Today’s ride took us 70 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Roanoke.

We decided to try something different today. Instead of searching for a campground or checking into a hotel as is our routine, we took advantage of WarmShowers.org, an online hospitality resource for bicycle tourists. I became a member when I first learned we would be doing The Dream Tour. We did a search and found an entry for a Kevin McDonough near the Blue Ridge Parkway. I sent an email a couple days ago, telling him when we’d be in the Roanoke area, and asking if we could pitch our tent in their backyard. He responded promptly and positively, so when we got close enough to Roanoke to have cellphone service and reliably estimate our arrival time, we gave him a call.

He gave us directions to his house, met us there, and after I showered, we talked for a couple hours about The Dream Tour, his own cycling experiences (touring and racing), and many other things in between. We had a great time visiting with him, his wife Lisa, their sons Eric and Alex, and their four dogs (Luke, Hannah, Hailey, and Sammi — I hope I have the spellings right!).

We originally planned to simply pitch our tent in the backyard because we definitely didn’t want to impose more than they felt comfortable. But, a couple reassurances otherwise and what looked like an approaching thunderstorm convinced us that we could take their generous offer of a bed. After 76 days on the road, it was so nice to be in an actual home for a change!

Cyclingwise, the climbs are getting slightly smaller, I think. For the first 40 miles of the day, I was still doing about 800 feet of climbing for every 10 miles of bike riding, but I ended up with a just under 5000 feet of climbing total today, so the end of the day was definitely flatter than the first part. Coming into Roanoke there was a 10 mile descent off of Bent Mountain where I dropped from about 3000 feet down to 984 feet at the Roanoke River (the lowest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway). Very nice! I saw a couple dozen cyclists ascending Bent Mountain in the hot afternoon sun and I was glad I wasn’t them.

About ten miles from the end of the day, I ran into a couple of bicycle tourists who were riding the entire Blue Ridge Parkway self-supported. They were from Sante Fe, New Mexico. I stopped to talk with them for a little while because they were the first bicycle tourists that I had seen since southern Utah (that was nearly 3000 miles ago! I gave them a Dream Tour business card and they promised to check the Dream Tour web site when they could. We exchanged a few touring stories, wished each other well, and I went on my way. I can’t believe I left without taking a photo though! I must have been pretty tired.

Here are a few pictures from today’s ride:

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 2:28 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.