What a great day of riding! West Virginia is a really cool state to bike tour in. It's super pretty!
We got an earlier start today to beat the heat and have an easier go at the hills, waking up at 5:30 and hitting the road by 7am. I started the day riding out with Morgan, who's now doing unloaded 25 mile out and backs with us as his achilles heals. (haha)
There were two huge climbs to start the day, with over 11% grades. The first 6.87 miles took 39 minutes of bike time to climb, and that includes a couple of screaming twisting really fun downhills.
Morgan turned around when I hit 12 miles, and I did the rest of the 67 mile day solo. I briefly ran into Aaron, Rob, and Tom at Gilbert, 31 miles out, but I wanted to keep moving to beat the heat so I pressed on. I arrived there early, 9:45, and was back on the road after a long lunch by 10:45.
The last 35 miles or so I pressed with minimal stops, getting to Welch, our home for the night, by 1:30 on a day with over 3,000 feet of climbing. This was the first day with the group where I did everything my pace, and my body thanked me for it. I feel good despite 5:21 in the saddle. The roads mostly followed smallish rivers, with the climbs being to get from one river valley to another.
Joe smoked me and got in at 12:30. We hit the local pool together and a bit later the rest of the group made it to town and joined us. We're sleeping in the park tonight and ordered pizzas. Welch seems like a pretty cool town, despite also being decimated by the death of coal. We aren't exploring it much because it's really hilly and segmented and the park is relaxing. The towns around here are all really long and stuck in tight valleys, making them confusing and hard to walk around.
The West Virginian people have been SUPER nice! With a few exceptions the drivers are giving us lots of room (the road is a bit busy) and the people we talk to are very welcoming. This is Trump country and there are Trump signs everywhere, but the people are still very nice. It's important to remember that despite what the media and Facebook wants us to believe, the world is not divided into a good and bad people.
Everywhere has bad apples of course, and today I had a two cars lay on their horns repeatedly behind me, trying to get me out of the road so they could pass sooner. I just waved and they eventually sped past me. Their lives likely suck a lot more than mine, so whatever.
Tomorrow we go deeper into these beautiful mountains with a longer and hillier day. The mountains out here are steep but only a 3-4 miles long for the worst of the climbs, and pretty fun. We did 4-5 long climbs today, and likely will have more tomorrow. This contrasts with the western mountains that often are one 30-mile climb instead of six 5-mile climbs.
This state kicks ass.
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