May 20, 2023
Day 8: Along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Lexington
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The Blue Ridge mountains are stunning. We biked for nearly 50 km along the top of them, getting views easy and west the whole way along. The Blue Ridge Parkway is similar to Christchurch's Summit Road but is over 750 km long.
We rode up to our entry point at Rockfish Gap along a major road but we were early enough that traffic was low and essentially all cars gave us a whole lane extra to ourselves on the climb.
We got to the Parkway and immediately had to stop at each scenic overlook. The views were phenomenal. In the morning the Blue Ridges lived up to their name with the mist hanging around them and the early light certainly making them look blue. On the other side of the mountains is the Shenendoah Valley and we can see all the way to the Appalachians on the other side.
The Parkway along the ridge is hilly, and so today is more climbing than I've probably ever done in my life. We were up early enough that when we stopped for our second breakfast it was only 9am. We cooked up some instant noodles on a grassy hill by a visitor centre as a group slowly crowded the picnic tables below. Soon we realised we were about to witness a surprise party for an engagement proposal happening somewhere else in the park. We quickly moved on so we wouldn't be in the background of all of their photos.
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The Parkway has hiking trails all over, including part of the huge Appalachian Trail. Lots of cars parked up in each stopping bay but even though it was a beautiful Saturday the roads weren't busy. No commercial traffic is allowed on the road and there's much faster interstates below but it's such a nice scenic drive I expected it to be much more busy. The roads were hilly but lots off smooth grass verge, visibility, and shoulders means the ride wasn't too stressful.
Although, there was one thing that stressed me out a little. As we were riding over one crest a small friendly looking snake was popping it's head up and looking at us from the verge, it spooked me a bit away but didn't bother me too much. What did bother me was an hour or so later when I was inching my way up the hill and a tangled mass in the grass beside the road made that distinctive rattlesnake rattle. My speed up the hill about doubled as soon as it gave me it's warning. Natalie gave the rattlesnake a bit of a wider berth and it didn't care about her as much.
Eventually we descended the mountains, along a very tight and twisty steep downhill road into the town of Vesuvius. My touring bike was fun to ride down here but I had to take it easy. My hands were getting a big workout from all the braking and the bike doesn't corner quite as well as my road bike.
Vesuvius didn't have any services and there wasn't really going to be any until Lexington. We had about an hour until a rainstorm was due and it was going to be almost 2 hours into Lexington.
Along the flats now we were able to pick up our speed much more, traveling faster than we'd been biking all trip even though there was a bit of a headwind. We followed a scenic river with lots of small waterfalls and every so often people swimming to get out of the heat of the warm front blowing in. We saw our first Opossums but they were a bit squidged and the birds on this side of the ridge sounded different and there were lots more of them to see.
Eventually we were riding along wet road but the rain clouds ahead of us had disappeared so we managed to miss any of the rain.
Eventually, after some more climbing, we arrived in Lexington completely exhausted. We showed up to our motel just as rain set in. We ordered a large pizza each from nearby to replenish our energy from the big day of riding and completely crashed.
Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 510 km (317 miles)
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