Kentucky bound.

So we leave Abingdon for the pass, called The Butt, and the roads are pretty normal except for right before the mountain there is a huge 6-7 mile downhill that we coasted to the bottom of. We actually stopped and had to make sure we were going the right way because we were told it was going to get pretty rough before the actual pass. It actually wasn't bad at all. It might have been the mountain we had already done, or just a couple more days of conditioning, but we were over the pass before we knew it. The direction change cost us about 10-15 miles, but shaved off about 1500 feet and a 3.5 mile 8-9 grade hill. That's pretty much as steep as you get.


We were finally on the other side of the mountains, so we thought. There were actually a few great downhills on the way to Elkhorn City, our first city on the map in Kentucky, but they were paired with some steep ass uphills as well. They weren't as long as earlier, but short and steep can be worse, especially when your going slow at the end of the day. As we get closer to the state line, the hill keeps going up and up and we are dog tired. We finally make it to the top where there is a campground at the state line called Breaks Interstate Park. What a beautiful place, even despite the fact we had to go uphill for about another mile after getting to the park itself. We met some other folks doing the same trail at the entrance to the campgrounds and they had a SAG wagon, which is when one of the bikers drives all the equipment and stuff from stop to stop. That would be nice, no gear on the bike and a ride to whatever you want... but it still seemed like cheating.

This last day in Virginia had to be one of my favorite rides. The locusts out here are in full throttle, and going into some of the valleys the noise they were making was deafening. They are pretty hard to avoid hitting on downhills, too, when your going 30 mph or so. And they hurt, really bad. I caught a small bug in the eye earlier and thankfully bought a pair of sunglasses for this stretch. I would hit 2 or 3 at a time sometimes. I caught one dead on ole righty and actually had to stop to recover... Shoulda worn a cup.