Day 9: Wytheville, VA to Damascus, VA

June 10, 2006

63.98 miles, 5:21:56 Ride Time, 12.22 Average Speed, 37.7 Maximum Speed

I got everything together, rode out by 7:00, and descended a pretty minor hill to get to downtown Wytheville. The night before when I was checking in at the Super 8, the girl at the front desk had warned me how bad the hill was; that's why I had decided not to go downtown, since I would have had to climb it to get back to the motel. The town looked kind of interesting this morning, so I regretted not checking it out last night.

The streets through downtown Wytheville, and the several miles on West Lee Highway, were very quiet. I stopped at a supermarket in the town of Rural Retreat and bought some granola bars and Little Debbie cakes - breakfast of champions. The ride from Rural Retreat through Cedar Springs was scenic and easy, with an occasional tailwind. The ride was marred only by some very smelly dairy farms.

The early start, and the lack of any major hills, allowed me to do 40 miles by noon. When I got to Sugar Grove and turned on to SR 16, however, the route took me over Mt. Rogers, a fairly long climb. The descent down Mt. Rogers to Troutdale was nice, not too steep and twisty; the descents are always more enjoyable if you don't have to ride the brakes all the way down.

There was another a climb to the town of Konnarock, where I stopped at a country store for a few minutes to eat a snack. Then I got an incredible tailwind all the way from Konnarock to Damascus. The ride to Damascus was the busiest traffic of the day; I saw several vans shuttling mountain bikes to and from the Virginia Creeper Trail, a popular crushed-gravel bicycle trail. Apparently, most people only rent a bike and ride downhill on the Creeper Trail. The road to Damascus paralleled the trail, and I couldn't help but feel a twinge of smug superiority as I watched the tourists doing it the easy way (if they caught a glimpse of me, they probably thought I was crazy).

I got to Damascus, "the friendliest town on the Appalachia Trail", in the early afternoon. Damascus is a small town at the intersection of the Appalachian Trail, The TransAmerican Trail, and the Virginia Creeper Trail. I rode around looking for a place to stay, and found the famous "The Place", a hostel operated by the Damascus United Methodist Church. "The Place" is very well known among Appalachian Trail hikers, and I spent some time looking it over. It seemed a little eerie, however - big, with lots of mostly-empty rooms, and I didn't get a good vibe. So, I rode around a little more.

I rode up and down Laurel Avenue, and stopped at a house with a small sign reading "Hikers Inn." The friendly woman on the front porch, Suzanne Bullard, greeted my by saying "the bicyclist who stayed here yesterday said you would be by." Apparently Tim from England had somehow gotten a day ahead of me, despite his taking a rest day in Lexington. (At the time, I wondered how he knew I would stop there; I figured it out tomorrow...)

Suzanne showed me the cottage behind her house. It was small, with two bunkbeds and a bathroom. It looked a lot cleaner than "The Place", I had a good feeling about the security (it's right between Suzanne's home and garden), and the $20 a night seemed like a good deal. My cellphone hadn't been working all day, and Suzanne let me use her phone to call home. She also located a local store that carried the "Halt" dog pepper spray that I had been looking for.

I unpacked my stuff, and walked over to eat at "Baja", a Mexican place where I had a burrito. They also had a computer with internet access, so I checked my email. On the way back, I bought the dog pepper spray, where the guys at the shop warned me "don't test it out" - apparently some previous customer(s) must have tried it out on themselves. I told them I was going to Breaks tomorrow, and they warned me that it would be tough, especially "Big A Mountain."

I went back to the Hikers Inn and met the other guy staying there that night. His name is Ron, and he is through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. He is an interesting guy, who is doing the hike to raise money for a charity. He has a website.

I rode my bike around town for a while (as others have noted, it feels very strange riding an unloaded bike after you've spent days or weeks carrying all your stuff around), stopped at the Dairy King for a milkshake, then went back to the Hikers Inn for the evening. I talked computer stuff with Ron for a while, then went to sleep.

"The Place" - I checked it out, but decided not to stay there

Suzanne Bullard, owner of the Hikers Inn, and Ron, an AT hiker staying the night

Suzanne was proud of the unusual sprinkler system in her garden

Today's ride: 64 miles (103 km)
Total: 537 miles (864 km)

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