biking the Blue Ridge parkway

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves"

-Edmund Hilary (first man to successfully climb Mount Everest)

After a very long 8-hour drive to Waynesville, NC, a charming and surprisingly modern town situated 30 minutes southwest of Asheville, I arrived with my sister and her boyfriend at the Andon-Reid Inn. (While there are several bed and breakfasts to choose from in Waynesville, I would highly recommend this one. The owners helped me a lot with tips on local biking and helped me choose my route for my long ride --and they make a delicious banana french toast). The first day I went out for an easy one hour spin and quickly discovered two things. One, biking here would be very different. Climbing even the longest hills in Gainesville ends within a few minutes; climbing a mountain sometimes does not end for more than an hour. Two, my last minute decision to invest in a 27t cassette for this trip was definitely worth it. Despite the increased difficulty and general fatigue from the long drive, I was elated as I cruised around this pseudo-paradise of a town. Everyone's lawn seemed to be a light shade of emerald green, the temperature was perfect and the mountains made for spectacular scenery.
I came back and we went out to a nearby restaurant called Bogart's. Fabulous sweet potatoes. Probably the best sweet potato I have ever had. I really don't even remember what else was on my plate besides that large, plump, juicy sweet potato. You can order them with all kinds of extras, but trust me, they are already perfect in their natural state.

Day 2. The big ride. Probably the highlight of my trip. As the clouds from the previous night's rain made their way over the mountain tops, a beautiful day emerged with a high around 70° F in town and around 10° cooler in the mountains. After a long night's sleep and a detailed study of several maps of the surrounding area we headed for the parkway. My sister and her boyfriend were doing a local hike and at the suggestion of the hosts dropped me off a few minutes down the road, since the parkway is almost impossible to access leaving from the west side of town by bicycle because of a large highway running parallel to the town. We exit off the highway and there is some argumentation as which way to turn. Apparently the words "north" and "south" do not mean much in mountainous regions, which my sister had a hard time coming to terms with. They drop me off and I do nothing but climb for more than 5km. I enjoy the scenery, but am beginning to worry about the amount of fluids I brought, which I am gulping down faster than I expected. Suddenly, I see the truck come around the bend. Instantly I know I have been going the wrong way. Initially, I'm a peeved (mainly because I had said to turn the correct way), but then relieved that I get to fill up on fluids and descend what I just rode up.
Something every cyclist should experience before they die is descending a mountain. Wow. Completely exhilarating and refreshing. The cold mountain air gusting around the turns had a completely different feeling at 40+ mph than the turtle pace I had been climbing up at. I soared down the mountain in front of the truck and as I passed the man on the touring bike that I went by on my way up shouted, "It's better downhill!" He chuckled back with a half-exhausted "yeah." So after some re-fueling and a fun descent I was off in the right direction and it was time to climb again - a lot.



Starting around 3000 feet, where the highway intersects the parkway, my goal for the day was to climb up to the highest point of the parkway at 6047 feet. In the first 7-8 miles of this trek, I climbed more than 2000 feet. Now, maybe that doesn't sound like much to someone living in Colorado, but for a native Floridian, who has never biked any mountains, it proved to be a lofty goal...

I've been here before. This point of fatigue which brings you to the state of physical being where you begin to find your true limitations. Who you really are, what you are really capable of. I'm not surprised to be back; I'm sure it won't be very long before I return. In fact, there is a masochistic part of me that likes it here. A small part of me begins to fear I am in over my head with this; "Do you see other cyclists out here?" I think to myself. Then I think, "surely Alpe d'Huez is harder than this. I think about power-to-weight ratio, pedal stroke and that endlessly jaw-dropping view. Phrases like "slow and steady," "慢慢走" and "tranquillo" pop into my head as I methodically pedal up the mountain, one stroke at at time.

I reach a tunnel. It doesn't appear it will be long. I think, "this will be fun." If I had replaced "fun" with "scary as hell" in that sentence, I would have been right. I'm not a touring cyclist; the closest thing I have to a light on me is the "indiglo" on my Ironman wrist-watch. That being said, I take off my sunglasses as I enter... not so bad. It seems the end will not be so far away. I go deeper; it gets darker. I'm finding it harder to stay next to the white line, which is quickly becoming the only thing visible in the darkness. I can't turn back. The tunnel continues to curve. I wonder what I should be doing and resolve to pedal harder to try to find my way out. Just as the darkness turns into a blinding hole of palatable blackness, a ray of light bends around the curving tunnel. Whew. I realize at this point, not only am I in the middle of the road, but my wheel is also subtly swerving back and forth in a snake-like motion. I emerge from the tunnel and pause outside to admire the scenery, calm down and assess what I like to refer to as the "danger-level" of the situation I just put myself in. Assessment: pretty dangerous. A car came through a few moments later.

After a lot more climbing (actually the mountain showed mercy around 5000 feet and flattened out a bit), I reached the highest point on the parkway. When I rolled up to the lookout I was simultaneously elated and surprised. Elated for obvious reasons, but surprised because it was deserted. For a few moments I was the only one there and I triumphantly shook my right arm in the air as I pulled off the main road. A morbidly obese couple slowly pulled up to the lookout in their car. I thought about how starkly different our experiences must have been to get here. A bus full of teenagers pulled up after another moment, bursting out of their camp bus with enthusiasm, gawking at the view, and huddling together for a group picture. Another couple pulled up. Everyone is looking at me, with my bike, awkwardly. I can only imagine what they are thinking, but between two summers in China and a few years of running around in spandex have grown accustomed to some strange looks and don't really mind. After refueling with a Cliff bar I roll away happily and begin to descend the mountain.