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We wanted to get an early start because we didn’t know how long it would take us to climb up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. We knew it was going to be tough. The weather was overcast, and the elevation profile on our map makes the climb look pretty nasty. Riders heading West had also warned us about this climb.
We had an 18 mile warmup ride with a gradual increase in elevation before we started the real climb just past Vesuvius. As we expected the climb was a really steep winding narrow road. Luckily it was only 4 miles, and with a few breaks we made it to the top.
The overcast weather really began to take affect once we were up on the parkway. The cool day suddenly turned into a brisk windy day. The fact that we were wet from sweating our way up the mountain didn’t help. It turned out to be our coldest day of the trip. After shivering our way across the ridge for about 25 miles, we began our descent off our last mountain range.
We rolled into Crozet ( pronounced Crozay ) after 62 miles around 4 PM. Crozet is named after a French engineer who directed the building of the Blue Ridge Tunnel. Eric made it through his first mountain range in one piece. We made it through hopefully our last rough day. The rest of the evening we spent relaxing and enjoying a rare home cooked meal Meg had prepared. We’re finally in the home stretch.