Across Virginia on Route 76
30th Anniversary of the Trans-America Bicycle Trail
Have you ever thought about seeing Virginia from the saddle of a bicycle?
I had never really thought about it until last year, when I was invited to
join the Cross-State Ride, sponsored by the Virginia Bicycle Federation. I
didn't imagine that it was even possible to ride a bicycle across the entire
state of Virginia, but the idea fascinated me enough to try it, especially
when I found out that the endpoint of our journey would be The Breaks
Interstate Park, a park on the Virginia/Kentucky border that is called the
Grand Canyon of the East.
There is actually a mapped bicycle route across the entire United States,
developed in 1976 for the Bicentennial. The Virginia portion runs all the
way across Virginia, from Yorktown to the Kentucky border. The maps are
available from the Adventure Cycling organization,
http://www.adv-cycling.org/. They have mapped out a number of different
routes over the years, but the Transamerica route is the original one and
is marked by signs like this one.
This year (2006) is the route's 30th anniversary.
There are many ways to make a ride across Virginia. Using Adventure
Cycling's maps, you can carry your own gear and camp or stay in motels
along the way. Or you can do as we did, with a sag wagon to carry your
stuff and even to pick you up if you get tired. You can ride from east
to west, as we did, or take advantage of the prevailing westerlies and
the overall elevation loss by riding from west to east. Along the way,
you will see historic sights and magnificent vistas, taste local foods,
and best of all, meet lots of fine people.
We started our ride by dipping our wheels in the Yorktown River. Then we
had to find our way around a street that was closed for construction.
We rode for quite a distance along the Colonial Parkway, with a dogleg
through Colonial Williamsburg, where we made a bit of an anachronism which
startled a few tourists. The Parkway was pleasant riding, but it felt good
to leave it behind for pastures and more "real world" scenery.
We spent our first night in Mechanicsville. The next day Bud Vye, a local
resident and VBF member, led us on a guided tour which included slight
deviations from the 76 route. One highlight of that day was morning coffee
in Ashland, where the bicycle route parallels the railroad tracks right in
town. There we met a Danish cyclist starting out on his east-to-west ride
across the U.S.
Not long after that, we visited Patrick Henry's home, Scotchtown. Then our
group began to spread out. With the slower group, I enjoyed lunch at a
convenience store near Bumpass, recently purchased by a young woman from New
York, who decided to settle here in rural Virginia to raise her family.
Our hotel was in Charlottesville, but since we only made it as far as Palmyra
that day, our van, driven by the ultimate sag driver, Earl Langford,
carried us to Charlottesville, and back to Palmyra the next morning. The
ride from Palmyra to Charlottesville took us past Ash Lawn, the home of 5th
President James Monroe, then along a beautiful wooden bike path into the city
of Charlottesville, on Bike to Work Day.
We rode right through the University of Virginia campus, then out into the
countryside again. We enjoyed homemade soup for a late lunch in White Hall
at a country store. Now we began to see mountains, which for a Roanoker,
meant feeling at home again. We bought strawberries at a farmstand, then
began to climb those mountains. Up, up, and up, almost to the top of the
Blue Ridge (some of our group actually did ride to the top before realizing
that our overnight stay was to be in Afton, before actually reaching the top).
Afton is the home of the Cookie Lady, a very sweet woman named June Curry,
who for years baked cookies for the riders along the 76 route past her home
and offered part of her home as a hostel for cyclists. Recovering from a
stroke, she fell and broke her arm, so she's not baking cookies now, but a
local bicycle club maintains the hostel and stocks it with groceries. On
arriving at June's home, we were invited in to chat with her. She still
makes sure everyone who comes by signs her guest book.
The next morning we rode the rest of the way up the mountain to the Blue
Ridge Parkway and spent the morning riding along the Parkway.
The weather was gorgeous and the views spectacular.
On the ride down the mountain we had to stop a few times to cool our wheels,
we were using our brakes so much and we didn't want our tires to burst. We
had lunch at Gertie's in Vesuvius.
Gertie's is another long-time favorite of cyclists along the TransAm, so we
signed her wall, too.
The afternoon's ride was along the South River, followed by climbing through
pastures to Lexington, where we spent the night. Supper was in a local
restaurant next to our hotel, full of families enjoying Saturday evening
together.
The ride from Lexington to Catawba is, in my humble opinion, the most
beautiful of our whole cross-Virginia ride. Mountains and pastures, creeks
and woods.
We got to Buchanan in time for lunch at an Italian restaurant right beside
the swinging bridge over the James River. There was an ice cream stop in
Troutville, where we also met some Blue Ridge Bicycle Club members who
joined us for the Troutville-to-Catawba segment.
Since Catawba is close to Roanoke, tonight was a home stop for many of us,
and a home visit for the rest.
Monday morning greeted us with sunshine again for the ride through the
Catawba and Ellett Valleys, a contender for most-beautiful segment.
After lunch in Christiansburg (where some of us were filmed by a TV crew
that happened to be in the Subway interviewing the mayor), we rode through
Radford and on to Newbern, whose old-fashioned Main Street is unknown to most
of the traffic on Interstate 81 right below it.
The next day we rode parallel to I-81 for a while, passing through Draper,
where we crossed the New River Trail.
Later we rode through Wytheville, passing by the old Wytheville Poor Farm,
which is being restored.
Shortly after Rural Retreat, a thunderstorm struck. A passing motorist
stopped and offered shelter to two of us in her car, where we sat until the
storm passed! We were in farm country until Sugar Grove, where some of us
enjoyed homemade pie in a local restaurant. The rest of the day's ride was
in the National Forest, heading to Troutdale. Our lodgings were in Abingdon
that night, so the van drove us from Troutdale to Abingdon and back to
Troutdale the next morning.
Over breakfast in Troutdale, Barbara got into conversation with the local
notables
while others met some Appalachian Trail thru-hikers.
The ride from Troutdale to Damascus goes through the Forest, with a
magnificent stream and rhododendron everywhere.
Damascus, which prides itself on opening its arms to Appalachian Trail
hikers, also welcomes the TransAm cyclists and users of the Virginia Creeper
Trail with a host of shops.
Coming out of Damascus, we wound around farms and streams on small roads
until we came to Meadowview which is next to I-81. Barbara had lunch in a
cafe' with truckers and had a great time. After Meadowview you ride down,
down, down forever into Hayter's Gap, where you cross a little river and then
start up. A woman on her front porch cheered me on. I hollered what a
beautiful place you live in. She hollered back, "Do you like it? It's for
sale." This "up" was only the beginning. We were now climbing Clinch
Mountain, the biggest climb on the entire trip.
It took forever, but the ride down the other side was worth it. Luckily
for us, the uphill was in the shade, while the downhill was out in the open.
We passed a farmer on a four-wheeler, herding his cows across the road.
then eventually came out to the main highway, where we had no choice but to
ride on the highway for a short stretch until we got to Rosedale, where our
van picked us up to take us back to Abingdon for a second night.
Next morning out of Rosedale we climbed "Big A",
which is not so bad of a climb going westbound, but gave us a great ride down
the other side to the town of Council, which has a wonderful park down by the
river, built after a flood obliterated the bottom land several years ago.
A second breakfast at Mama's Place introduced us to a town very proud not
only of its basketball team, but also of its graduates, a large percentage
of whom have gone to college and beyond.
The rest of the morning was a riverside ride (i.e. not too many ups and
downs) to Haysi. After lunch in Haysi it was up, up, up, and up some more,
on a winding road with coal trucks whizzing past us (but the drivers are
aware of cyclists and gave us good berth).
By midafternoon we had reached
The Breaks, where we met a tall cyclist from Scotland spinning almost
effortlessly up the steep incline.
We took in the magnificent views,
and checked out some baby robins in their nest
before our final dinner together in the park restaurant.
On our last day we rode a few miles to the Kentucky border,
then back to The Breaks, where we packed up for the trip home.