Wednesday, July 12th 2000
Roanoke, VA to Waynesboro, VA; 124.5 miles, 12,600’ climbing
by Arend-Jan Koning
A 6 am regular parking lot breakfast and it’s back onto the road again, heading for an above average cycling day. The first obstacle is the traffic light after only 0.1 miles. The sensors in the road don’t register my presence and after observing the timing of the traffic lights, I take an educated guess and jump the lights, with good results. No such problems on the Parkway, which is 3.1 miles down the road. Before that, it is commuter traffic, fortunately mainly going the other way.
To my surprise, there is even quite a bit commuter traffic on the Parkway as well, but that, too, goes mainly in the other direction. There are a few communities further down either side of the road; the commuters must be living there, I guess.
The first sag stop is after 32 miles, but by that time we have climbed already over 3,000 feet, most of it in dense fog. After a short while on a long climb we enter the clouds, with visibility down to about 100 feet. The sign “watch for fallen rocks” could be read as “watch for the double yellow line, so you know you’re still on the road”. The fog creates a mystical atmosphere, with no sounds to be heard than those being produced within 100 feet or so. I love it, but the downside is the danger from other traffic. Fortunately, there is none, but Nancy, driving the van to the first stop, finds the situation understandably quite unnerving knowing that there will be riders ahead of you and not being able to see any oncoming traffic.
While at the first sag stop, a park ranger drops by, telling that “there is a safety issue here”. He doesn’t give us too hard a time, but requests us to switch on the headlights on the bikes as well; at his first recon only 2 out of about 30 riders had their headlights switched on. In the fog these are hard to see anyway.
Shortly after the first stop, visibility is improving, making for a slightly safer downhill. Later on, the fog returns a few times again, but we can live with that. The first major climb of the day seemed to have been the worst, ignoring us the many overlooks.
With the improved weather later in the day, we do see many great overlooks anyway, with some particular beautiful overlooks at the end of the day, when we are still riding this fairly high ridge, but the overlooks on the west side show a flat plain, about 1,500 feet (estimate) below us. Once again, picture time.
It’s just before we reach The Inn at Afton, our hotel for tonight, just above Waynesboro. Unfortunately, they have some problems with the boiler in the afternoon, so that we are not able to take a shower during that short period of time.
Today was the fifth (did I ever say we would spend just 4 days on the Parkway?)and last day on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was a true pleasure to ride on, because of the scenery and the quiet. It was simply perfect to ride on, and it will be remembered even more so, when we have to face the traffic again on the regular main roads that cross the States.
Though the day before yesterday was regarded as the toughest of them all, with about 140 miles and 13,100 feet of climbing, many of the riders have a different opinion after today, saying that today seemed harder work. I guess that per mile today contained more climbing, making it feel tougher.