Health & Fitness
One of My Favorite Things to do in Kent...
Kent and Ravenna are now connected by a magnificent greenway trail that in the matter of an hour or less takes you through brown fields, natural areas, city neighborhoods and industrial districts.
One of the favorite things I do in Kent... is ride my bicycle to Ravenna.
That's because along the way you can bird watch, people watch, stop and enjoy the scenery or speed along at a pretty good clip. You can encounter after-dinner strollers, dog walkers, boy scout troops, serious cyclists, and dads teaching their kids how to ride without training wheels. You can see old friends, make new ones, be by yourself or bond with your significant other. You can relax from a long day or get an attitude adjustment for the one to come. All this just a short trip down The Portage Hike and Bike Trail.
From our house in downtown Kent to the current eastern terminus of the trail is about eight miles. Joan and I, when training for the Cleveland Marathon, would run on the trail in various out-and-back configurations. You can get in a half marathon by running from Crain Avenue to Chestnut Street (in Ravenna) and back, a 10K to a little past Towners Woods and back and — you get the idea.
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My favorite use of the trail though is riding to downtown and exploring the remarkable 19th century building stock that Main Street Ravenna is blessed with. Building after building, mixed use commercial and residential, three stories tall, the perfect architecture for the inter-urban past and our public transit future. Acres of square footage, some of it in need of tender loving care, but also many buildings that have been lovingly restored fill our eastern neighbor.
While I have been priveledged to be intimately involved with the renaissance of downtown Kent, what is remarkable is that even after $100 million or more in development happens in the next few years, Kent will still have a small fraction of the downtown that Ravenna has, albiet a more up to date one.
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On one recent after dinner bike ride, Joan and I looped through downtown Ravenna at the golden hour — the time when the low sun is so beloved by photographers. While a thunderstorm had threatened all day and a return leg awaited, we marveled at the past and the potential of our neighbor to the east. While we love Kent and have invested our lives here, our place would be diminished without our "friendly rival" Ravenna, a short bike ride down our golden greenway.