in the spaces between them.
It is the backward Club 185 sign reflected in a mirror. The industrial room at Land-Grant. Leftovers strapped in after Brown Bag. The Book Loft refusing to end. Two cold-brew martinis after the roses. A draft board that solved the Wolf's Ridge mystery. Fries stealing breakfast from an omelet. A birthday cream puff. The moment in the eighth inning when we admitted we had done enough.
That is why Columbus worked by e-bike. The bikes did more than move us efficiently. They kept the city continuous. Every stop had a before and an after, and every neighborhood was connected by something we had actually crossed.
We did not merely visit Columbus. For a few days, we learned how it joined together.
Complete Columbus article series
- Great Flood of 1913
- The Walrus: Flatbread 1, Cosmo 0
- First Night in Columbus: Three Bars and a Kroger Run
- Ten Stops, Two E-Bikes, and One Columbus Birthday
- Cobra, Dan Dan Noodles, and a Birthday Cream Puff
- Riding North: Park of Roses, Rusty Bucket, and Wolf's Ridge
- Parlay to the Columbus Clippers: The Night We Left in the Eighth
- Tommy's Diner
- Little West Tavern: Easy Hours in Franklinton
- Columbus by E-Bike: The Trip We Found Between the Landmarks
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