Day 4: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Vesuvius, VA to Lexington, VA

Miles traveled by bike today: 25.8
Total miles traveled (by bike): 184.4
Max speed: 29 mph
Elevation increase: a lot
Miles traveled via support vehicle: 50-some

This morning started out bright and shiny with promise. We were up early and met my folks at Teri and Alex's place in Charlottesville. My parents had agreed to take our gear in their car for our massive ascent of Afton mountain.

We had originally planned to start out in Charlottesville, but decided it would be better to face the mountain fresh, so my parents drove us and all of our gear to the bottom of the mountain, skipping about 30 miles of rolling hills. By the time we got there, it was maybe 10 a.m. or so.

We biked the first five miles of the mountain before giving up in utter defeat. The incline was so steep, and it seemed to just go on forever. My quads were SCREAMING, I was sucking wind hard, and we had 20 more miles (straight up) to go. I told Dean it was time to call it in. This is our honeymoon, and I don't want to spend it miserable. We didn't train at all on hills, and they are HARD. I mean hard. I mean really, really hard. In a way that you can't understand until you've tried to climb an actual mountain on a bike. It's hard.

Dean, waiting at mile 5 marker for the rescue mission

So my parents came to pick us up and drove us over the main mountain to Vesuvius, VA. We figured we could still get a full day's ride in, as it was about 11:30 a.m., and we could salvage the day and make good progress.

The first 15 miles or so were fast and fun. Then we hit more hills. Steep hills. Grueling hills. We made it to Lexington, but I was ready to quit the trip, take the money we had left, and spend a week in Cancun. Seriously, I considered this. I just can't convey to you how hard it is to cross the frickin' Blue Ridge on a bike. What were we thinking??? The rolling hills of central VA were tough but fun, and now we're into some serious business, mountain-wise, and it is really not fun sometimes.

A waterfall we encountered during the fun part of the day.

I had another total emotional meltdown on one of the tough hills. I told Dean that I wasn't having fun anymore, and I wanted to talk about quitting the trip and just going home. I was feeling pretty defeated. Here was this dream I'd had, and we were doing it (!!!) and it sucked more than I could have possibly imagined.

We got to Lexington and we met with my folks and they gave us back all of our gear. Dean and I talked about our options. We could just quit, or we could take our bikes in the car and drive cross-country, doing short bike tours where it looked good, or we could take the money and do something totally different, or we could soldier on. I was really not in favor of soldiering on after those last few hills, where the uphills were steep and grueling, and the downhills were steep and terrifying.

As it happened, Dean had left his bike gloves on the side of the road on Afton mountain. His chain had fallen off (AGAIN) and he was pretty PO-ed about it. So we went to a bike shop to get some new gloves (though Dean did ask me, do we really need to go to a bike shop?, i.e. are we quitting this thing or what?). But we went in, and I'm glad we did.

Lexington Bike Shop is home to two guys about our parents' age (one shop employee and another guy who just hangs out there b/c he's a major bike enthusiast). The enthusiast had done many tours, including Trans-america (David) and the employee (owner?) had seen many a trans-am bike tourist in his day. They gave us some good advice and the courage to go on.

Basically, they said that this was a tough part of the trip, and Kentucky would be even worse (yipes), but if we were stressing it, we were going about it all wrong. David said that if you tell yourself you have to do X miles per day and make it to Oregon on your insane route that adds 1000 unnecessary miles, you're going to go nuts and hate it and suck all the fun out. It's most important to do what you can do each day, and each day you'll get fitter. And he gave the best advice yet -- switchbacks on steep hills. He said we shouldn't power through straight up and kill our quads and lungs, but just weave back and forth as much as necessary to ensure you're not pushing too hard. The fitness will come. But cars on the roads (on this trail) are few, and you can hear them from far away, so if it's all clear, just swerve back and forth in your lowest gear. It doesn't matter if it takes an hour and you make terrible progress -- you're making progress and not killing yourself doing it. It will get easier and easier as you go. Plus he talked about how amazing his trip was, and said he'd really be sorry for us to miss it.

The employee/owner guy said that he'd seen many a "shell shocked" bike tourist come through, ready to give up. After Yorktown to Charlottesville, this part of the state can be shocking and miserable, but that it's normal and we're young, etc., and should keep going.

After talking to them and getting our bikes and gear situated, it was after 4:30, and the next town was 20 mountainous miles away. We felt better about moving on, but thought we should pack it in after a very emotionally and physically challenging day. However, we plan to wake up bright and early tomorrow and get back on the bikes, and go however far we can. When we get to western Kentucky or Missouri, we will consider changing our route entirely to shave off several hundred miles, so we might still be able to make it (Sorry, Heather and Joy!). If we can't make it to the west coast, we go as far as we go, and have fun. It seems reasonable and sane to just do what we can do, and not kill ourselves to make any particular goal. This is a honeymoon and I want to have fun.

The rest of our trip will be: