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The Herald Friday, May 11, 1990
A cold Saturday morning found me in Sparta, N.C., 150 miles from home and six
miles from my original destination of Virginia.
I had ridden for two days and failed to add Virginia to my bike travel list. I
had risked knee damage by pushing a dangerously high gear up the Blue Ridge, so
my main priority was to get myself out of the mountains as quickly as possible.
I shivered in the 42-degree mountain air as I pedaled past Doctor Grabow's
Pre-smoked Pipe Factory outside Sparta. When I finally reached the Blue Ridge
Parkway, I figured I would soon plummet off the ridge into the foothills. The
parkway is usually the highest point around, but this time it wasn't. The climb
to the south continued for several miles on U.S. 21 and I stopped at a
restaurant for warmth and fuel.
I asked the waitress how much farther I had to go before I began to go
downhill. She said, "Oh, about three more miles, and then..." Her eyes got
big, she did her hand like a wild roller coaster and she made a rocket sound
like the Road Runner makes on TV. I thanked her for the best description I had
ever received.
The waitress' prophecy came true shortly after I chugged through the beautiful
mountaintop community of Roaring Gap. A sign indicated, "Eastern Continental
Divide-Elevation 2972 Ft." The next sign said "Steep Hill" with a silhouette of
a truck on a 45-degree angle.
I paused at the top and secured all of my payload doors. I had five bags with a
bunch of compartments, and this was the time to check zippers. Once you start
down a mountain on a loaded touring bike, it's rather like lighting the solid
boosters on the space shuttle--you'd better be ready to go.
I nudged myself over the precipice and tucked in for the drop. A roaring
headwind held my speed to about 30 mph and produced a sub-zero chill factor as I
snaked my way for miles into the foothills. I tried my brakes one time out
of curiosity and saw no noticeable effect. With enough warning, though, I
was able to squeeze the levers for a quarter of a mile and stop at an overlook area
halfway down. What a view.
I eased out of the overlook area and once again reached terminal speed in a few
seconds. At times like this, I always compare the exertion of climbing against
the exhilaration of descent. The drop is an expensive thrill. The climb to the
ridge takes hours of straining and the descent lasts 8 or 10 minutes.
Once in the foothills, the "coming out of the mountains" effect is over. The
hills are just up and down, and a rider has no perception of overall altitude
gain or loss. A ride home from the mountains is not much easier than the trip
northward to the base of the ridge.
U.S. 21 took me to Elkin and then roughly paralleled I-77 through some rolling
farmland. Until traffic increased near Statesville, it was an ideal day on a
bicycle. I checked into a motel in Statesville, satisfied with 68 miles.
Sunday's ride home from Statesville would cover 92 miles across Lake Norman and
through the Piedmont. Just south of Statesville, I picked up the pace a bit
when I saw the name Barium Springs on a post office. That sounded a bit too
radioactive to suit me.
I left U.S. 21 near Mooresville and crossed Lake Norman on N.C. 150. At the
water I passed the lake's famous dinner boat, a paddle-wheel behemoth that takes
dinner cruises and sight-seeing tours.
About 15 miles south of Denver, I got lost. Since my last ride in this
direction, a new section of N.C. 16 had been made into a bypass four-lane. I
missed my familiar turn and had to improvise a way home through Mt. Holly and
Belmont.
This area was an all-new visit for me. I was amazed at the size of the
Freightliner truck factory in Mt. Holly, and was appalled at the traffic in
Belmont.
I finally made it to 274 and meandered home on the backroads that had launched
this four-day journey. I was tired and dirty but none the worse for wear. My
assault on Virginia had ended up being a ride through all but six miles of North
Carolina, but I no longer cared very much about not tagging the state line. I
had traveled a safe 311 miles, and I still loved bicycling.
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