A Smokey Mountain Challenge

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 24^th 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.