I set out to do 90 miles today and I nailed it. Most people leaving out of Vesuvius stop in Troutville, and I admit it was pretty tempting, but I pushed through to Catawba. I'm glad I did, too. It was an extra 30 miles, but I got a nice all-you-can-eat dinner, another cool camping spot and a jump on tomorrow. Those last 20 miles were tough, so I'm glad I won't have to do that tomorrow morning.
I had a little help from two gents perched at their spots in front of a store this morning. They asked me where I was headed and I showed them my map. They took one look and both started telling me a better way to go. I was a little hesitant to go off the trail because the whole point of it is to cater to bikers, but these guys were very adamant, so I considered their points and decided to go for it.
They assured me that it would be mostly downhill, shorter, and less traffic to go their way. I guess I'll never know for sure, but I did get to my lunch destination a lot earlier than I planned based on the mapped route and there were a bunch of fun downhills. I guess thats what this is all about though... Getting out there and figuring it out.
One of the roads I took zig-zagged across a train track for about ten miles. I guess they just couldn't figure out which side they liked. At one point I stopped for some water and right next to me, the train was gettig ready to go. I was eye to eye with the engine, and then he started to move. I stood for a second and marveled at the whole process... A mile of cars being pulled from a dead stop. Then it hit me, I better go before I end up waiting 15 minutes for him to get over my road!
I shot off and crossed over the tracks with time to spare, but then one glance at the map indicated that I would encounter this same situation another few times. I was going along the road right next to the train and gaining a little bit of ground on him as I went. I got to the next crossing and hit it with just a moment to spare. Same thing again.
Now, to be fair, it takes a train about 30 minutes to get moving at even a reasonable speed, so it's not as though I was narrowly avoiding catastrophe at every pass. I could have crab-walked back and forth across the track before he got there. But still... It was a fun distraction.
I saw that train again about an hour later when my path linked back up with the tracks. He was still going slow and pobably made a stop along the way. I hoped that the engineer could see me riding parallel after all that time. I know he saw me during the "race".
Some very steep climbs today, much steeper than anything I have yet seen, but very short. I actually ended up on the granny chain-ring and the biggest sprocket for a couple of hills. I know that may be too bike-technical to make sense for most people, but that's basically a 1:0.5 gear ratio. Every time I pedal a full revolution, the wheel only turns half way around. It's really slow. Even then I was wobbling.
I made it to Catawba, and now it's bed time. Now that I have my headlight, I can have a much easier time getting around tonight. Shooting for another 90-100 mile day tomorrow. We'll see.
Location:Catawba, Va
No comments:
Post a Comment