Wednesday 

I went to the rental car place as soon as it opened. They did not have the SUV I reserved. Instead I settled for a white Dodge Charger. I was prepared to drive to WalMart up the hill to buy a bike rack if necessary but the Charger’s back seats folded down giving me room for The Mule and all my stuff. Impressive. (Note: I did have to take off the front wheel and lower my saddle.)

The drive to Berea went on a parkway west to London and north to Berea on an interstate. It took about two hours because, despite my sporty car, my brain had been dealing with 3 to 35 miles per hour for over two weeks. Big trucks were zooming past me as I puttered along.

The terrain was very mountainous until I arrived at Berea (the second “e” is long, by the way). It was like someone threw a big geological switch; the town was basically flat.

The drive gave me time to think. The original motivation for this tour was for me to complete the eastern third of the TransAm. I had already bypassed 20 miles of it from Hindman to Hazard by bike. Now I had blown off roughly 110 more in the car.

Most journals I read were all dated five or more years ago. (See for example Joy Santee's account of her 2006 TransAm.) They made it sound like the dog problem was no big deal, but the eastbound rider I met at the Cookie Lady’s house was very stressed out about his dog experiences in Kentucky over a week later. The hostel contact in Booneville sounded downright scary. The rental agency person in Hazard had all kinds of tales about indifferent dog owners. She told me of owners who don’t neuter their dogs and release the offspring into the woods when they are old enough to fend for themselves. A person in Berea told me that Booneville is near an old coal mining area. Since strip mines have taken over, these old coal mining families are screwed and bitter.

I have ridden over 10,000 miles on 11 long-distance tours. Just in Virginia, I was chased by more dogs on this tour than in all my other tours combined. Add the mayhem between Breaks and Hindman and you can see why I am so shaken.

So I get to Berea and I have a choice. Do I continue on by bike in a totally stressed out mental state? I took two Advil PMs last night. They normally knock me out, but I didn’t sleep a wink. I am physically and mentally exhausted. The dog problem is supposedly no big deal west of Berea but I really, really, really do not want to deal with them anymore. It was time to call it a tour and head home.

So I went to the car rental agency in Berea and talked with Chelsea, a very intelligent and personable person. She said it was indeed possible to do a one-way rental to my home. All she had to do was talk to someone up the corporate food chain. That person freed up her software to allow her access to interstate, one-way rentals. So we closed out my rental agreement from Hazard and opened a new one. Recognizing that I had been needlessly charged for the Hazard to Berea rental, she marked down the price of my trip from Berea to home. Chelsea is the best.

So for the cost of having someone pack and ship my bike, I hit the road in a sports car, driving over 500 miles from Kentucky to home. Google Maps has a sense of humor. It routed me through central West Virginia on two-lane mountain roads for about an hour. 

Thursday

Now that I’ve had a day to mull it over, I can’t exactly call this a failure. After all, I did end up riding 840 miles which is more miles than my 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2015, and 2016 tours.

That said, I have to admit that my last two tours have been a mental challenge for me. I love the riding parts of the tours. I won’t soon forget the fantastic ride to Damascus on this tour, for example. But I can really live without church hostels, campgrounds, Warmshowers homes (even good ones), hotels, lousy GSCS food, etc. As my toddler son used to say over 25 years ago, “I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed.”

My advice to anyone who is planning to do the TransAm is: don’t. It’s glory days are long gone. The dog situation in Kentucky is just one example. Many of the towns in Kansas on the route are virtual ghost towns. The legendary accommodations in Guffey CO are dreadful. The traffic in eastern Oregon is godawful. 

One big benefit to the TransAm is interacting with bike tourists along the way. This year I saw very few riders on my tour. I was told by the hostel operators in Virginia that the number of guests they host is well below prior years.

Some of the church hostels are no longer operating. I was advised that the leadership of one denomination is considering eliminating its "bicycle touring ministry." This would be devastating to TransAm riders.

When the TransAm was designed in the mid-1970s, touring bikes were heavy and had ten-speeds and only rear racks. I can’t imagine how the first riders did the whole 4,000+ miles. A friend who participated in Bikecentennial, the 1976 event for which the TransAm was established, said that she was doing fine from Oregon until Kentucky. Her knees were trashed when she finally left the Appalachians.

Last year at the age of 67 I did some of the eastern part of the ACA's Northern Tier route across New England. I rode up and down through the White, Green, and Adirondack Mountains. It was hard, but I walked only the very top of one of the hills (at Middlebury Gap in Vermont). I felt pretty good about my performance. This tour, in contrast, has filled me with self doubt. I simply could not believe that I couldn't ride over the mountains of Virginia and eastern Kentucky. I can't help but think that my climbing ability, which was never very good to begin with, left me in my 69th year.