Day 7 - Sunday, 7/6/97, 4:15pm
42.1 Miles; about 6 hours
On-bike time: 3 hours, 19 minutes
Avg speed: 12.68 mph
Max speed: 43.9 mph

Ben and I were ready to get our second week underway by 5:30 a.m. this morning. While Ben was checking the tire pressures, he discovered that one of the Burly tires was leaking. he tried to patch the leak which was near the stem, but he had to replace the tube. Unfortunately, we didn't leave the Best Western until 6:30 a.m..

Ben and I were not looking forward to the 4 mile uphill push to get back to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the TransAmerica Trail. Since the trail runs along the ridge, and then descends off the ridge at Vesuvius. Rather than push the bike up to the ridge just to come back down a dozen miles later, we decided to go around the edge of the ridge. We rode Highway 340 West out of Waynesboro, then took Highway 11 South into Lexington. At the bottom of the page, you can see the route along the top of the first map, and along Highway 11 on the second map. We were pleased to discover that the route we choose consisted of gently rolling hills and only light traffic. We made excellent time, traveling 25 miles in less than two hours. the weather helped a great deal, staying in the low 60's until late morning.

Around 8:30 a.m. we passed through Steels Tavern and stopped to use a roadside phone. While we were callingahead to hotels, a couple of gentlemen drove up to admire our bike. They were truly amazed and asked lots of questions. At one point the younger man exclaimed "Great day in the mornin!", which I think meant "Wow!''

The morning continued without much trouble. In fact the time seemed to fly by. We discovered that climbing hills has become easier. We are definitely getting stronger each day.

Around 11:00 a.m. we neared Lexington and encountered some great downhill stretches. We absolutely flew down the hills and we reached a top speed of 53 miles per hour! We were so excited that we began screaming and cheering ourselves along as we passed a couple of cars! The bike is remarkably stable at those speeds, but it is frightening to think about falling at 50 m.p.h. or more. So far we have not had any trouble, and we are certainly enjoying the speed!

Before checking into the Best western of Lexington, we stopped at Wal-Mart to do some shopping. Some locals asked Ben to show them where our route would take us. While there, we had our blood pressure checked for free. Mine was 104 over 54 and Ben's was 120 over 60. They were high because we had just been exercising hard. The woman said we were in great health. I can only imagine what 3 more months of biking will do for us!

We went into town to pick up a new spare tube at the bike shop, but it was closed. We did pass through the VMI campus, though, which was pretty neat.

One of the things we have to do while we’re on the trip is keep track of where we are. Sometimes, we get, er, lost. At times like this, I plug our Global Positioning Sensor into our laptop. Within minutes, the sensor locks on to a group of navigation satellites orbiting the Earth, and puts a dot on the laptop’s map that shows us our exact location. A map of the entire US, down to every city street, is housed on a single CD-ROM which is in the laptop’s CD-ROM drive. Its great - we simply can’t get lost!

Other times, we want to be able to carry a map from the laptop with us, but not have to physically carry the laptop around. During these times, we copy a portion of the map on the laptop into a bitmapped file, then transfer it into our Casio palmtop and view it using the palmtop’s paint program.

Return to Bike Trip Page