So here's the entire report, the good the bad and the really ugly.
There are some family issues I needed to attend to in Florida. Instead of flying down as I have been doing, I decided to drive down, mostly because I don't know how long I'll be down for and I wanted to have my bike to get some rides in.
The decision to stay in Blacksburg was mostly arbitrary, it was around the halfway point between home and my destination and I love college football, although VT isn't my favorite team, I had heard the campus was beautiful and I had wanted to see the memorial for the student victims of the tragedy back in 2007.
But it wasn't completely arbitrary. I had also heard that Blacksburg was a pretty cool town with great restaurants, good beer and wine, neat little stores and great people.
And it was all of this and more. All of the larger college towns I've been to in Florida, mostly Gainsville, don't have the same feel as say the college towns in New England (Northampton and Hanover NH), it's a lot of sprawl with no real charm. But Blacksburg had the exact same feel as a small new England College town so that was really neat.
But that wasn't the real reason I chose Blacksburg. It was because someone on Bike Forums had tipped me off that it had some of the best bike riding in the southern Virgina, northern Carolinas area, great roads and spectacular scenary.
And they were spot on!
So the decision was made.
And the decision was a good one.
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, just in case I ran into any mechanical problems on my ride the next day I'd be prepared. Noah knows how bad my mechanical skills are, especially when it comes to anything to do with a bike, so I didn't want to take any chances.
I went to bed a later than I wanted to, but was able to sleep in until 6:30 (a treat for me) and then fill up on the breakfast buffet before getting kitted up and heading out on my ride.
One problem.
I’m in Blacksburg and had no idea of where to ride. I'm not adventurous enough to just pull up a map of the area and start riding. I've been riding in Florida enough to know there are some streets and roads you want to avoid mostly because of traffic and drivers who pay no attention to anything other than the car in front of them.
Actually two problems, my rear tire was toast from locking up on the breaks two weeks ago and burning a section of rubber off. I've been riding the tire for a couple of weeks without any problems, but I didn't want to tempt fate and get stranded with no team support vehicle to pick me up.
Both problems were solved when I went on line and found this place http://eastcoasters.com/
Perfect, a great bike shop right up the street from my hotel. The only problem was they didn’t have the P3R tire in blue so I had to settle for red, which I knew riding a bike with tires that didn't match was really going to upset my OCD but in a pinch I had no choice because I didn’t want to ride the damaged tire over a 50+ mile route on roads I didn’t know.
Did I ever mention my love of run on sentences like the one above? I think they actually reveal the inner workings of a person's mind in that the person must suffer from ADD if they can't stop to enter a period or a comma or some form of punctuation to break up their stream of thought and now everyone knows I suffer from both OCD and ADD and that I probably need some major help but I wasn't going to worry about that before my ride it would be one more thing I can deal with when I return back home
While the tire was being changed they hooked me up with a cue sheet for a great 56 mile ride which by getting lost at the end of the ride turned into a 71 mile ride.
Nonetheless, itzallgood.
The numbers I ended up with were:
Time: 3:58
Distance: 70.1 miles
Elevation gain: 4594
The forecast called for mostly sunny skis with highs around 83, almost ideal except for the sun part (I had no sunscreen). Fortunatly weather prognosticators are prone to being wrong.
When I left the hotel it was 67 and misting (which stopped as soon as I rolled out of the bike shop), I didn’t see the sun all day which kept the temps relatively low in the mid 70s, so it really was near perfect conditions for a long ride.
The ride started at the bike shop.
4 extra caffeinated gel packs, $6.
New Tire $54.
71 miles of pure beauty and AWE, priceless.
What made this ride so spectacular is I love riding new areas and experiencing unexpected beauty, and the ride today was full of unexpected beauty and surprises around every turn.
And what made this ride truely epic was I went out without any goals in mind, other than riding roads I've never ridden, and stopping often to take lots and lots of photos. Of course it’s difficult to capture all the beauty around you with a camera, but hopefully you'll get the idea of some of the beauty around this area.
The first couple of miles were pretty unspectacular, sort of like the tuesday night ride out of the shop up Hamilton over to Washington before getting onto Pleasant, so I started out with low expectations on what I was going to experience on this loop.
And then at mile 4 I turned onto Lusters Gate Rd and a big smile came across my face that stayed with me the entire ride when I realized how great this ride was going to be.
And this was just the beginning.
And then this at the end of the first stretch, the railroad brige looking into the little village ahead.
It didn't take me long to start calculating in my head how I could sell enough bike parts to afford a house down here. I know this might come as a shocking surprise to anyone who knows me, but I do have big plans of someday moving out of Fitchburg. Before it was to move to Gardner or Leominster, or maybe live in Gene's garage with his massive bike collection.
But riding along I realized I'd much rather live down here, even more than Gene's garage. Especially considering they get very little snow, and you can for the most part ride year round.
And as I later found out they also have excellent group rides, and a great racing scene with races most every weekend from February all the way into November.
And the fall races are real races, on roads. Not these pseudo cyclocross races where you have to dismount and actually run with your bike on your shoulder, up steps and through mud.
But I'm not knocking "cross" racing, to each their own I suppose.
From there the loop had me turn left onto Den Hill Road that begins the descent into the valley.
A left onto North Fork Rd is the beginning of the stretch that runs along a river, I think the Roanoke River, but I couldn't find the name on a map. The road was very reminiscent of the COVAC ride, mostly flat with a couple of climbs, but nothing too difficult.
Coming down one of the short little hills I amost got taken out by a couple of the local residents. I wish I had my camera ready, but you can't capture everything. There was a couple of deer on the side of the road having lunch, I spooked them and they jumped directly across my path which thinking about it would have been a lot like my last COVAC, only I wouldn't have had the team support vehicle (Lisa Lemconte's minivan) to come and rescue me.
Itzallgood though.
After my adrenaline slowed, I started rolling along when I noticed a sign, it made me think of ice cream (if you click to enlarge you might be able to read Blue Bell Road).
You see, I have this friend who lives down around Dallas and she claims that Blue Bell ice cream is the best ice cream evah! I wouldn't disagree, I had their Bananna Split ice cream the last time I was in Florida and it was pretty good.
But she believes that the best ice cream is that which contains nuts, which I completely disagree with. Nuts don't belong in ice cream, or baked goods (especially brownies and toll house cookies) or any other food consumed by humans. Nuts, especially almonds, cashews, and pistachios are meant to be eaten by rodants, squirrils, chipmunks, and rats.
But whatevah, to each their own and if you like nuts in your ice cream or baked goods, that's your problem. (and remember this for anyone thinking of baking me some toll house cookies as payment for all this free entertainment I've been providing you over the past several years, this is hard work coming up with new material most every week for the past 3 years).
Oh yeah, one last note, one of our bike riding friends with lots of tattoos has a most excellent brownie recipe (or so I've been told) which I'd someday like to try :)
okay, enough about ice cream and baked goods, back to the ride.
At mile 16 is the left that takes you onto Bradshaw road, which has a lot of short punchy rollers for the first 10 or so miles. It's kind of tough but not like the stuff on 119 heading into Ringe NH that can wear you down when trying to hold the wheel of someone like Tattoo Dave which happened during a group earlier in the season. This road was actually tree lined and very scenic unlike the wasteland of 119 from Ashburnham into Rindge NH where the sun beats down on you for 15 straight miles.
Around mile 20 I heard the first clap of thunder which is never a good thing, especially when you still have another 35 miles to go (not counting the additional miles that came at the end when I got lost).
And the climbing hadn't even started.
There isn't a lot of population around this stretch of road and I started to panic just a little thinking about where I was going to find cover if a thunderstorm opened up. Before I left my hotel i didn't stop to think, this is the mountains and like the Whites in NH, storms probably pop up all the time down here. I don't mind riding in the rain at all, but throw in some lightening? That's alltogether different, electricity coming down from the sky scares the hell out of me.
And then it occured to me, there aren't a lot of houses on this road, but there seems to be a church every couple of miles (this is the bible belt, so one way or another God was going to save me if or when the skies opened up).
Thank God though, that single clap of thunder was the only threat of a storm I heard over the entire 4 hours.
BTW all the churches along the road had these clever little sayings out front, my favorite was "God doesn't care about email, only knee mail", which I found ironic since I didn't even know She had a computer up there in heaven, but I suppose She needs someway of keeping track of the good from the bad, me from everyone else who does the tuesday night ride. Hopefully She's keeping track of all my charitable giving because if I can't earn my way into heaven by being good, I'm going to try my best to buy my way in by charitiable giving to such nobel causes as the Gear Works Trust Fund which covers most of my bike related purchases throughout the year. Pastor Gene and associate pastor Daren do a most excellent job of preaching the good word to me everytime i walk into the shop.
Speaking of Daren, I wonder how his little Specialized boondoggle to Monterey California went. Did Mike hook you up with a free Specialized tee shirt Daren, or did he try and sell you one for $24.99 like Jay did to me when I was needed a tee shirt a couple weeks ago?
Daren seemed a little ambivilant when he was telling me about the trip. And then I told him Pebble Beach was only 10 miles away and his whole face lit up. I could see the wheels start turning on which one of his customers he could call on to try and hook him up with a tee time. Screw the vineyard tour, wine is good, but golf is better. I'm the opposite, but whetevah, to each their own and if people like hitting a ball and then chasing it and hitting it over and over again and again, 105 times over the course of 18 holes, more power to you.
So somewhere around mile 25 things got really good and really fast, it was a slight descent that went on for about 5 miles, I don't have my Garmin data, but most of the time I was averaging around 25-35 mph with the smile still intact.
Life was good.
But then I started thinking about what the ride was going to be like on the other side. Every downhill has an upside to it, right? I should coin that phrase, almost like every cloud has a silver lining?
And I knew exactly where the upside was coming.
But fortuntely before it did I had a chance to stop at the gas station for a quick bite to eat before the climb out of the valley.
They didn't have much of a selection, but I have to admit the Rice Krispies Treats were an excellent choice, the Oreos were in case I needed backup to help me finish the ride.
And while I was there I asked to use the rest room. I hate using gas station rest rooms because of a phobia I have about gas station rest rooms from watching the movie Trainspotting (if you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about). Well this one wasn't quite as bad, but it wasn't good either. I should've left the light off, but I didn't, I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about the situation but my olfactory neurons were completely overtaken to the point where closing my eyes weren't helping matters.
You migth want to close your eyes now, this is the only part of the ride that wasn't particulary beautiful. In fact this is the "really ugly" part of the ride lol:
I was glad to be out of there, eating my rice krispies treats and then heading to the only way out of the valley:
Actually the climb up Catawaba Mtn wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, definately not as brutal as the guys at the bike shop described it. It reminded me of riding up the Pack, there were about 6 switchbacks, kind of steep (about 800 feet of elevation gain over a little more than a mile), but it didn't have the finishing 200 meters at 20% like the Pack has so I got out of there mostly unscathed and feeling pretty good.
After a quick stop for some well needed caffine and my Oreos, I started on the best part of the ride, the last 25 miles on Blacksburg Rd which takes you back into Blacksburg (in case you didn't figure this out on your own). But it only takes you into Blacksburg if you don't deviate from the cue sheet the local bike shop provides you with.
This stretch of road was completely deserted, and I loved it. Over the first 10 miles I don't think I passed one car.
And the beauty of the area was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before (I keep saying that a lot). I could've used up all 10,000 terabytes on my memory card taking photos of everything I saw on this stretch.
Like the "orchard house" I someday want to live in (because there are no neighbors and I happen to like apples):
And this place, again, no neighbors, no problems:
And then out of the blue I saw a flash of yellow pull out onto the road.
One of the best things about cycling is you never know who you're going to meet when out on the road, but almost inevitably you're going to run into another cyclist somewhere along the way.
This guy's name was Robert, he was a local racer who races for a Big Team down here, I didn't catch the name, sounded like SOYLA, but I checked on USA Cycling and couldn't find the club.
Anyways, we had a great time chatting it up over the next 20 miles, everything from the local racing scene, to his dislike for nuts in ice cream and baked goods, so naturally we bonded and he told me to look him up next time I'm down here. The problem is he told me his last name, but I don't know how to spell it and can't find him on FB. If anyone recognizes him please let me know.
He told me to follow him back to Blacksburg, but i wanted to head in another direction to get some more photos, which in hindsight was a big mistake.
I caputued this one which is one of my favorites, just a stream in the middle of nowhere, but it must be somewhere because someone had recently cut the grass.
So riding along I thought I had a good idea of how to get back to my hotel (I'm a guy after all and we have a very keen sense of direction and an aversion to asking people for directions). I felt especially confident once I found Ellet Rd which I knew was a super steep climb that went right to Main St in Blacksburg.
I was right about it being super steep.
But wrong about where I thought it was going to come out (it sure wasn't Blacksburg).
Instand I eneded up in Cleatusville (which isn't really the name of the town, but it sounds good).
When I realized I was lost and extremely tired, I broke the number one rule of being a guy when I stopped into the local antique shop and asked for directions. The owner was busy with a customer, so instead I got her 93 year old mother who was a very nice woman by the way and invited me over for tea and crackers (uh thanks for the offer, but I really want to get back to my hotel for a beer and my leftover Pizza from "The Cellar" the night before).
I asked he if she knew the way back to Blacksburg and she stared at me with a blank look on her face before telling me "Well, tuh be perfuhtly honest with yah, I really doun't believe yah kin ahget thar from a hereh". WOW!, I knew I was off track but how he he^^ did I get transported from somewhere in Virginia 800 miles back to Maine?
Finally the owner came over shaking her head and set me straight, she basically said I had a pretty bad sense of direction (nice little dig, probably for not indulging her mother with the tea and crackers offer), that I was about 15 miles away from Blacksburg. She finally set me straight, telling me the way to get back to town.
Those last 15 miles were the worst, I basically ended up going through the business section of Blacksburg which is like riding along a double lane highway with large shopping centers on both sides of the road and people not paying any attention to the guy on the bike.
The final numbers:
This ride was special for several reasons. One of them being the beauty of the roads I was on. Another was it was great medicine to clear my head of all the not so great stuff I've been dealing with over the past several weeks. Meeting up with another rider and spending some 25 miles chatting about everything under the sun is one of the best surprises about riding a bike.
But mostly I think it was that I was riding my bike for all the reasons I originally got into riding. I love the training, the tuesday night hammer fests, and the occassional race.
But I much more enjoy just getting on the bike and pedaling effortlessly on beautiful roads where you feel like you're one with the bike and the environment around you, completely lost to everything else, riding along and just watching life unfold before you.
That to me is the best part of riding.
Thanks Blacksburg for a ride I'll never forget!
Cheers!
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