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!