2014-07-05 Day 10 Double Summit, Damascus to Council, VA
Post date: Jul 7, 2014 1:08:42 AM
Mileage Today: 58 Total Mileage: 524
We turned to the northwest today and cut directly across the “foot” of Virginia in the southwest corner of the state. It’s all mountains here – heavily wooded and very green and lush. No ferns or moss like Oregon but a lot of vines and dense woods. We have seen some rhododendrons in the bloom the past couple of days.
According to our maps we made the two steepest significant climbs in Virginia today both required “Granny Gear” for miles - one of 3.7 miles with a 1,500 foot gain and another of 3.9 miles with a 1000 foot gain. There were many other smaller climbs. Our total elevation gain today was 5094 feet. A new record. Virginia has more TransAm miles than any other state. We are now 22 miles from the Kentucky state line. We will cross that line tomorrow on Day 11 as planned. Both Jon and I are feeling good physically. Our bodies are holding together. Teresa has been fantastic running the support vehicle. So far… so good. Before we started I had wondered if my body would hold up but now I actually am beginning to think that we will complete this mission of getting to Pueblo, CO this summer. On the picture below we rode over the low pass in the distance to cross this line of mountains.
As far as the weather so far, it has been like playing a game of poker and being dealt a Royal Flush. We have seen mostly sunshine but did benefit from a cloud cover and cooling breeze on our climb through the Blue Ridge Mountains. We have had cool temperatures with highs around 80 for our climbs the past two days. Perfect. Two major thunder storms have passed through the area and both came close enough for us to hear the thunder and see bolts of lightning in the distance. However, neither gave us any rain. In fact, so far we have had a total of 15 minutes of rain on our ride. Ten minutes of that was light rain on the first day.
We met Carl from Corvallis on the road today. He is nearing the end of his eastern trek on a bike across the country. We also met Kevin from Iowa also east bound. Stopped and talked with both of them along the road side for 10 minutes. Tonight we are camping in Council’s City Park. They provide free lawn space for bikers and showers at the park pool. Mike from Pittsburgh who we first meet two days again is also camped here tonight.
