Day 4 & 5 - Bodging my way to Lexington

Not all heroes wear capes, some wear bowties:

After getting settled into the motel in Christiansburg I immediately reached for the phone to text a friend. The text read “Sooooo…. How would you like an excuse to go see some civil war stuff.”

My friend Matthew is a history teacher and reenactor who as a side gig absolutely demolishes pro-rebel lost-causers on the internet. (For reference if you’re unclear go check out Atun-Shei on YouTube). He is also the guy that gave me a boost to Berea, KY at the start of my journey last year.

Basically he just asked the where and whens without question or complaint and would head out the next day in our family van loaded down with the parts I needed, put there by my son, Andre.

Around noon, Matthew arrived with parts in tow. The plan was to maybe get some lunch and then attend to this, but on the way to the car I realized I needed to pull the freewheel (gears) off the old wheel and put it on the replacement, and we didn’t bring those tools. So we needed to hit a bike shop first.

I had scoped things out the night before and selected one named Hokie Spokie in Blacksburg just 16 miles away. And so we trucked off with the wheels. I had put the directions into Google maps and they were taking us through the lovely town built up around Virginia Tech (go Hokies). However as turns were called out we were being sent into the campus. Matthew was loving the views but I was getting progressively more “family vacation” exasperated and so I parked the car and realized what was going on.

I meant to go to Hokie Spokie, but instead clicked the first bike related Hokie listing, which was Hokie Bike Collective — a coop for students to repair their bikes with tools and parts free of charge, nestled in the heart of the campus. So error sorted we were quickly on our way to the correct location.

As I entered the shop I exclaimed “Oh yeah, this is the place” as my eyes scanned across a smallish room absolutely strewn in heaping mounds of bikes in various states of dissembly (or assembly? Who an tell) and all the attendant gubbins littering every flat surface.

An older gentleman stood in the middle of this bicycle version of his very own iron thone. He was on the phone and let us know he would be with us as soon as he could. So I unloaded the wheels and Matthew exclaimed he would get coffee at the shop next door.

After a brief wait, I explained the situation and we were quickly both in the thick of this bicycle mountain rotating a wheel against a tool captive in a vice. Voila, freewheel released! And another moments later, allowing for the swap.

In moments we were out the door having thanked and paid the king of Biketeros, first of his line for his time and a fat tire tube.

Upon reentering the car Matthew started talking about the latte he just got and how it was somewhat odd. I asked what it was? “Macha something…”. A brief pause before I offered up “Macchiato?” No. “Matcha?” Yeah that’s it! “Dude… you’re basically drinking grass.”

We had a conversation about the importance of trying new things before I forced him to try another by saying “Soo… you wanna get Pho-ked up?” (If you have ever had viet food, this is extremely funny). This lead to him indeed getting “Pho-ked up”. I had Pork vermicelli and he had a Pho of some sort. It was a first for him and it came off with a far better vote of appreciation than the grass drink from an hour before.

Filled up and ready to sort out the bike we went back to the motel and got to it…

I had hoped that it would be a quick swap job. The fork and handlebars, the brakes and rotors and the wheels were all once on this frame and well tested.

But in the words of Robbie Burns, our plans gang aft agley — our best laid plans often go off the rails.

The fork and brake swap were trivial, as was the back wheel after swapping the freewheel gears at the bike shop. However when I went to mount the front wheel a minor problem presented itself: I had no nuts.

Cue Yakkity Sax, maestro:

What is a man to do when he has no nuts to torque? Well he hops in the car for the second time and goes to an auto parts store, wheel in tow. Oh… they don’t carry metric M10 nuts. Ok.

So check the hardware store, sure they they have metric nuts. Just a six minute drive. Oh yeahhhhh, we got some M10 nuts right here. Thread pitch? What’s that? Oh the nuts have to do twisty a very specific angle, and my nuts need to be very twisty, not this kind of twisty garbage. I need M10 x 1.0 and these are M10 x 1.5.

Hokie Pokie is now closed, so off to the Trek store. The attendant takes one look and basically says “we ain't got em, your nuts are too rare.”

So I call up the last option. Bike Barn.

A gentleman answers the phone and I explain my situation, that I need super twisty nuts. He answers that his mechanic has a pile of some, but that he won’t be in until Friday (for future people it is currently Wednesday). I ask “would you let me look at your nuts, maybe even put my hands on your nuts?”

The man pauses, and says “yeah, I guess you could look at my nuts”

So we head on over to the barn so that we can look at another man’s nuts, and see if they twist just right.

He quickly pulls open his drawers and lays hold of them. I peer over his shoulder as he inspects closely and finally ask if I might just finger them myself. He obliges.

Finally, finger deep in another man’s drawers, I have found SUPER TWISTY NUTS OF EXACTLY THE RIGHT SIZE.

Kind of… maybe. They seem to be offering too much resistance when twisted. I look more closely and discover that my post is damaged, the threads are called and so my one chance at this is to get a massive tool in my hand and apply great force with it get these nuts twisting.

Ok, I will depart from this childish joke for the sake of brevity: The M10x1.0 flared nuts that I need have been found, but they are not threading like they should because the threaded posts on the wheel have been partially flattened on one side. So I need to use wrenches to torque them down with significant force to effectively jerryrig a repair, kind of recutting the threads with the nuts.

I succeed at getting one side to do exactly this but somehow I’ve gotten the other side stuck and it looks crossthreaded. This is not good, it could mean the whole wheel is basically garbage if I can’t correct this.

So off to the Auto parts store to get more wrenches to fix the issue so I can thread the other nut on fully and then use its friction to release the stuck nut on the other side.

I’ll cut it short — after more bouncing around the town, going to one store that is closed, we finally get what we need.

I’m able to release the nut, and effect a bodged repair on both sides such that the nuts can be wrenched off when needed. Ideally they would just finger twist, but I’ll accept that this is “good enough” for now. I’ll attempt to swap out the axel or get a whole new front wheel when I can. But…

SHE’S ALIVE.

After a quick test drive to make sure everything is at least functioning poorly, Matthew is finally released to head home after 7pm.

It was a moment after shutting the door that I had the thought “I need to call mom” and I absolutely lost it. All the pent up anxiety and stress washed over me as I remembered my mother can’t be called, because she’s gone.

It was a hard moment at the end of a hard day.

Day 5: Onward to Lexington

I woke up earlier than expected and had to clean up and finish tuning the brakes, handlebars and shifting, which took some time.

After a ride to get some food I was ready, packed and out on the road in earnest by 9:15.

Leaving Christiansburg was a mess of slogging up and over hills that cut through the grid of the town, and eventually sending my way north and west from where I was, but finally I made it out and was greeted by narrow, winding road that had me racing downward for what seemed like 30 minutes.

Eventually I hit the creek level and things flattened out and opened up into the rolling farmland that spans so much of this area.

The rounded mountains loomed above fields of wheat, corn, and hay fodder, visible through a welcome cooling rain.

Miles of undulating tarmac passed under my wheels as I pressed onwards, slowly rising towards the shoulder of some mountain.

After around twenty miles the seat beneath me had become unbearable to sit on any longer. I had Matthew bring up my older seat which is slightly wider and what I used last year. After fighting with the mechanism that holds the seat angled correctly the seats were eventually swapped.

Upon pulling out, I immediately felt relief. The wider stance suits my… ample body a bit more forgivingly. It’s not perfect and can cause chafing due to the flared edges, but it was a phenomenal change to my comfort. For the remainder of the day I would only need to stand in the pedals for a few seconds when it became uncomfortable to restore some bloodflow. Otherwise it became something largely out of mind rather and a drilling fixation like the prior seat.

Gorgeous farmland continued to scroll by as the road eventually started a gradual descent of around 1900ft over many miles.

I was greeted by friendly goats, horses, ponies and cows. Apart from the domesticated animals, deer were out and active, grazing close enough to the road for me to frequently spook them and watch them bound away.

As the miles mounted there were two peaks that caught my eye, and you can see them in many of the pictures over the day acting like a visual indicator of progress as at first you can only see the southern side, and eventually that exposure shifts throughout the day.

Right outside of Catawba, VA I spotted another laden rider coming the opposite direction. We simultaneously pulled into the same decrepit gas station and greeted each other.

John and I talked for a while about our different gear. He was very interested in my ebike build and how it all worked together. I was interested in his Surly because I want to build a bike on a similar frame.

He was biking from D.C. to his home in Roanoke and need a psych up to get over the last big hill where the shoulder was poor and cars were not terribly kind. 16 more miles and one big hill separated him from his home.

It was just nice to share some time with another person doing their version of the thing.

Eventually though we both needed to depart and so we wished each other a good journey and set out on our respective paths.

For me that meant another 10 or so miles to my first long rest of the day. A food and charging stop in Daleville, VA. I was aiming for the Dairy Queen found on Google maps.

As was a theme from my time with Matthew and driving around the universe using Google maps and its terrible turn by turn instructions, Google chose a route for me that sent me up a hill that seemed like it had the worst grade of the day. It would have been far more efficient for me to skirt that hill using the main via. A bit longer, yes, but far less energy demanding.

After this struggle I was settled and charging at the DQ and stayed there for about one and half hours. This allowed me to do some picture editing and start to make phone calls to methodist contacts I had found. However on the latter point I had zero success. Every number was either dead, not valid or nobody picked up. So this changed my strategy for lodging.

I had hoped to camp at the camp ground near Buchanan if I couldn’t get with a church. When I looked online the cost would be around $35. So this became the new plan. 20 more miles to go.

The route to Buchanan took me down the Lee Highway (not pictured above, that’s I-81). Which had some higher levels of traffic but didn’t make me feel unsafe. And the country was still gorgeous.

60 miles to the campsite scrolled by quickly, and I was making quite good time due to a fairly powerful tailwind. So I pulled into the parking lot and investigated the rates a bit more fully. In order to reserve a powered site I would need to pay $45, and I had looked online before and saw that on the outskirts of Lexington there was an Econolodge offering rooms for around $55 before taxes.

So I was at a split point. I could stealth camp behind a church and potentially get found by law enforcement and told to clear out. Or pick one of these two options. To me the real question was “Do I feel like I could do another 25-30 miles?”

I pondered for a moment and felt great. My legs weren’t strained, and I was enjoying the ride.

On closer investigation it was only 22 miles. So I reserved the room and stepped up the pace to try to get there before 7pm

The next 20 miles took me down Plank road, which I will now refer to as “Bambie land”, not in a “Oh black betty, Bambie land” in more of a “holy crap there are a lot of baby deer up in here”.

The trees closed in as the terrain pitched downwards, causing me to coast more often than pedalling alongside of a meandering creek. This held true for perhaps 15 miles of my journey, and they were fast as a result.

Small farmsteads would pop up from time to time to the left and right. Occasionally they were more like the sort of ‘back holler’ affair you might find in NC’s mountains — houses surrounded by a riot of cars barrels, farm equipment, decaying outbuildings. And then there were the occasional animals. Goats and sheep, chickens picking at the grass. And apparently guinea fowl? I’d never seen one in the flesh, and they are goofy looking little critters.

The rest of the ride simply felt like a hop and a skip and before I knew it I had accomplished one of my longest riding days to date. 88 miles, nearly six moving hours. 5400ft of climbing.

I have a route in my itinerary for tomorrow, but honestly I might take it slower. There is a bluegrass convention in a neighboring town that I might swing through and take a gander at. I’m trying not to be so miles focused this time around.

My first tour I felt like I had to prove something to everyone, my second I felt like I was proving something to myself, and now I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, I simply need to enjoy whatever it shapes out to be.

Letting go of my own ego and reverting back to tried and true equipment paid back some amazing dividends today. Sacrificing mileage for experience may just be another facet of that release.

And that’s it. We’re caught up to the current moment. I literally don’t even know what’s next. Just the general trend northward.