Bumming in Banner Elk

Left last Monday on the much anticipated bike trip. Over time though the anticipation remained high the trip shrank in scope from a Pacific coast tour to a Maine to Waynesville ride to Waynesville to the Outer Banks and finally to this ... 11 days from Waynesville to no place in particular!

Things kept on slicing the trip length down -- like getting shots for our RTW trip -- and I found it increasingly hard to get psyched up for something which had a definite goal. So I pushed off on June 2 and with no goal in mind found myself pedalling up NC 209 to Fines Creek. I spent the first night in Hot Springs (nice)



and from there went to Burnsville (nice)



Linville Falls (an enormous disappointment, as waterfalls go),



Boone (cool little city), and West Jefferson (great ride to get there though not my favorite town). I spent much of the time on the Blue Ridge Parkway which was wonderful



and have tried to stick to the back roads of North Carolina, which are generally quite scenic and full of drivers nice to bikers. Actually, everywhere I biked with the exception of the very busy U.S. highways I found that drivers were really super friendly to bikers ... to the point of idling along behind me at 8 mph while waiting for an opportunity to pass.

One thing I was not expecting was how difficult it would be. I'm not sure I've had more than a few miles of straight, flat road since leaving. The result is I'm pretty tired by the end of the day and can't make much headway -- 40 miles is a good day.

I turned south in search of flatter ground and ran into great roads and hot weather and one magnificent storm which forced me to seek shelter in a bathroom.