It's a lot more difficult than we anticipated giving online updates on the road, but, by popular demand, here is a day-by-day of Across the Rockies so far:
Thursday, May 22:
Trevor, Nathan, Stavros, Claire, Calum and Michelle met at 9 AM at the News Channel 6 Station. News cameras, family members, and friends sent off our loaded-down bikes, and we set off up Bike Route 1 through Ashland where we met up with the Transamerica Trail (Bike Route 76). The trailers and panniers definitely made travel a bit more difficult than anticipated, and we also learned that staying together as a group would be quite a task with so many of us. The trail was beautiful; riding around Lake Anna in the early evening was probably the highlight. Nathan, Stavros, and Michelle made it to the awesome fire station in Mineral Virginia after a few minor mis-turns along the trail where we were greeted with hot showers, access to a kitchen, TV, washer/dryers, and anything else we could possibly need. Charlie, a high school EMT at the Mineral station, showed us around and made us all feel welcome, even offering to let us sleep inside if we wanted. Claire, Calum, and Trevor were not quite so fortunate; they got a bit lost in Bumpass, and at nightfall, a nice man allowed them to camp on his property.
Friday, May 23:
Trevor, Claire, and Calum set off early along a short-cut from Bumpass to Mineral to meet the rest of the group, allowing Nathan, Stavros, and Michelle a lazy morning around the Mineral fire station waiting. Claire's hips and knees were hurting, so she and Calum stayed around the fire station to talk to an EMT, and Michelle, Trevor, Stavros, and Nathan set off along a "short-cut" to Charlottesville. The EMT had good news for Claire that she could keep riding on her knee. For the rest of us, once again, a beautiful ride, but the road had a lot more traffic than the trail roads themselves. Made it to Charlottesville by evening where we rid ourselves of any unnecessary weight from our trailers and panniers for the big mountain rides to come.
Saturday, May 24:
The Charlottesville crew went to the Charlottesville farmer's market and the grocery store this morning to stock up for the ride, and then met up with Dan and his friend Luke from the UVA Cycling Team. Dan's bike needed some work, so he and Luke went to the bike repair shop while the rest of us headed off to face the ever-growing foothills and climb our first mountains of the trip. After the steepest climb of the trip up Afton Mountain, we ended up at the bike house of June Curry, the infamous cookie lady. We had a wonderful time listening to her stories of the trail over the years and Afton when it was a booming railroad town, exploring the museum of a bike house plastered with 32 years worth of memorabilia, postcards, and newspaper articles from the trail, and eating the delicious foods (not just cookies!) with which she kept the bike house stocked. On the way up the mountain, Trevor could barely bike because his achilles tendon was hurting so badly, so he put it on ice and decided to take a day off at the cookie lady's house the next day to wait for Claire and Calum who had just made it to Charlottesville.
Sunday, May 25:
Nathan, Michelle, Stavros, and Dan wished the cookie lady and Trevor goodbye to tackle the huge climb onto and on the Blue Ridge Parkway (counting the ride up to Afton, we went uphill for close to 12 miles without a break). We could not have asked for better weather to ride the parkway -- the visibility was great for all of our incredible mountain views. We stopped at the Humpback Rock museum to listen to some bluegrass in the afternoon. Michelle and Nathan made it almost to Lexington when they got lost and had to get a bed along Route 11 as it was getting darker, and Dan and Stavros made it to Vesuvius on the down-side of the parkway where they met the preacher at the local church, who fed them a nice meal and invited them to camp on his property. Claire and Calum met Trevor at the cookie lady's in Afton. Trevor's heel still didn't feel one hundred percent to ride in the morning, so his mom planned to come get him for a break and a doctor's visit in the morning.
Monday, May 26:
We took Memorial Day easy to meet up in Lexington and run some much-needed errands. As Stavros and Dan were casually riding the last few miles into Lexington, they ran into a couple who lived just outside Lexington who had ridden the trail together last summer. They invited offered them a ride to their home to stay for the night, and when Stravros told them that there were two others in Lexington, they extended the offer to Nathan and Michelle as well. A few hours later, Alan came back with his bike rack, and we miraculously fit four bikes, two trailers, and two sets of panniers into his small car. We rode on windy gravel roads up a mountain to their lovely home, where Deb fed us a delicious meal and dessert. They gave us all kinds of great advice for the road, access to their wealth of bike tools and outdoor gear, and an entire floor of their home to use as our own complete with bedrooms and beds and showers. We were utterly overwhelmed by their generosity and our luck. Stavros even got to play a guitar. Claire and Calum made it to Vesuvius where they met up with the same preacher that Stavros and Dan had seen the night before. Trevor was bummed to have to go back to Richmond to rest his heel.
Tuesday, May 27:
Alan and Deb fed Stavros, Dan, Michelle, and Nathan french toast and coffee at 6 AM and then dropped us back off on the trail outside Lexington. We were thrilled to get an early start and beat some of the afternoon heat. We stopped by the James River in Buchanan about halfway along our route and then made it to Troutville, where Cecil met us in the public park to show us around, give us some tips, and tell us all the facilities that were available to us. All of us were exhausted from the day's ride and barely managed to make ourselves dinner before collapsing asleep. Stavros talked to the Pew Environmental lobbying group who asked us to detour by Jim Webb's office in Roanoke in order to lobby for the new global warming bill in the Senate. Claire and Calum made it to Buchanan (only a few miles behind the first part of the group).
Wednesday, May 28:
Dan, Michelle, Stavros, and Nathan woke up to driving rain, rode to the far side of Roanoke with some problematic directions that ended up keeping us on crowded roads where cars weren't remotely accustomed to bikers or accomodating of them. We barely noticed because it was so rainy and cold. When we finally got to Senator Webb's office (a little behind schedule thanks to the rain and traffic), his aide had already left the office, so we passed on our wishes to the nice receptionist Debbie and faced the storm once again. We finally met back up with the trail after our twenty-mile detour and got so cold and demoralized that we spent a couple of hours in a gas station a few miles past Salem before the rain settled down and we could go on. Were met in Christiansburg by Steven Dickens who led us by bike to his parents' home in Radford and gave us encouraging words to keep us going for the last few miles of our longest day yet (almost 70 miles), where we were fed and housed and wonderfully welcomed. Steven rode the Transamerica trail in 1976, the year the trail was made and shared old photos from his trip with us. Claire and Calum made it to Blacksburg.
6 comments:
Heard from Daniel Sun 8 June. He and Stavros arrived in Berea, Kentucky and ran into two fellows on bikes who will be riding cross country in a few days. These fellows invited them to stay at their place last night and they went swimming in a lake. By chance, Daniel and Stavros ran in to the other members of their group who had stayed in a motel last night. All is going well. Stavros had lost his Swiss Army knife at the lake last night, but found it this morning.
Tues afternoon 10 June, Daniel reports they are in Sonora, KY having spent Mon night camped near the first Catholic convent in the US started in 1812 in Loretto, KY. Visited a whiskey distillery, and experienced a big storm with 50 mph winds and hail. Will be riding on a bit further before nightfall on Tues.
Daniel called ~9pm Thurs 12 June from Marion, KY. All 8 members are reunited. Trevor is doing quite well with his Achilles tendon situation but will take it a bit easy. Michelle & Trevor will be half-day driving a car & half-day riding a bike until Trevor is 100% and Michelle will have to leave. They are camped for the night in a public park. It has been in the 90s today. For the last few days they've been averaging more than 70 miles per day. Last night, they slept in an old fire station in Utica, KY which is now a hostel for bikers. A lady and children from a Methodist church came by the hostel handing a plastic bag to each biker containing a pencil, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, some food, and a bible verse. Ring-necked turtle doves are wild in the area and make much louder sounds than did Ovid. Tomorrow, they will take a ferry across the Ohio River to Illinois to Cave in Rock and then on to Carbondale, IL. Daniel had eaten a gyro and fries at a restaurant this evening and earlier had nibbled on wild Echinacea roots that he found along the route. Daniel noted that on the way back to the bike trail in KY from their side trip to Asheville, NC, he and Stavros during two days had ridden 80 miles per day and had experienced off-trail in southern VA, NC, TN, and KY their share of red necks yelling at them, big barking dogs, and confederate flags everywhere. These were areas where the folks were not used to seeing bicyclists unlike the folks they meet along the transamerica trail. In TN, they ran into a man at a fire works stand who said he had prospected for gold finding 8 pounds of it. This fellow predicted we would be involved in WW III within two years and that all who can should buy gold. All is well.
Sat 14 June. Our intrepid travelers are spending the night as couch surfers in Carbondale, Illinois.
Sun 15 June. All spent a lazy day in Carbondale, Illinois taking a break from the trail. Attended a bluegrass concert. Went shopping for dry goods. Will resolve some tire issues at a bike shop Monday am.
Sun 22 June. Spent night under a park pavilion in Ashgrove, Missouri between Walnut Grove and Everton.
Sat 21 June stayed in Marshfield. Before that camped by a beautiful shallow river and made a campfire.
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