5 States, 5 Days, 500
miles
Participants: Beth & John Hankins, Bill & Ellie Penn, Phil Forzley, Tammy
Waleszczyk, David Dunn
When my wife Beth wondered aloud in 2012 whether she could
ride her bike 100 miles in every State in America, I told her “Sure
you can, and I’d be happy to join you”. For
Christmas I got her a big laminated U.S. map, and together with a few friends
we decorated the map by affixing smiley face stickers to the states where we had
ridden 100 miles.
Beth got a good start in 2012 adding Virginia (#11), West
Virginia (#12), Pennsylvania (#13), and New Jersey (#14) but progress slowed in
2013, with the only addition being Wisconsin (#15). As both of us are now eligible for AARP cards,
we realized that unless we picked up the pace we’d both be using walkers by the
time we were close to our goal. Beth and
I spent the winter thinking about how to accelerate the process, and combed the
Rand-McNally Road Atlas for opportunities where the geography of the State
boundaries might facilitate the mission.
Our eyes quickly turned to an area of the Smokey Mountains in the heart
of America’s Appalachia region, where the States of North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Tennessee intersect. As we
looked a little harder, we realized that Georgia and Kentucky were not out of
reach, and the embryo of a road trip started taking shape.
We solicited several of our Thread City Cyclers friends to
join in the mission, and got commitments from four of them to join us on a “relaxing”
Memorial Day cycling vacation, a one week odyssey that would include 2500 miles
of driving, five 100+ mile bike rides, nearly 40,000 vertical feet of climbing,
and the ingestion of a staggering quantity of Gatorade, Cliff bars, Gu packs,
warm bananas, ibuprofen, and peanut butter sandwiches.
Bill Penn accepted the daunting task of establishing the
riding route, and spent many long nights in the months before the trip identifying
a collection of roads that were rural (but passable), scenic (but not busy),
interesting (but not confusing), and connected in such a way that they would
move us along on a route that would ultimately pass through each of the five
states where we needed to go. A quick
review of the map showed us that our bike rides would need to be interspersed
with some driving to be able to hit each of the target states. Beth, the official referee for the trip,
informed us that if a ride hit two or more States in a single day that we could
count the State where the majority of the miles had been logged in the official
tally. Bill sent out the cue sheets a
few weeks before the trip, along with the news that his wife Ellie had offered
to drive one of our two “Sag Wagons”, a critical element to the success of the
mission.
On Saturday May 24th we transformed Tammy’s
Pontiac Vibe and John and Beth’s Dodge Caravan into the TCC team cars and
started the 11-hour drive to our starting point in Mount Airy, NC.
Day One, Blue Ridge
Parkway, North Carolina: During the
depths of the depression in 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian
Conservation Corps set about on an ambitious task – to build a continuous
469-mile parkway along the top of an unbroken ridge that extends from central
Virginia into southern North Carolina.
The project, which ended up taking 52 years to complete, created one of
the most beautiful and iconic roads in America, the Blue Ridge Parkway. The road is well-known to cyclists and
features smooth pavement, non-stop vistas, and nearly continuous grades. We started the day at Mile 200 of the
Parkway in a place called Fancy Gap, Virginia.
Traffic was very light as we headed south toward North Carolina, where
Mr. Penn snagged the first state line of the trip at mile 20. There
is very little in the way of amenities on the Parkway, so having our van as a
sag wagon was critical.
The six riders took turns driving the van and we stopped
about every 20 miles to re-fill water bottles and stick a few more Cliff bars
in the jersey pockets. Because everyone
drove 20 miles during the day, we had to advance our team about 120 miles down
the road for the bike odometers to collectively reach the 100-mile mark. The scenery was spectacular throughout, with
wild Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel lining most of the route. I kept an eye on my altimeter, which was
generally fluctuating between 3000 and 4000 feet above sea level, with
elevations growing higher and higher as we rode deeper into North Carolina. If you weren’t climbing, you were descending,
and we soon got used to the predictable pattern: two miles up, two miles down, repeat, all day
long.
Our altimeters registered over 10,000-vertical feet of
climbing for the day, and our legs confirmed this total. At 100.1 miles Beth, who had tired of the
up-down-repeat cycle, pulled to the side of the road, and demanded a medi-vac
from the support van, which was several miles ahead. When Dave returned with the van a few minutes
later the following conversation ensued:
Dave: “I can’t really pull off the road here to load you. There’s a better spot around the
corner”; Beth: “I’m not interested in going around the
corner, I’m getting in right now”.
Day Two, South
Carolina: We started Day Two in
Gaffney, South Carolina, which is known world-wide for its Giant Peach, a
thinly disguised water tower. I took
the first drive, and chuckled to myself as one of Bill’s carefully selected
roads turned to rough gravel. A few
miles further up the road we realized that Google Maps had invented a road that
did not exist, and we had to resort to Bill’s smart phone and Dave Dunn’s GPS
unit to plot a revised course to get us back on the route. We took a brief stop at Cowpens National
Battlefield, a Revolutionary War site, and took a 3-mile victory lap around the
grounds. With all the wrong turns, we
were more than an hour behind schedule, so we agreed to a long push to make up
time, and sent the van 40 miles ahead to the lunch stop at Campbell’s Covered
Bridge. This was a miscalculation on our
part, as the bright sun had pushed the temperatures into the high 80s and the
humidity was up.
As the last of our water ran out 10 miles short of the lunch
stop, we encountered a family our on their
front lawn and asked for some water. They
offered their garden hose, which had been sitting in the hot sun for several
hours. After a quick sip of hot stagnant
hose water we decided our thirsts were sufficiently quenched and we pushed on
to our lunch stop at 68 miles. There we
enjoyed our daily fare of peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, and trail mix. After lunch we headed for the hills, and at
83 miles we turned onto the “Road of Vines” which led to a vineyard and the
Hotel Domestique, a swanky retreat owned and operated by Tour de France regular
George Hincapie. We passed on the $300
room and finished out the day knowing that we’d be happily laying our heads to
rest on the pillows at a $69 Quality Inn.
Although the climbs on this second day were a moderate 5500 feet, the
day had taken its toll due to the heat, humidity, and difficulty of staying on
the route. We went to bed knowing that
the Hills of Georgia would greet us in the morning.
Day Three – The
Mountains of Georgia: It’s no
mistake that the Appalachian Trail starts in northern Georgia. It’s mountain country. Bill’s research had located a dastardly event
called the Six-Gap Century and he made use of their cue sheet to plan part of
our route. We rode directly from our
hotel in South Carolina on this third day and the route was hilly nearly from
the start. At about the 75 mile mark we
found ourselves on the Six-Gap Century route, staring at the most challenging of
the six climbs in the event and a legendary landmark for cyclists – Hogpen
Gap. The climb ascends nearly 2000 feet
over 9.6 miles to a top elevation of 4200 feet, including a two mile section
near the top that ranges from 12 to 15%, about the same as the Mt. Washington
Auto Road. As we started up the hill,
each of us found our own pace and spent the next 90 minutes or so grinding away
in our lowest gears experiencing some
serious self-reflection, such as “Self – why are you putting yourself through
this when you could be at home watching pro wrestling and eating a bag of corn
chips?”.
After I arrived at the top and gained my composure I walked
down the road in time to snap a photo of Beth pedaling the final few meters
with a look of grim determination on her face. In a moment of weakness during
the climb, Beth had decided that if her odometer read 95 miles or more at the
top that she’d be willing to round it to 100 and call it a day. When she saw 94.2 miles on the screen, she
realized that she was not done - and would need to sample the next treat – Wolf
Pen Gap. At 7-11%, this climb was more
manageable than Hogpen and quite a bit shorter.
Beth got in the van at the top with her 100 miles, and Phil, Bill and I
continued to Gap#3, Woody Gap. This one
was significantly easier, and once we crested the top we were treated to the
descent of the trip – dropping 2000 feet over the next 10 miles or so. When we hit the valley road our odometers had
passed 98 miles. We pushed along another
2 miles in the 85 degree heat, and when our odometers registered 100, we collapsed
in a grassy patch on the side of the road and called the TCC rescue vehicle. Our vertical for the day matched Day One at
10,000 feet, and we felt sufficiently beat up that an executive decision was
made to take a day off before tacking Tennessee and Kentucky.
Day Four – Tennessee: We LOVED riding in Tennessee. Bill’s route selection was exquisite this
day, and we were able to work the pace line thing on some of the roads to move
ourselves along more quickly. Much of
the day was spent riding around land flooded by various projects of the
Tennessee Valley Authority for hydroelectric power. Roads were in good shape, and several of the
back roads that Bill picked were absolute gems.
The only down side to the back roads, in Tennessee and every other State
we rode in, was that they were the home of canines who considered chasing
Yankee cyclists to be the highest form of sport. Big dogs, little dogs, fat dogs, and skinny
dogs - they all chased us. One of the
more memorable experiences was looking up the road at the unmistakable profile
of a Doberman Pinscher, waiting in the middle of the road, presumably
salivating. We quickly dismissed Phil’s
recommendation of using Tammy or Beth as a sacrifice, and instead rode five abreast
all screaming at the same time, which seemed to be intimidating enough so that
Mr. Doberman returned to home base.
Day Five – Kentucky: As with the last day of most multi-day rides,
getting done was on everyone’s mind the morning of Day Five. Tammy was feeling frisky early, and taunted
the group with her signature uphill sprints.
This day was similar to Tennessee, although we had two pretty good sized
climbs in the first 30 miles. We had
lunch at Cumberland Falls State Park.
Cumberland Falls, also known as the Niagara of the South is one of the
only sites in the world that generates a “Moonbow” during most full moons (a
rainbow created by moonlight). The last
50 miles in Kentucky were on rolling State highways, and we again worked the
paceline to good effect. Beth nominated
Dave Dunn for the “best wheel of the ride” based on his work at the front on
the final day, and we were all thankful to have some strong cyclists to work
with as we pushed through the final miles on legs that were feeling the
accumulated stress of five long days of riding. As we approached the end of the day, Phil
and I had the lowest mileages on our odometers and had to put in an extra five
miles. I’d love to report that the final
ride on the final day ended on a high mountaintop with rarefied air and bald
eagles riding the updrafts at the edge of the cliff, but that’s not the way it
was. To finish the ride, we rolled
across a busy intersection into a McDonald’s parking lot in Middleboro,
Kentucky, where the van was waiting. We participated
in a celebratory group hug, changed into dry clothes, packed up the van, and
settled in for the 13-hour ride home.
Next on the agenda for Beth are Maryland (#21) and Delaware
(#22), then onto Ohio (#23), and beyond (#24 to #50). Might be time to get a pilot’s license.
