Up at 5am this morning and rolled at daybreak—6am. Today’s goal is to catch up to Stephen and Rob, so will need to do 90+ miles to catch them. When I got to Draper this morning I immediately knew stopping in Newbern was the right thing to do—the Mercantile is more of an idea than a reality. The bike shop was a rental shop and after talking to a guy by the shop who turned out to be the owner it was clear they didn’t work on bikes—just rented them. Nothing was open so I pushed on. The tie wrap seems to be working well to keep my spoke pulled in and my rear wheel rolling straight—just need to get my gears working properly again. I have 27 gears on this bike and right now I’m only able to use about 7 or 8 of them.
Next stop after about 15 miles was at a little interstate diner for breakfast—Virginia country ham—was good. Then on through Max Meadows, Wytheville, and Rural Retreat…los of steep climbing, fast drops, then more steep climbs. Stopped for a quick Subway Turkey sub and about 5 glasses of Diet Coke for lunch—I think this was about noon with about 45 miles down and I had a long way to go. On through Cedar Springs, then I started entering a National Recreation area and some real climbing started again. Also lost cell service for most of the rest of the day.
Climbed the highest mountain on the trip to this point today at about 3,700 feet. When I got to the top, I saw another cyclist coming up from the other direction. He stopped and we talked a bit—his name was Matthew he is from Bristol England. He started in San Francisco in April and was headed to Yorktown then up to NY and flying to Spain to run with the bulls and continue cycling around Spain for another month….we talked for about 15 minutes—he was a character….riding a 1970s style 10 speed and loving the experience.
A huge thunderstorm was heading our way and I still had 22 miles to my destination so we said goodby and I headed off flying down the mountain.
About 15 miles from Damascus there is an alternate route you take called the creeper trail. It was supposed to be crushed gravel and take you downhill all the way into town following a mountain river. I don’t know why—especially with a thunderstorm coming in—but I decided to take it. WOW—I have one GoPro video and you will just have to see it—let’s just say it wasn’t all crushed gravel and I did get wet….very wet with hail and all. It was a beautiful ride though 🙂 I don’t have good enough WiFi to upload the video, but will later…it’s a must watch.
Made it into Damascus at about 6pm — a very long, hard ride today and loved it. Feeling strong.
I caught up with Stephen and Rob here. We are camping at the Damascus Woodchuck Hostel. They had no rooms available so we are camping out back. Stephen helped get my gears shifting nicely again, so all is good.
According to my Garmin (cycle computer) today I rode 92.7 miles with 9 hours 34 minutes of riding time. I climbed 6,364.8 feet and burned 5,639 calories. Not a bad day 🙂 Tired and going to bed as soon as my clothes come out of the dryer—yes, this is the first day I washed clothes…it’s going to feel great having something dry and clean to wear tomorrow.
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