Day 16 - June 19, 2013 - Wytheville, VA to Damascus, VA

Mileage - 61

Total mileage - 515.2

We woke up to clear skies, even if it was a bit foggy in the mountains from the previous day's rain.  We are a few miles away from the hotel, and suddenly I remember that I left Shep on the dresser in the hotel room!  I hate backtracking when driving, and I sure as hell am not doing it on a bike, when we have already conquered a few of the days first climbs, so I called the hotel and told them to send him to Mel's parents if they find him.  They inform me that if they do find him, they will send him to that address, via UPS, using the credit card they have on file for incidentals...I have a feeling my $.59 quarter-sized rubber pig is going to cost a small fortune to be reunited with me!

Missing pigs aside...the ride is pretty uneventful for the first 10 miles.  We stop at a fruit stand for a mid-morning Gatorade/chocolate milk/peach snack, and continue on our way.  We made a quick stop in Rural Retreat to send 8 pounds of unnecessary (hopefully!) stuff home, then stopped at the only open place in Sugar Grove, a gas station, for a pizza lunch.  We knew that we had a couple of sustained climbs coming at us this afternoon, so we wanted to be ready!  

We made the turn into Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, get a few nice little turns in on a road with a beautiful creek running alongside, then the climb begins.  Looking at them on the map, we were terrified that they would be similar to the ridiculous road we had to hike up to get to Afton, but they were far from it.  Graded beautifully, never steeper than our little legs could pedal on fully-loaded touring bikes (yes, maybe in the lowest of gears!), and we kicked that mountain's ass!  It even started to rain on us near the end, but after a rest break here and there, we enjoyed a brisk downhill into the town of Troutdale.

The only think left in Troutdale is the cyclist hostel.  We sat on the steps of the defunct general store/diner in town, having snacks of bananas, Paydays, and Stingers, contemplating if we should just stay at the hostel, or keep going to our intended destination of Damascus, another 24 or so miles, containing another giant hill.  We eventually settled on continuing to Damascus, even though we were tired, and a little chilly after the rain.  

Almost immediately after leaving Troutdale, I had a fleeting thought that we were going to regret our decision, then be stuck having to slog through horrendous terrain to get to Damascus late at night, tired, hungry, and grouchy.  All my cares were washed away about 3 miles down the road though - we met the next hill, it was graded just as nicely, the clouds parted and the sun shone through, and we kicked that hill's ass too!

And then there was the best, I mean the best, downhill of the trip.  It was probably 4+ miles of sustained, controlled downhill - no braking, few turns, and just pure fun.  Every ride should have one of those!  We coasted through the town of Konnarock (which no longer has any services either), then got to the not so fun part of getting to Damascus.  It wasnt horrible, but there  was a bunch of curvy, gently uphill sloping road that we had to tackle.  We are already around 50 miles in to our day, and wondering where this lovely downhill to Damascus is that everyone's talking about...

Then we find it!  It is quite a bit steeper than the previous downhill after the first mountain climb, but it is incredibly gorgeous and fun!  The worst part of the downhills on this trip has been traffic behind us following way too close, and getting annoyed or frankly just doing dangerous things (passing too close to us, passing on a hill, or passing on blind turns) because we aren't going fast enough for them.  Luckily there wasn't much traffic out here, and we coasted for miles at well over 30mph down another road with a mountain stream running next to it.  Perfect way to end our longest day yet!

We pull into Damascus, which is a huge hit with the Appalachian Trail crowd too as the trail crosses very close to the town, and set out to find one of the hostels to spend the night in.  We make it to "The Place" hostel, famous with both hikers and cyclists, and notice our friends Mary and Joe from a couple of days ago are also there!  Live-in hostel caretaker, trail name "Atlas", gives us the rundown of rules (the hostel is run by the church out front, so this isn't a free for all!), assigns us a couple of bunks (think wooden bunk beds), and tells us where to get dinner.  He's a great guy, and has some entertaining tales of hiking and hikers.  He came to Damascus as an AT hiker about a month ago for Trail Days, and is still hanging around - I think Damascus has that effect on hikers.

Most of the others we shared the hostel with were hikers.  Good group of people. We grabbed burritos at a place in town called Hey Joe's, one of the guys behind the counter gets up and plays a song that a kid there requested off of his album (which we ended up buying - he was pretty good!), had a well-deserved beer, and headed back to the hostel.  After setting up our bunks and chatting with Joe and Mary a little more, we climbed into bed.  Only to have about 4 hikers show up at 10:15 or so, loudly!  We go to bed early, so we can get up early...quiet hours were from 10:30 to 7:30, but they had to be given bunks, told about the rules, set up their bunks, etc.  The one who ended up in a bunk in our room I think opened each and every zipper on his pack before settling in!

I was out like a light - Mel didn't have the same luck, couldn't get comfortable, got cold, etc.  I'm glad we had the experience though, after hearing about this place for so long!  

Oh, and we rolled over 500 miles today!  Yay!

Day 15 - June 18, 2013 - Wytheville, VA - Weather Day

Of course, the forecast was not only for pouring rain all day long, but a 70% chance of strong thunderstorms, both in Wytheville, where we had stayed, and in Damascus, where we were headed.

Today was the most boring rest day - our hotel was right next to a truck stop, and that was about it.  Most exciting thing I did was walk to the truck stop for laundry detergent so I could wash our stuff at the guest laundry room at the hotel.  Thrilling!  And I've noticed I actually end up getting pretty sore when we aren't on the bikes for a day.  I think my body has found a routine, and isn't happy when forced to give it up!

Day 14 - June 17, 2013 - Radford, VA to Wytheville, VA

Mileage - about 43

Total mileage - 452.2

Wildlife spotted - Deer, wild turkeys, cows, goats, barn kittens, road kill snakes and possum

Today began with a lovely (mostly downhill) ride from our hotel in Radford.  We coasted past a couple of fellow cyclists on the route checking out their maps and waved, knowing we'd probably cross paths later in the day.  We crossed the New River, then immediately turned onto a road that ran along the river for many miles.  We spotted the most adorable baby deer crossing the road along the way, it stopped to look at us for a bit, then followed its mom up the hill on the other side.

We passed through the quaint town of Newbern, which had marked most of their original structures along with the year they were built, starting in the early 1800s.  I thought we hit the jackpot when we went right by a post office, since we found about 10lbs of extra crap to send home to lighten our load, but it didn't open for a couple more hours, bummer!

We were about halfway to the next town, Draper, when we had paused to put on sunscreen (see, mom, we remember most of the time!), and we saw the other two cyclists we spotted earlier making their way up the hill!  They stopped to chat, and we talked gear, bikes, training strategy (or lack thereof!), and more for a good while, decided to all grab lunch together in Draper, and all kept pedaling up the hill.  

About 100 feet down the road, we all spot a cyclist approaching from the other direction, and stop to chat with him.  He's headed from San Francisco to the East Coast, and started about 8 weeks ago!  And this is his 3rd time riding across the US (he's British), but first time riding the TransAm, and says its the absolute best route across the US he has tried so far.  

We continue on, only to find as we get to Draper that the one restaurant is closed on Mondays, as is the small store in town.  We all stop at a park to snacking what we have with us, find that the other riders are Mary and Joe, just out of college, from New York and Connecticut respectively.  They take off first, as they have decided to do about 14 more miles than we will for the day, and we discuss meeting up in Damascus, where they are planning a day off.

We head out again, get rained on a bit during a sustained climb, and then meet some bovine friends at the top of the hill.  These cows were super curious about us, pushing each other out of the way to get a better view.  I crossed the road on my bike to get closer to them, and caused a minor stampede, but they came back when they realized I wasn't a threat.  They even followed us a bit down the fence line as we pedaled away.

Then we run into a major headwind.  We cheated a bit on the TransAm route, opting for our old friend Highway 11, which is basically a frontage to I-81.  We rolled into Wytheville around 5 I think, braving a busy highway off-ramp intersection full of truck stops and semi trucks to get to our hotel.

On our way, we also saw the "Wytheville Smallest Church", apparently one of the smallest churches in America.  It was in the middle of nowhere, near a Pepsi bottling plant.

Day 13 - June 16, 2013 - Christiansburg, VA to Radford, VA

Miles - about 16

Total miles - about 410?

Today became a short day - we headed out of Christiansburg into more of those lovely Virginia hills, complete with a headwind.  We had to pedal downhill - this is a major tragedy in the life of a touring cyclist!

It (sadly) took all morning to get to the 13 mile point - we stopped for lunch, and just knew we didn't have another 40 miles of hills in us, so we called it a day in Radford.  

As a side note, the TransAm trail is very well marked in Virginia - there are signs everywhere telling you where to turn, and assuring you that you are still on route.  It seems they have changed some of the routing in VA fairly recently however, but have yet to change the signage, which resulted in us taking on hills today that we really didn't need to, and missing out on a cool bike path!  Moral of the story - TransAm'ers, don't get lazy with that map reading in VA just because you see signs everywhere!

Day 12 - June 15, 2013 - Troutville, VA to Christiansburg, VA

Mileage - about 48

Total mileage - 388.4

Do you remember that post I wrote a while ago about how the first 10 or 15 miles of our day tend to go by pretty quickly? Yeah...forget that. 

We packed up all of our gear from camping and tried to get our tent to dry a little in the morning sun. Meanwhile, a small dog had wandered into the park and we managed to get him to come over to us. His tag informed us that his name was Jack, and that he had also managed to get beyond the invisible fence at his home. I tried calling the phone number on the tag, but got no answer, so I entered in the address also listed on Jack's tag, made a make-shift leash out of some rope we had and led him home. It was so nice to have a little encounter with a dog along our journey, as Erica and I both miss our two dogs, Louie and Rudy, so much!

We finally get going and of course, run into more really horrific hills. I'm a bit anxious for us to get to Adventure Cycling's Headquarters in Montana, just so I can ask them why they must put us through such cruel and unusual punishment. It was really quite a difficult morning, where we started to question if we would be able to make it to our destination by the end of the day. Maybe this is just one of those things that happens in your head while you're cycling in the middle of nowhere...when all the scenery starts to look the same and you're not sure you are getting anywhere. We finally reached our mid-day destination, a small gas station in the Catawba valley. As it was high noon, the sun was beating on us and the heat was definitely not helping our mental game. We picked up some sandwiches and drinks at the gas station and sat underneath their awning to help cool us down. 

We got back on the road and I made a mental note about how much further we had to go...27.6 miles.  I was hoping to be able to watch the miles go by on the computer on my bike, then tell Erica how far we had gone at 10, 15, 20 miles...just something to hopefully encourage us to keep going. It worked for a long time and the second half of our day was getting better. We had another dog encounter with a dog that sort of ran out onto the road as Erica passed. As I watched this happen in front of me, I was  silently praying that I wouldn't have to use my Halt pepper spray if the dog decided to attack. He looked quite confused by us for a minute, just looked at me, then at Erica, back to me. We both got off our bikes and kept talking to him in calm voices, telling the dog that he was a good dog. Finally, Erica just walked over to him and he started wagging his tail and walked right up to her and she gave him some good dog pats and he seemed to love it. In fact, I think he wanted us to hang out with him. We tried to give him some of our water, but he didn't take it. Finally, we had to usher him back into some shade on the side of the road and say goodbye to our new friend. Not too long after this, we saw a large turtle on the side of the road and we spent quite a few minutes protecting him from oncoming cars and finally convinced him to move on over to a safe spot. 

Finally, we are getting close to Christiansburg, so we stopped in at a gas station for some Gatorades and to figure out where we should stay. After booking the hotel, the map application for the iPhone told us that our hotel was only a small 3.8 miles away. I think it was lying. The next 2 hours we pushed our bikes up some of the most ridiculous hills (because remember, everything in Virginia we need to get to is up a giant hill) and even considered "thumbing" a ride or asking someone in a local home to take us to the hotel. It was the longest 3.8 miles ever. But we made it. We ended the evening with showers, phone calls to home (it was my mom's birthday), pizza, and fell asleep to a Friends marathon on TV Land. It was a rough day, but we made it and that's all that matters. We did make it through our first map and were actually quite glad to be done with it! On to the next!

Day 11 - June 14, 2013 - Lexington, VA to Troutville, VA

Mileage - 45.7

Total mileage - 340.4

The weather today couldn't have been better for cycling - upper 70s most of the day, sunny with big puffy clouds.  We headed out of Lexington around 8:30, and happened to run into a woman getting out of a bestofvabiketours.com van.  We chatted with her a bit about biking in Virginia, and the TransAm, the took off again (yes, up a hill!).

The route took us out to some gorgeous back roads this morning - we spent a great deal of time biking alongside rivers, streams, and babbling brooks - and it seemed like most of it was downhill!  We had some of the best cycling of the trip thus far this morning.

We spent the rest of the day on frontage roads, criss-crossing I-81.  We stopped in the cute little hamlet of Buchanan for lunch, and ate at an old-fashioned soda fountain!  

We cheated on the TransAm route after that, choosing to stay on the busier but more direct Business 11 route, shaving a few miles and countless hills off of our afternoon.  We still got to ride some roller-coaster hills, the pictures don't even do them justice.  They launched us down over 30 miles an hour, fast enough to propel us back to the top of the next monster without much pedaling.  Only bad part is that you nearly get blown off your bike when a semi or dump truck passes going the opposite way!

We rolled into Troutville around 5, and headed to the grocery store after locating the town park that lets cyclists and Appalachian Trail hikers camp for free.  We signed the book of all the hikers and bikers that stop in the store, and found that one of the guys we camped with in Mineral, Daniel from Berlin, is about 4 days ahead of us now.  We are sharing the space with a trail hiker tonight - super nice guy in his early 60's.  Said his next adventure will be biking across the country!  Need to remember to ask what his trail name is if we see him in the morning.

After a delicious dinner cooked over a camp stove, examining the map for tomorrow, and setting up camp, we are now headed off to sleep, as long as the trains allow!  There is a running theme to small-town Virginia - nothing is further than 40 feet from the railroad tracks!

Day 10 - June 13, 2013 - Lexington, VA - Rest Day

Had to take an unwanted rest day today because of predicted strong storms, including hail, lightning and strong winds.  Wouldn't be fun if we got stuck in the middle of nowhere in that.

Early in the day, I took us on a 2 mile death march to do laundry in downtown Lexington.  About halfway there, I was informed that yes, indeed, we were calling a cab to take us back!  Cabs in Lexington are interesting...just a retired guy and his dirty old crown vic, that smelled like old man and dog.  Awesome.

Not long after we got back, and almost right on cue, the nasty storm rolled in.  I can't post video here from my phone, but I'll try to post it on Facebook.  We were glad we made the call to stay in Lexington!  Sounded like it caused a lot of people to lose power, and did a ton of damage in the Roanoke area.

The rest of the day was boring - cooking backpacking food in our room, napping, and being kinda restless.  It sucks having to take a day off that you don't really have time to take off - ends up just making us anxious!