Thursday, July 13th, 2000
Waynesboro, VA to Front Royal, VA; 109.5 miles, 10,100’ climbing
by Arend-Jan Koning
The usual stuff: breakfast at 6 am in the car park. The weather seems a little threatening and the temperature is on the moderate side as well, so most of us start donning arm warmers.
We may have thought that with the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the times of quiet beautiful roads are over, but that turns out to be a mistake. After 1.5 miles we ride through the Gate Entrance of the Shenandoah National Park, and we are on the Skyline Drive. This turns out to be quite similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway, with very little traffic and the same kind of overlooks. We are too early to find anyone in the booth where we are supposed to pay $ 5.00 per bike; it’s $ 20.00 for a car.
Susan Cooper is getting unlucky pretty early on the ride when a bolt of her Softride beam breaks, which means that her saddle is kinda hanging down, making riding impossible. She has to wait for a while before one the vans pick her up.
Had we seen so far the very occasional deer on or by the road, today we see a number, but things are getting more spectacular when Brandon claims to have seen a black bear on the road. No-one can beat that claim, certainly not me with a claim of two snakes, one thin black one and one thicker one that looks a bit like a rattlesnake, though it doesn’t seem to be the right location for one. Both seem to be rather more dead than alive, but I didn’t care to check.
Were we suffering from fog yesterday, today we have some rain before we reach the first sag stop. Some riders have chosen to take a day of, so I guess they had lucky timing. It takes another half hour or so after the first sag stop, before the rain stops, which is for me just before the beginning of the first major downhill.
Not only the quiet road, but also the overlooks are quite similar to the scenery as seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway; beautiful and worth a picture most of the times. But it is all almost the same, so we pass most of the overlooks without stopping.
After lunch I join once again Bernd, for the last stretch going into the hotel in Front Royal. We take it relatively easy on the two major climbs still left and have major fun going downhill full out, tucking into the most aerodynamic as possible, when Bernd outperforms me (as usual) by holding both arms on his back, still in a smooth downhill skier-like position. His bike is stable enough and he has enough confidence obviously; it’s an awesome sight. The last downhill seem to take forever, so we have lots of fun overtaking each other. Back in the Quality Inn in Front Royal, most riders are donning big grins from this last downhill. What started as a wet almost miserable day ended just about perfect with that major downhill.