Slept in a little this morning—got up at 5:13am 🙂 This is the first time I’ve slept in a tent for a long time—my back ain’t as young as it once was, but I’ve been dragging this tent up and down mountains for 500+ miles now, so glad I finally used it.
Had a great breakfast here at the hostel….not bad for $19 to camp, use the washer/dryer, the WiFi and have a hot breakfast. Feels great to have dry cloths for the first time on this trip even though I know that after about 10 minutes into the ride I’ll be as soaked as if I jumped into a swimming pool.
The hostel owner told me a group of 15 just left yesterday so should catch them today or tomorrow. I think that is one of the Adventure Cycling groups that left about a week before us—they have a support van following carrying all their gear—what a bunch of slackers 🙂
Some normal climbing after leaving the hostel this morning. Then a huge downhill just before Hayters Gap—that climb up Hayter’s Gap was a MONSTER—as steep and tough as anything we have seen. I must have sweated a gallon of water—it was almost a constant pour off the brim of my cycling cap into my eyes going up that thing. I hit my highest speed yet going down the other side at 41.8 mph and as fun as it was, I was constantly thinking “we’re going to pay for this—what goes down must go back up” and, boy did we pay for it. After a few more “normal” crazy climbs, we hit another monster climb just before Council, VA. On that one a Horse fly was buzzing and biting me from about half way up to almost the top—so I was climbing a crazy steep grade all the time swating at the fly—I guess he thought I needed more of a challenge—I finally got him near the top. He made my climb miserable, but I sent him to horse fly heaven!
Just as we started down the mountain headed for Council, we met couple coming the other way on a tandem recumbent heading to Yorktown. They are doing it in sections and are on last section. This is their 4th year and they plan to finish around the end of June. The guy had a stroke and has trouble walking but can peddle the recumbent fine. He reminded me a lot of JP Foley—his laid back, positive attitude and great disposition….talked with them for a while then headed on down the mountain.
Earlier we had stopped in Rosedale at a Dollar store, about 35 miles into our ride, for lunch—-had a bag of roasted almonds, Hershey candy bar, orange juice and gatorade then walked over to the gas station and grabbed a hot dog—yum, yum 🙂
Stopped at top of another mountain climb (so many crazy steep climbs I can’t keep them all straight by the end of the day) just as a thunderstorm came in. There was a couple with a fruit stand set up at the top. They let us stand under their stand while it was raining and I bought 2 peaches, $1 each, and ate them both—they were great. We talked to them for a while during the storm—both were born and raised there in the mountains and never want to leave….the guy told us about his accident where he ran his pickup under the back of a coal truck….broke him up real bad he said, and he has trouble getting around now. They make money by setting up their fruit stand everyday at the top of the mountain there.
Rode through Council, Davenport and Bee and it’s very obvious the scenery is changing….we’re clearly entering poor coal country.
Stopped at the E & S Grocery and ate a pre-dinner….two packs of turkey, 2 plumbs, bottle of water and some crackers. Talked to a guy there as we were eating outside an he let us know we had three really big, steep climbs between there and our destination at Breakers Park. We already knew this from our maps and were “fueling up” for them, but he went into detail about how steep they were—he said the first one was going to be a Papa Bear and then the second was steep but not as bad, then they third was gonna be a bear again…my muscles were hurting just listening to him describe them. When he learned I was from Lexington, he told me about his visits to Lexington to get 4 surgeries on his right hand. Said he almost destroyed it with a commercial grade pressure washer when the water hit it at some crazy high pressure. Can mostly use it now—doctors did good job fixing it up he said. He wished us luck and went on his way.
We headed out to tackle Papa bear number 1, and met Mat, a young guy, at the bottom on his way up. He is headed to Oregon as well and hopes to get there by sometime in September.
After topping bear #1 and descending to the bottom we met Don from Utah. He started in Oceanside, CA and plans to finish somewhere in NC. Said he almost quit in Kansas after fighting strong headwinds for 5 days straight….I hope those winds are still blowing toward the West when I get there.
Finished the other two climbs and made it to Breaks Interstate Park where we are spending the night a stone’s throw from the KY State line. We will be done with VA first thing tomorrow morning and crossing over into KY—I didn’t realize VA is over 600 miles wide—at least on the path I have taken over the past 8 days.
If only I would have had the good judgement to have named this blog “Steve Across Virginia” then I could have June and Tori come pick me up in the morning and called it a success. But since I didn’t, here I am with one State nearly down and 9 more to go 🙂
Today I rode 75 miles, was in the seat pedaling for 6 hours 53 minutes, burned 5,342 calories, and climbed a total of 6,778.2 feet…..that is a crazy about of ascent over 75 miles—think of lifting weights for 6 hours straight and that’s about what it felt like—a good burn 🙂
Was a good day!
