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| (right to left) My daughter and the cat. |
Just tying up a few loose ends about the tour. My wife met me in Front Royal a couple of hours after I checked in to the hotel. In that time I had already eaten a large chocolate malted, a banana split, 4 peanut butter cups and 2 cupcakes. Cindy brought champagne to celebrate my ride. We went out for an early dinner at TGI Fridays where I had too much to eat. It was wonderful.
The next day, Tuesday, we drove down to NC to pick up my daughter (Spritle) from my folks place. They greeted me with more champagne, and Cathy had made me a carrot cake as well.
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| If you look closely, you will see a letter 'e" in the in white sprinkles. Yes my daughter can spell. She was very proud of her creativity. The candle on the left is blue, for Blue Ridge Parkway, and the one on the left is white for the SKYline Drive. The bike is the same colors as mine. |
While in Ashville, my folks had been to the Folk Art Center on the parkway and got a poster for me. They had it framed and presented it to me when I picked up my daughter:
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| They said they got the last copy of this from the Folk Art Center. |
Is that cool, or what?
After Action Report:
What went well:
- Panniers up front was an excellent idea. I'll do that one again.
- Ketogenic diet I was NEVER hungry even when I couldn't find food in the middle of the day
- I really like the Eureka Spitfire one man tent, but not the poles that come with it.
- I didn't need to take all of the extra phone batteries. Next tour, I'll just take one.
- Pre-ride training. Spent a lot of time on the fixed gear riding hills. I think that helped.
What didn't go well:
- Super high tech, lightweight front hub. Just wasn't made to carry the load.
-lightweight air mattress. maybe it was too old??
-"Bicycling the Blue Ridge" by Elizabeth/Charlie Skinner. The copyright is only 3 years old and it is WAAAY out of date.
Songs that go through your head on a bike tour through the mountains:
-"Spinning Wheel" by Blood Sweat and Tears (What goes up must come down)
-"Climb Every Mountain" from The Sound of Music
-"Those Magnigficent Men in their flying Machines" (They go uppity up up, they go down-ditty down down)
-"Ride Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross (Only down hill)
-"Copa Cabana" by Barry Manilow...okay, I just threw that one in to get an earworm on my wife.
Vocabulary terms from the BRP:
The Following is a list of words that I liked while riding the Parkway. They generally meant that I was at the top of something and I was about to go downhill. I very much enjoyed seeing these.
-Overlook
-Ridge
-Meadow (who would have thought??)
-Vista
-Radar/Radio
-watershed (you crossed into one at the top)
-campground, picnic area, wayside (they always put these on top)
The following is a list of evil words that I did not enjoy at all. They make me sad, and will continue to do so until my scars heal, or until I do a tour of Kansas
-gap (the most evil word of all)
-river, creek, stream, lake...anything watery.... except watershed
-hollow
-holler
-route (any road crossing meant you were at the bottom)
-Trading Post..okay, not really a bottom thing, it's just that they never had any food
-"Bicycling the Blue Ridge" by Eliz.....we covered this, didn't we?
And now, a word about my Butt
The number one limiting factor in this ride, deciding when I had to take a break was NOT my legs. They were generally strong throughout the day. it was how long I sat in my saddle. I have no idea how you can really prepare your tookus for a ride like this. I have, arguably, the worlds most comfortable saddle, a broken in Brooks B17
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| Whoops, wrong image |
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| Okay, there it is |
I know what you're thinking, looking at this hunk of un-sprung, un-padded leather. "Well, that explains it. He probably walks like Roy Rogers after an hour on that." There are plenty of people who don't like these saddles. I'll argue that most of them just didn't take the time to get it set up at the right angle and break it in properly. Spend a few hundred miles on one of these (not in one sitting) and it will soften and conform to your bones. You literally make dents in the leather where your sit bones are.
Now here's the catch (I think) for me. In the past 4 months, I lost close to 40 pounds. I had previously broken in my saddle with my nice fleshy butt. I now have a skinny(er) posterior. Those sit bones poke out more than on any other tour I've been on. Add to that the fact that you can't stand up and mash the pedals going up the hills when you are loaded. If you throw the bike from side to side, you'll be chasing your sleeping bag down a mountain. When I got to, say, Apple Orchard Mountain, I had no choice but to hunker down and start spinning. About 3 miles into it, things start getting warm. Then hot. Then certain neighboring regions start getting numb. Unfortunately, it's not my sit bones getting numb. They are singing the "Anvil Chorus" in rhythm with my pedal strokes by then.
So you get off the saddle and sit on a nice, comfy, flat stone wall, because it's all you can find halfway up a mountain. You are throbbing so much that a stone wall feels good. Give it 10 minutes to start feeling better (have some pepperoni and macadamias) and summon up the courage to sit on the saddle again. 5 minutes later, you're looking for a stone wall again.
To attempt to delay the inevitable tookus trauma, you stand as you go down the hills. This feels wonderful. Your thighs might not approve, after the work they just did getting you up there, but you made a choice. Tough noogies for your thighs. The ascent up the mountain took 45 minutes. You get 3 minutes going down at 35MPH. Then you reach a gap...or a river, or a holler. and the cycle repeats over and over again for 6-8 hours a day. For 9 days. Now you know why I took all of those stupid pictures of caterpillars, or log cabins, or a @$^#&! fence. I just wanted to get off my BUTT for a couple of minutes.
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