May 2019 - Shenandoah National Park & Blue Ridge Parkway
As I count down to my cross country trip, I thought I would post some blog entries about some of my previous trips. This May, I spent 5 days cycling the Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway with Jesse and Ruth, my two top bicycling cycling buddies. Skyline Drive in the park and the Blue Ridge Parkway farther south are fabulous roads for cycling. The views are wonderful, the traffic light (with no commercial vehicles), and the roads well maintained. The two roads travel along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
We biked 5 days covering about 390 miles and 38,500' of climbing. For those of you reading this who are normal, sane people (rather than cycling junkies), averaging 100' of climbing per mile means that one is either climbing or descending most of the time.
Our first day was quite foggy with scattered showers. The photo above was typical of the views we had as we cycled. If there were vistas of the surrounding valleys, we never saw them. We started our day at Wintergreen Resort, a ski area near the parkway. However, to get to the parkway, we needed to descend 1000' at a 10% grade before climbing back up 600' to the Parkway before heading south for an out and back ride. Of course, this meant that at the end of our 80 mile ride, we needed to end by climbing 1000' at 10% on tired legs. Those last 2.7 miles took about 30 minutes to cycle.
On our second day, the weather partially cleared and we were able to see the surrounding countryside. This was our biggest cycling day covering 101 miles and 10,500' of climbing, one of only 4 times I have climbed over 10,000' in a single day. On my upcoming cross country trip, the maximum climbing in a single day will be about 8,500' (but on 120 and 140 mile rides). For a day with that much climbing, we average about 13.5 mph, so we spent 7 1/2 hours cycling plus stops for food and drink for about 10 hours of elapsed time.
Our third day, was a transition day from Wintergreen Resort to Skyline Resort in Shenandoah National Park. After two hard days of cycling, we dropped down to the farmland to the west for a comparatively flatter and shorter easy 55 miles of cycling. The countryside was lovely with rolling hills and scenic farms.
Our fourth day was back up in the fog along Skyline Drive for a 75 mile ride south from our resort. Perhaps it would be better to say that we were in the clouds. Sometimes when we descended we would drop below the clouds and sometimes the clouds would just lift a few thousand feet. The views when we had them were lovely using a muted palate of green and gray.
Our final day of riding was biking 76 miles from our resort to the north end of Shenandoah National Park and back. On route, we needed to bicycle through one long tunnel which was a bit odd since the other end was fogged in. It was another day of mostly fog with some views when we got to the lower elevations near the northern entrance to the park. We also passed the highest point on the road where some kind soul took the picture of the three of us which I used to start this entry.
Overall, it was a wonderful week of biking with Jesse and Ruth.