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When we left our motel this morning, we were greeted by a heavy fog over the mountain. Since our motel was in the middle of nowhere (and pretty crappy, no tv, no Internet, definitely no continental beakfast – but that’s what you get for $31) we had to make do with a quick breakfast of bananas and granola bars. I miss the hospitality of David and the historical society already. We figured that we would pick up something more substantial in the next town.

Just our luck, the next two towns did not have an open restaurant, so we settled for some weak coffee and microwaved sausage biscuits at a gas station. Maybe lunch would be better -no such luck, we were stuck with gas station food again and my chicken sandwich was raw in the middle – which I only realized after I had already eaten half of it. My stomach was so turned that I didn’t even bother getting a new one. Now I am anxiously awaiting my spagetti and meatball dinner to arrive. But, back to our day, there was plenty of bike riding along with all the attempts at eating.

We had two big climbs today, one with a peak over 3,000 ft. which is as high as we’ve been since Colorado. 60 miles into our ride, we decided to go off route and head east to Marion VA, instead of south to Damascus. The published route we have been (mostly) following takes us very far south, nearly to N. Carolina, and up some mountains. I am sure it would be beautiful, but, we’ve climbed plenty of mountains, and our new route will save us nearly a day of riding, which we need in order to stay on schedule. Tomorrow we will get back on route, that much closer to home.

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When we stay at a hotel with free continental breakfast we like to take advantage. This mornings breakfast was a little weak. No hard boiled eggs, no fruit, no yogart, and a waffle maker that didn’t work. Ah well we just had to fill up on cold cereal and bad donuts. Last night we checked the web for the progress of some of our riding campanions. We found that the other Mike had to interrupt his trip because of a family illness. We found his post regarding his ride with us.

The ride itself was pretty uneventful. After about 12 miles we reconnected with our route, our shortcut saving us at least 30 miles and a lot of climbing. We’re out of coal mining country and seem to be passing through the southern edge of the Shenandoah valley. The terrain has changed to rolling grassy farmland. We still have the momentary gut wrenching climb as we dip between hills, but no major climbs.

We reached our destination Christiansburg after 81 miles. Tomorrow we start on our last map, with only 367 miles to go. We’re excited because tomorrow we’re going to meet our friends Eric & Meg, and their family. Eric has boldly signed up to ride with us the next few days to their place outside Charlottesville. One of those days will be our last really hard ride of the trip, climbing up to the Blur Ridge Parkway. My prediction? PAIN!

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It was supposed to rain early this morning, unfortunately it didn’t actually start raining until we went to get breakfast around 9am. We let ourselves sleep in a bit and got a later start today because we were meeting Eric early in the afternoon, and our mileage today would be relatively short. Because of the unfortunate rain, we ended up hanging out in our motel room until check out time at 11am. Luckily, by then the rain had stopped. Our good fortune with the weather remains, if not perfect, still pretty darn good.

The weather today remained overcast, but this only seemed to intensify the beautiful fall colors of the landscape. After a short 28 miles of rolling hills, we reached Catawba. Mike and I stopped at a gas station/deli, ordered a couple of Italian subs and waited for Eric and Meg to arrive.

Once Eric joined us, we only had an easy 20 miles left to ride. We arrived at our destination, Daleville, around 5pm, which gave us plenty of time to hang out with Eric, relax in our hotel room, drink beer and eat Mexican food. We only rode 48 miles today, but it was a pretty fun time, and we are still right on schedule.

-Sarah

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When we met with Eric and Meg yesterday we decided to unload a few things that we could do without the next couple of days. Since we didn’t plan on camping the next two nights we wouldn’t need our tent. We also temporarily unloaded the bourbon we had picked up in Bardstown, as well as some spare bike parts. In all we probably unloaded 10-15 lbs of gear. Riding with the reduced load was a nice relief.

We were only planning a 50 mile ride today to get to Lexington, since that is the last place with a motel before reaching our approach to the climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. On our way we crossed paths with yet another group of west bound transam riders. They were carrying a lot of gear and would probably need it since cold weather should be rapidly approaching in the West and Midwest.

We reached Lexington fairly early and stopped at the Stonewall Jackson cemetery to check out the tomb. Scattered around the statue of the revered confederate strategist were fresh lemons. Legend has it they were his favorite treat. After a quick late lunch we secured our motel room. Our ride tomorrow will be a lot more difficult, about 65 miles with a lot of climbing.

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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.