Well it's been quite a while since I've been able to think about a nice bicycle tour. After moving to Greenville South Carolina and buying our old home downtown most of my time has been spent working on the remodel. I've included a couple of before and after pictures of our home. Cathy and I have been working on it since 2017. We've finally gotten to a point with the remodel that taking some time off for a ride is a possibility.
When I started thinking about a tour, I wanted something that didn't require a lot of driving to get to. Something different than the tours I have done in the past and it had to be a good challenge.
The Blue Ridge Parkway immediately came to mind. It's practically at our front door. Well, it's 45 minutes away but that's pretty close for a tour of this caliber. The starting point is in Virginia and comes within close distance to the house just south of Asheville.
It would definitely be a different ride for a couple of reasons. For one, It's one long continuous ribbon of road. Four hundred seventy miles from Rockfish Gap VA to the Cherokee Indian reservation in Cherokee North Carolina. No need to be concerned about directions! Just keep riding south. Another reason for it being different is because many of the facilities along the way are closed due to the Covid pandemic. It will be necessary to carry a lot more food and water than my normal tours and stopping in towns will be much more difficult due to the fact that most of the parkway is running ridgelines. Getting to the towns along the way can require steep descents and hard climbs to get back to the parkway.
As for challenging, no question!
To finish the 470 miles from Virginia to Cherokee North Carolina, the cyclist will have a total of 48,600 ft. uphill climb. That's a lot of climbing!! There are 26 tunnels on the parkway and you are riding in the highest elevations on the East coast.
This almost sounds like the perfect ride. The only thing that would make this ride better is to have my longtime friend and riding buddy Charlie Ginn to go with me, and he is! Charlie and I have written together for years and our families have had many great trips and experiences together. I'm really looking forward to this tour.
As I'm writing this our departure time is getting close. We leave for Virginia in one week.
I just finished a complete overhaul on my touring bike "Fancy". I believe she's ready to go. She'll need to be able to carry a lot of weight for this trip. I stepped on the scales yesterday. Bike, gear and me totaled 250 lbs. Wow! I hope riding the hills here in Greenville have helped the legs and lungs. We'll find out in a few days.
I hope to update this blog every evening but cell phone signal and battery life may limit that to some degree.
"On a side note", GVL Today published an article about my solo tour across the US. I've posted the link below if you care to have a look.
https://gvltoday.6amcity.com/the-long-and-winding-road/
We start our ride Tuesday, September 1st.
Below are before and after pics of our house and a picture of Fancy after the overhaul.
