Good 60 mile day today. Uphills weren’t as hard as I expected them to be. Beautiful scenery in the Appalachians. I crossed the AT (Appalachian Trail) today, and talked to a hiker who happened by. The last fifteen miles were all downhill and marvelous. Arrived in Damascus, and it’s an amazing little town. It kinda …
Started out foggy foggy. I had my blinky light on, but it’s a bit weak and needs a recharge. It was another short 42 mile day, but still quite hilly, and tomorrow I should do around 60, also with the steep hills. There were a few detours due to construction including one closed bridge that …
Just another slog of a ride up hills. Today, I didn’t really even get on the official route because I was going from one off-route hotel to an off-route Airbnb. I’m still not jazzed about camping just yet, but definitely will be doing more of that later in the tour. Some of the camping here …
Happy fourth of July! Started out tired and sore from yesterday, and I was determined to take it easy today. There was a nice bit of cloud cover and most the roads were quite light on traffic. There were a few highway miles including part of the 6.5 miles I had to redo from backtracking to a …
Tipping point maybe where my body starts getting used to it. That’s what I thought half way through the day anyway. By the end of the day intense pain again. Blue ridge parkway was quite beautiful, but it was more of a totality thing, not something that can be captured in a single picture. Smells …
I went to bike shop today, “can we help you?” “My ass hurts. Seriously, I need help with that. More comfortable shorts, saddle, not sure what. Please help me” I bought a new pair of shorts to try out. Other than that, just layed around. Was planning on getting this pathetic website up and running, …
I still love country stores. Learned and adjusted my front deraliur. Only 32 miles and hardest hill so far by far. Stopped so many times and supposed to be as hard or harder next section. I missed the cookie lady’s place; it was on the hill, and I didn’t see any signs, and I was …
Riding into Charlottesville was nice until I had my first exhaustion stop in the middle of a hill. It was in a really bad spot too, on the inside of a blind curve on a trafficky road. Lesson learned to anticipate and look for better places to stop if I need to. Rode through a …
I spent most of the day lounging in my hot tent, and generally bumming around doing nothing. I found laying on the cold floor of the tent tended to counteract the hot air nicely. I also tried adjusting the shifting on my bike as it’s been shifting like garbage for the last 100 miles or …
Got moving early again feeling pretty tired and sore still from yesterday. Using Google maps today to get to my destination as it’s a bit off route, and also going to skip part of the route that goes by Lake Anna, even though I might be missing some good dam views. I could have camped there, …