After 46 boring miles of riding today, through uninspiring scenery, I had to acknowledge that I was tired and lonely. This felt like a dangerous admission, considering that I still had a very long way to go. I briefly allowed my doubts and fatigue to take the upper hand, and I considered ways in which I might make an honorable exit from this venture, one for which no reasonable person could reproach me.
Maybe my money would run out? Maybe my bicycle would break down and I’d be unable to afford to fix it? Maybe I’d fall and break a limb?
Money was a constant concern. I was about on schedule as far as expenditures went, unless the trip took me seven (or more) days longer than three months, which it certainly would if I continued at my present sluggish average pace of 45 miles/day. AND, the projected expenses did not include money for my return trip cross-country, which in a best case scenario would be on an airplane, and in a worst case scenario on a Greyhound bus. I cashed another $20 American Express traveler’s check today, bringing my total cashed to $50 for the week. This bill has to last me through Wednesday, and today is Monday.
There were small things that made a day tolerable. Finding letters from friends and family at my designated mail stops provided a temporary emotional life line. Because it was Sunday when I passed through Radford, I had to leave a note for the postmaster, asking him to forward any accumulated mail. Next mail stop: Elkhorn City, Kentucky.
Putting a keen edge on my loneliness was the fact that I felt less simpatico with the people in the Blue Ridge Mountain South than I did with those further east. I hesitated to brand the folks in these parts as rednecks, but they certainly conveyed less interest in, and sympathy for, my undertaking. Anecdotes fro other riders suggested that the people in Kentucky aren’t much different.
I again slept like a log, turning in about 10 p.m., glad to be adjusting my sleep cycle to get up and on the road earlier. Last night’s campground was crowded, but this one proved vast and empty. Paradoxically, my aloneness here made me feel stronger and more self-sufficient.
After leaving Blacksburg late morning, with a stop at McDonalds to fill the empty place in my stomach, I passed through Christiansburg and Radford, feeling dopey from lack of sleep, and thoroughly uninspired.
Deciding that this was going to be tantamount to a rest day, I didn’t push, and ended up detouring off the trail to camp at a state park, which was pleasant, if crowded. I got more ‘You’re doing this alone?’ incredulousness from the guard at the gate. Dinner was canned liver(!) and Rice-a-Roni cooked on my little stove. After calling my family on a pay phone, I tried to ignore how homesick I felt, and turned in early. I slept like a log for eight solid hours. Riding total for the day: 30 miles.
The previous day had been a low-mileage effort (44 miles), and I started out determined to make up for lost time. My goal was an ambitious one: I was aiming for Radford, VA, over 90 miles away.
True to form, I left the campground as Anthony was still sleeping. For some reason, I experienced my solitude that morning as loneliness. I felt as though I was moving out of the cozier parts of the state, and into areas with just as much history as the parts I had passed through, but less of the charm. Geographically, I had entered the Great Valley between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east, and the younger Appalachians to the west. Psychologically, I felt as though I was beginning to understand the enormous size of this huge, unmanageable continent which stood between me and the Pacific.
By 6 p.m., following a four-mile climb, my ambition was flagging along with my energy. And I was sensing the opportunity to be found in a college town; Blacksburg is home to Virginia Tech, infamous as the 2007 scene of the country’s worst college mass shooting. In 1980, however, the school was known for its bucolic setting and academic rigor; budding engineers in particular were drawn to its strong science programs.
For the second time in a week, I looked to the hospitality of college students when seeking a place to crash for the night, and I was again not disappointed. While asking a young passerby for directions, I was quickly engaged in a conversation which led to Walter, my new acquaintance, offering me a sleeping spot on the couch in his Zeta Psi fraternity house. I accepted gratefully, and followed him to the frat house, where I met some of his fellow Zets: Buffalo Bob, J.D., Jean, and Freaky Dave.
Budding engineers (some electrical, some mechanical) all, they were abuzz with enthusiasm regarding my journey, and eager to spout facts and figures on their own passions, from nuclear energy to electric guitars. I was amused and admiring … am I allowed, I thought, only one year out of college myself, to find college kids so young, yet so awe-inspiring for their openness?
Things were humming at the frat house on that Saturday. We were out in the sticks, but the frat boys still stayed up late on long summer nights, even if only to watch SNL reruns. By the time I fell asleep on the living room couch, it was to toss and turn, pieces of pizza awash in my beer-filled tummy. I awoke in the morning feeling foggy and famished. Promising to send my new friends a copy of the book that intend to produce following the trip [is it too late? :)] I packed my bags and pedaled off, sad to say good-bye, and also to be denied the pleasure of a lazy Sunday morning spent drinking coffee and reading the paper.
Enacting my part in what had become almost a daily ritual, I left the KOA campground while Anthony was still sleeping. I went down some hills for a change, and was able to easily cover the 20+ miles to Lexington by lunchtime.
After a fast food lunch at Wendy’s, I located the Lexington bike shop. I wanted to have my front wheel “trued,” because I had noticed it wobbling a bit. While the bike was being worked on, I asked the mechanic what sort of maintenance I should be doing. The response was essentially, ‘not much;’ he suggested only that I keep the chain moderately lubricated (putting too much oil on a bike chain is a sin almost worse than not oiling it at all, as the excess lubricant attracts gunk and road dirt), and be attentive for any oddities in the way the bike was riding or handling.
As I passed out of Lexington, I rode by Washington and Lee University, and was not impressed by what I saw.
Hoping to camp in Buchanan, I arrived at a service station off of I-81 hot, befuddled by the directions in the guidebook, and very tired. Then, of course, Anthony showed up, and we rode together to a KOA which was four long miles out of our way, but which was the only known camping spot for miles. Adding to my annoyance was the fact that this campground charged us $6 apiece for the privilege of pitching our tents, while the one the previous night had charged only $2. I was on a tight budget, and by the end of the first week I had spent almost exactly $70, out of a total allotted of, as I recall, something just north of $1000 for the entire trip.
Anthony was still somewhat aloof, but soon enough we were brought together by two other campers, Keith and Joe, factory workers from Ohio, who were getting an early start on their Fourth of July celebration. They were “bikers” in another sense, riding Harleys. They cradled their Miller beers in individual foam coolers and swapped ribald stories as Anthony and I listened politely. These two men, older and with more earthy temperaments, gained our interest as they shared seat-of-the-pants life experience, from bikes to babes, that was unlike our own, and fascinating for its novelty.
The shared bonds of maleness and hunger established, the four of us headed to an all-you-can-eat spot Joe had spotted down the road. They invited Anthony and me aboard their motorcycles and we complied, feeling mildly traitorous to our kind. At the restaurant, we pulled in next to two more Harleys. Indications were that these cyclists were of an even tougher breed and, sure enough, having been invited to join their table, we spent the meal listening to racial slurs, stories of sexual conquests, and of course, motorcycle talk. It was all very colorful, yet ultimately a big yawn, and I was happy when the meal finished and the four of us returned to the campground, and our individual spaces.
I left Charlottesville about 9 a.m. and made decent time until, near noon, I tackled the first and worst of the day’s climbs on my way up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Feeling spent as I climbed up into the town of Afton, I approached a yard with a sign advertising “Water for Cyclists propped against an old bicycle. I discovered that I had arrived at the home of the storied “Cookie Lady,” June Curry. She and her father, Harold Haven, well-known for their hospitality to cyclists, had been plying cross-country riders with sandwiches, lemonade and cookies since the Bikecentennial trail’s inception.
After I’d eaten generous amounts of the food the two offered me, I took a proprietary stance next to my bike and smiles for the camera, as Harold took a photo to add to their album of cyclists. Afterwards, I flipped through the albums from past years, past pages of smiling anonymous bikers, and felt a little disheartened to realize that my impulse to undertake this trip was not as original as I had imagined. I reconciled myself to the realization that while my journey had been done before, it was nonetheless for me an adventure, and unique to my own experience.
It was pleasant to find two familiar faces in the album — my cousin, who had inspired me to do this, and a college classmate. It is strange, too, to be united with these two, the disparate three of us given a common identity, “cross-country cyclist,” in this tidy collection of photos held high in a sleepy Virginia mountain town.
As I prepared to leave, Harold showed genuine solicitousness of my obvious trepidation. He recounted inspiring anecdotes about other bikers, women traveling alone, out-of-shape people who, surprising themselves, rode coast to coast. I was grateful for his kindness. Then, as he returned to his garage to continue working on a car, I mounted my bike and continued up the hill.
As I continued to climb, small farms dotted the rolling landscape around me. Cousins to the plantations further east, these plots differ most obviously by the manner in which they have yielded to the whimsical demands of this treacherous topography. Man no longer controls the land; it controls him, and humbles his efforts to tame it.
Twenty miles of tourist-traveled Skyline Drive left me lonely again. Alien spaceship RVs, piloted by people whose motives I couldn’t fathom, whizzed by, blithely unaware that we were ascending a 4% grade. I was very aware. A cyclist’s level of contentment is inversely proportional to the grade of his ascent, a little-known but highly proveable theorem.
Momentary bouts with depression were being replaced with greater self-confidence. The early American settlers spent 125 years exploring the mere 200 miles between the Atlantic coast and the eastern base of the Blue Ridge mountains, then in only 100 more years spread themselves across the remaining width of this vast continent. So did I move along much more quickly and with greater assurance once over the Appalachian’s front range. “Can I do it?” was replaced by “How long will this take me?” as the oft-repeated internal query.
I had a reprieve near the end of the day, as I got to coast down Vesuvius Hill, a steep hill that was 3.7 miles of sheer torture for a west-to-east rider, but which I experienced as a delightful descent.
I had targeted a campground which was near the bottom of the hill. When I arrived I found a well-stocked store and a friendly clerk who inspired my first attempt at cooking, such as it was. His recommendation was to fry hamburger, then break it up and add it to beef-flavored Rice-a-Roni. I added my own touch, canned tomatoes, and found it entirely edible. There was little that I didn’t find edible during the trip; my body was a calorie-burning machine, and I was always hungry.
Darned if, along about 8, Anthony didn’t show up. He too had stayed over in Charlottesville for a day.
The first, and worst, of the hills loomed some distance west of Charlottesville, where the rolling Piedmont ascended onto the Blue Ridge, the eastward-most extension of the Appalachian Mountains. Rumor from other cyclists had it that I was about to encounter some of the most demanding terrain of the entire route.
And while I hadn’t reached those hills yet, this day was not an easy day, either, as the riding proved the most grueling thus far. As promised by the guidebook, the route was a “roller coaster,” a series of seeming endless ups and downs. By the time I was within 100 yards of Monticello, going up .. and up U.S. Route 53, I “like to died,” in the local parlance.
The scenery was some compensation, however. I was moving away from the drab areas near the coast and into the thick of the history-rich south. Several old homes, in particular, appealed to my literary preconceptions. One such home, on SR 619 near SR 761, was so rich with character that I felt I had stepped into a Faulkner novel, so overgrown, lived-in, loved, broken-down, and seductive did it appear.
And everywhere I looked were lovely, tanned, smiling young women.
This was the South of my imagination: ripe, fecund, easy-going, against a backdrop of beautiful decay.
And the people were so nice. After stopping for a lemonade on the outskirts of Charlottesville, I rang the cheapest campground in the guidebook; the woman on the phone was so warm and solicitous that I almost wept when I hung up.
I then found my way to a local camping supply store, Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, hoping they could diagnose a problem with my little camp stove, which had stopped working. Not only did they fix it free of charge, but one of the salesmen who saw my Northfield Mt. Hermon T-shirt turned out to be both a graduate and a former teaching fellow.
The day’s final piece of happy luck visited me while I was stopped outside a downtown shopping mall, repacking my overstuffed panniers. A voice at my elbow said:
“How y’all doing? Where y’all headed?”
Jim, a friendly and interested fellow, himself a veteran of bike touring, soon discovered that “y’all” was just me, and that I needed a place to stay for the night. Yes, I readily agreed, sleeping on his sister’s sofa would suit me just fine, and, no, taking a shower at her place would be no hardship either.
As it turned out, Jim’s sister and her roommates, coeds at the University of Virginia, just happened to have accommodations at their off-campus apartment, and some spare dinner as well, and also had access to laundry facilities. Only a week away from home, I was already dazzled by the simple pleasures of civilization, no less than by the fact that these three attractive young women were willing to usher me into their home.
College towns, I discovered more than once along the way, were bonanzas of freebies and of people my age, who were interested in my journey and who were usually willing to do what they could to provide support.
I lingered on in Charlottesville for a second day, utterly seduced by the beauty of the town and the UVA campus, and by the friendliness of my hosts. But by end of the day on the 25th, I was itching to move on.
I got a late start from Ashland, and was done riding by 3:30, electing to camp at a picturesque (and free) campground in Mineral rather than push on any further.
Mineral proved to be a pleasant little town. After making camp, I walked down the main street, bought a beer, and observed the Boy Scouts holding a meeting in the local church.
Although Anthony started after I did on this day, he eventually passed me, and I assumed he would continue on to Charlottesville, but about 6:30 in the evening, he rolled in, as I was heated my canned lasagne dinner. He became a bit more sociable as we shared a few beers. Thankfully, the predicted rain never materialized.
Some of the older folk I met at the local country store cast a cloud over my day with their dire predictions. One old mountain man in particular had cautioned:
“It’s dangerous, doing what you’re doing, a young fellow like you, not even 21.”
“But I’m 23,” I protested.
“Oh … well … you’ll never make it over those mountains,” he grumbled.
Another, a woman, wanted to know what I’d “be” when I quit riding, a question that I thought I had avoided for the time being. My answer was evasive, but she nevertheless assured me that her “prayers would be with me,” as she glanced heavenward. “Only a miracle can save this wayward soul,” she seemed to be thinking. I felt doomed.
This was a 50-mile day. The first 10 miles were spent traversing the width of Charles City, which I discovered was a county, not a city per se.
As these early miles felt uneventful, even dreary, and left me with few notable memories of tidewater Virginia, perhaps this is a good time to describe my gear.
In 1980, before the Chinese had cornered the market, the Japanese still made mass-production, high-value bicycles. Fuji was one such brand. According to wikipedia, quoting from Richard’s Bicycle Book, “Fuji played a part in the cycling boom of the 1970s. It introduced the first successful mass-production 12-speed bicycle in the mid-1970s, using a redesigned rear axle to minimize spoke dish to maintain wheel strength. “
I had no idea what “spoke dish” was, but I liked the look of the 12-speed Fuji Royale that I saw at Jay’s Bike Shop in Princeton, NJ. I don’t remember the sale price, but I’m sure it was no more than a few hundred dollars. Mine was white, not blue like the one in the photo below.
Aside from the few notable exceptions when didn’t have to camp, I was on my own when it came to where and how to spend the nights. I carried a lightweight sleeping bag which provided sufficient warmth for all but a few of the chillier nights in Colorado and Wyoming.
As protection from bugs and rain, I bought a two-man tent, so tiny and confining that I was essentially sleeping in an orange nylon coffin. I don’t know how a second person could have fit into such a small space, but for my purposes it was perfect.
This type of tent is known as a “bivy sack,” and deserves a picture as well. Mine was orange rather than grey, but was otherwise almost identical to this REI model. This one is actually $16 cheaper, at $149, than the one I bought 40 years ago.
I ended up camping with Anthony again, though we had not seen each other during our day’s ride. I was happy to discover that the campground, populated mostly by RVs, had hot showers. I was very tired, and collapsed early in the evening.
Although I was unfamiliar with Virginia and Kentucky, the first two states I would cross, I carried with me the Northerner’s stereotypical picture of the South: sumptuous plantation-style living alongside squalid survival, both extremes peopled with beings whose bodies, minds, and tongues ran at half-speed.
At first, infected by the ambient laxity and slowed by my body’s initial resistance to the tests it was suddenly facing, I moved along at a very moderate pace, about 50 miles per day. Dreamily I pedaled through the heat, past plantations and faux plantations, my head filled with visions of sitting on the veranda sipping mint juleps with Colonel Sanders. The historic triangle formed by Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg has become so canonized as the birthplace of our nation that squalid poverty has little chance for survival. It was perhaps because of that lack of socioeconomic diversity that I found the area relatively uninteresting …. even squalid poverty has more warmth than the unreal primness of these restored landmarks.
I felt that I was arriving in the real South when, late in the day, I passed a humble home fenced in by tobacco fields. Anachronistic disco music spouted from huge speakers on the front porch while two young black men, each dressed in white shirt and tie, nodded gravely to me as I pass.
This moment of contact was but the first of many times that I felt gratitude to Bikecentennial’s map-makers for making the trail “rural by design,” as they professed to have done. Later in my trip, when I was traversing the west, where all roads lead to farm or ranch land and towns are few, it was easier to avoid overdeveloped areas, but for now I was especially glad to have an insider’s look at the land, while being routed along the network of county and state roads, some of which are not even shown on road maps.
It was not long before I met other cyclists. Relying on guidebook information, I aimed to end my second day in Charles City, VA. The “city” consisted of a disheveled campground and a general store. I walk my bike down a rutted road to the camping area after paying my $2 camping fee at the store. Three other cyclists, a man and two women, have already arrived and pitched tents on a grassy swatch. Feeling like a belated interloper, but wanting company, I join them, and the exchange of pleasantries is enough to make me feel less lonely.
The male, Anthony, and I were destined to cross paths frequently at the ends of our early days. A rather taciturn fellow, he revealed that he was from Detroit, and had recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Physics. The two women were from California, aiming to get as far west as they could by the middle of August, when they needed to return to work. Anthony, like me, was bound for Oregon, no matter how long it took. There was little talk, and we all retired early, apparently still fired by the disciplined desire to take this trip seriously and do things right, with no time for idle chatter.
My first days on the road were spent acclimating myself both to a new way of life … essentially that of the vagabond ….and to an unfamiliar means of long distance travel. While both changes presented their challenges, it was the daily work of bike riding that had the most immediate effects. I had ridden a bicycle since childhood, but never this consistently, or constantly, and never while encumbered with panniers, a front handlebar bag, tent, ground cloth, sleeping bag and foam pad. My first few practice rides before the trip had been disconcerting and awkward. The additional weight behind my seat seemed at risk of pitching me to one side or the other, and I was confronted with fears of falling that I never experienced since the first early moments learning to ride.
I decided that the only way to get used to touring was to do it. Within a month the added weight, balanced properly, gave me a feeling of security, and an unloaded bike felt as flighty and unmanageable as a loaded one had at first. As I went whizzing down long hills, I was propelled to new and exciting rates of speed.
Being a runner, I had fancied myself in decent physical shape, but daily riding, for up to 10 hours per day, remade my body in new and unexpected ways. The process of adaption occurred quickly and with some discomfort. Tight, sore upper thighs, aching wrists and hands (from the constant pressure against the handlebars), chafed buttocks and inner thighs (from an over-firm seat), blistered feet (from running shoes rubbing against toe clips) were a few of the early complaints. Soon, however, I either stopped noticing these irritants, or they disappeared as my body became accustomed to the daily grind. Rewards came in the form of a dark tan, and the new bulge in my thighs which a companion christened “the hill-climbing muscle.”
I rode about 45 miles today, of which at least 20 did not afford any westward progress — it encompassed the roundtrip from Williamsburg to the official “starting line” in Jamestown, and back to Williamsburg. I did not want to get all the way to Oregon without having ridden the entire coast-to-coast route!
By the time I disembarked at the deserted bus station, my mother’s prediction seemed increasingly likely … I would start, but, ignominiously, not finish the trip. All signs were pointing to the downside as I began to lose my nerve. The girl on the bus I had been trying to chat up had the brain of a hummingbird and cared nothing for my daring. Furthermore, if no one cared about my success or failure except me, was that really enough of a cheering section?
Miraculously, my bike seemed to assemble itself on the station lawn, with little help from my twitching fingers, and I wobbled off toward town with the half-pitying cheers of a local youngster who had heard my story resounding in my ears like the applause of thousands. I could do this! Maybe.
Little riding was done this first day. I decided there was no need for heroics at this point; simply getting underway was enough of an accomplishment.
