Day 6 - Fancy Gap Virginia to Roanoke Virginia

This is the short day before tomorrow's 130 mile trip up to Waynesboro. I felt like I was taking it easy but still got here to Roanoke by 2 PM. It was only 83 miles and there was a group of 4 or 5 of us to share the work. The route consisted mainly of rolling hills highlighted by a 10 mile long descent coming in to Roanoke. The city is in a deep valley and you descend what seems like forever coming down from the Blue Ridge.

The excitement for the day was when a group of us were sitting eating about 14 miles before the end of the day and a National Park ranger pulled up. He didn't talk to us directly but he warned Susan, one of the owners of Pactour, about riders riding two abreast. I thought we had been doing some of that but always going single file when a car wanted to pass. He may have seen a different group than us but we got the impression that he was talking about us. So we were extra careful the rest of the way in to Roanoke. Practically speaking, the descents are so fast that it isn't safe for a car to pass you from behind while descending. You are riding at close to the Parkway speed limit of 45 mph so we sometimes descent two abreast to keep people from making unsafe passes and then on the climbs go back to single file. There has been talk about banning bikes from the Parkway so we don't want to do anything to add fuel to the fire but it is frustrating when someone who has no experience riding is telling you what is safe or not safe in traffic. My guess is they have had cyclists who refuse to move over so they now are just zero tolerance on two abreast riding.

I had an interesting conversation with one of the other riders today, Matthias, who is from Germany. He is originally from East Germany so he lived behind the Iron Curtain until about 1990. He talked about the fear and oppression that were a part of everyday life there. The first thought I had was if the Wall between East and West Berlin had not fallen he would not be on this trip with us. We are very lucky to be able to go wherever we want at any time. His story was a reminder to be thankful for that fact.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, 130 miles up to Waynesboro with 12,000 feet of climbing.