Day 23 - Not Really Fast Into Floyd!
Yesterday was a hard day but really rewarding! It was supposed to be short in terms of miles at 44 as Google had laid out. But then Google got me lost and took me yet again on dirt roads that turned out to be a bad mistake! On this one road the grader was there and he had loosened up the road. I had absolutely no grip with my tires in the dirt. And the hill was straight UP! So for the first time I had to walk and push my bike. Never again! I will not take the dirt that Google offers up. They also had me going into someone's driveway at the top of that hill rather than on a road. The result was that I was lost in the Mountains!
BUT then, I followed a road that took me to a road that took me straight UP! It was climbing for about 2 - 3 miles. I don't know how long, but it seemed like it would never stop. I had to stop several times and some of you have seen my posts on Instagram. Of course, some of those stops and Instagram posts came later in the day because of lack of service for TMOBILE! A common occurrence. Never get TMOBILE!
Once I got to the top, I was on top of the world as my pictures will attest! By this time I was completely out of water. There were no stores and no chance of a store anywhere on this route. Then it dumped me on the Blue Ridge Parkway and I was saved by the intersection of Route 58 in Meadows of Dan, VA where a very nice lady allowed me to charge my phone and more importantly refill my water bottles! Thank God!
This is near the Mabry Mill that was a beautiful site as I flew by it, but didn't stop because of the hill I knew was on the other side. Then I climbed and climbed and climbed and made it up to the Rocky Knob. There were awesome views from there that I'll share below along with my video of the day. Then I climbed some more and finally rode down into Floyd! But it took a LOT longer than I expected due to all that climbing. I didn't get into Floyd until about 630 and I left Mount Airy about 1013. I was expecting to get to Floyd by about 4 and the innkeepers were thinking about coming and looking for me! I did hit about 40 mph on one of the downhills yesterday and there were many over 35. But I was not very Fast Getting to Floyd!
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