The terrain is the star of Bike Virginia!  It’s not merely hilly, it’s downright mountainous and we spend 6 days climbing and descending in and around Radford and Claytor Lake.  They call it the “Ride the River Tour”, which may be faulty advertising to get more people to do the ride.    Our Garmins regularly read 11-15% grade on the climbs.  A wise tandem tour leader once told us that if you don’t climb, you don’t get the views.

We have a fantastic time on our first Bike Virginia. I’ll tell the rest of the story with photos!

At the conclusion of day three, we meet Chris and Connie at a brewpub for dinner and get so excited by our flight and our pretzel that I forget to take a photo with them.

On our drive home we stop in the town of Bristol.  It’s half in Virginia and half in Tennessee.  We visit the town, get stuck there when a train comes through and stops for at least 20 minutes, and take a photo with the famous sign.

Bike Virginia by the numbers:  

6 days of riding, 211 total miles (35 mile per day average), 13.6 mph average speed and a total of 16,000 feet of climbing.  The mileage is low because we spend several days dodging raindrops with delayed starts and shortened routes to avoid riding in the rain.   In that effort we are successful and the worst weather we encounter is a light mist during one of the rides.

At the end of our two week odyssey, we have ridden for 13 consecutive days.  Coming up: the Katy Trail in September and whatever else happens between now and then!

If you are not already a subscriber, hit the button in the upper right column to follow this blog and get e-mail updates every time we post.