Day 1: Harrisonburg to Ramsey's Draft | New Friends and the Burgundy Day

We were the very last to roll out from the Black Sheep Coffee House on departure day. Sharon was ready to go as Karen was busy taking a video of everyone leaving. 

We met Ned, Mike, and Tony just a few miles outside of Harrisonburg and we rode together for a while, then separated, connected, separated, joined them for lunch, and enjoyed comparing hike-a-bike experiences when the trail got very steep and technical.




While Karen navigated direction on RidewithGPS, Sharon added "colorful" climbing commentary. Her Garmin breaks down each climb into sections based on % grade. Green is relatively easy and the colors progress through yellow, orange and red as the hills get steeper. "I thought that was as far as it went, but today I learned that it then goes to BURGUNDY! I've never seen burgundy before, didn't even know it existed."

After a brief resupply in West Augusta, we continued on to Ramsey's Draft with Ned and found a pre-lit campfire by a very nice stream where we set up camp.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Travel Day: "I'm so tired!"

Image
"I’m so tired, packing is exhausting. Now I’m afraid to move or I’ll fall out of my hammock and roll right into the babbling brook!" That’s a quote from Sharon. We arrived at Sherando Lake Campground in VA after a 5AM departure from Worcester, MA. We had a lovely evening by a very nice roaring fire with Michelle Locatelli who brought us amazing food. Thank you, Michelle!
Read more

Day 5: Catawba to Roanoke | F.U.N.

Image
We got up early and packed up camp in record time, stopped at the store in Catawba , and made our way to Roanoke for the last leg of our bicycle journey. Day 5 brought us out of the wilderness into the city, which was an adjustment after being off the grid for 4+ days.  The ride progressed through the rural outskirts of Roanoke into the suburbs and eventually toured the city's bike paths and parks. It included a killer climb up through  Caverns Cove , just outside I-81, where we met Brad, from Tallahasee, FL. Brad accompanied us for the rest of our day and we enjoyed his chill demeanor and the trail magic when he presented Sharon with her missing blinkie. We finished the ride with a signature Cheesy Western at the Texas Tavern .
Read more

Day 0: Sherando Lake Campground to Roanoke | "Do you think we have more important things to talk about?!"

Image
We just went down the internet rabbit hole on the final leg of our drive to Roanoke . Karen was wondering what the beautiful purple flowering tree is along the highways. Sharon asked Siri who was not helpful at all. Karen asked Google and got better information. We realized that neither of them were right and we had just spent 45 minutes going back and forth trying to figure out what this damn tree is! Karen finally said, “Do you think we might have more important things to talk about right now?!”  After all, we are on our way to do 4 or 5 (or goodness help us, 6) days of bikepacking in the Appalachian Mountains of VA. Neither of us are fully packed or organized. And Sharon has never done this before, nor does she pack well to begin with. Now we're about to put everything we need on our bikes and ride them up and down mountains. Here we are, driving to Roanoke, wondering about purple flowering trees instead of planning for our 2:30 meet up with the shuttle up to Harrisonburg for t
Read more