Tour 2026 - Day 1 & 2: the road to Galax

Day 1: From Home to Mt. Airy

Leaving home I took a route I’ve taken many times from home to church, like any other Sunday. The ride to church is just over 20 miles across pretty varied terrain with a couple of larger climbs as is common in this area. Undulating hills with pretty significant down and up ravines formed by creeks.

My initial plan was to do a 78 mile total ride all the way to Galax, but that plan was set when I had planned to leave on a Tuesday in the morning. I was leaving at 11am, and wouldn’t depart from church until around 1:30, so I knew Mt. Airy was a possible bail out location.

When things got delayed the most natural day to take off was Sunday. It gave the important people in my life the ability to send me off in a meaningful way.

Honestly the hardest part of all of this was saying goodbye to my wife. We said our goodbyes, and she held back tears as we hugged. And then I was off.

Twenty odd miles…

The road to Mt. Airy was mostly more of the same sort of terrain as I had already covered. The punchy ups and downs of North Carolina’s foothills with grades suddenly going from a reasonable 3% to 16% around the next bend, forcing me to use my lowest gearing, and push for high assists from the bike.

The most memorable moment was pushing up a 400ft hill, that in the middle there was a sustained section of 10.9%, and getting up to the top and snapping the picture you saw before this text. It was an astounding view, but it drained my reserves and I had to take a break with some gummy worms and rest for a few minutes.

After cresting this beast of a hill my route seemed to make a strange turn back by my dead reckoning that made me question why I even needed to go over it in the first place. Looking back it’s a bit more reasonable in that there was a larger ridge system I would have had to cross in some smaller road system, or hazard more dangerous and larger roads. But it was a poignant reminder that the routes I planned out months ago are really just a preliminary pass, and I need to adjust them the night or even a few days before to make sure there aren’t these sorts of energy inefficient turns… but gosh, what a turn.

I had decided in this long rest to let my wife know I would be staying in Mt. Airy for the night. It wasn’t the plan, but whatever. And given the notice and it being early in the tour I’m fine doing a few days of hotels before reaching out to Methodist clergy to help find nightly accomodation like I did last tour.

All in all it was the right call. The rest of the ride to Mt. Airy was more of the same undulating, punchy climbs that slowly sapped me in the 90ish degree heat, and I was feeling baked after what I would consider a normal riding distance for a Sunday, marking in at around 45 miles.

Resting at the Inn

From where I stopped to orient myself in the town I chose the Knight’s Inn in town as my landing pad. It was close and cheap. So after securing a room there I went of and had a lovely meal at the local thai restaurant and then went back to the room and tucked in, procrastinating in doing my blogging for the evening.

Though in that time I made the determination that it was an overly ambitious plan to attempt to summit a mountain after 60 miles of riding, so this was the logical stop, and then Galax would be the same for tomorrow.

A More interesting ride: The road to Galax

It’s hard to make the familiar seem interesting, because while I appreciate the rich beauty of my state and this area of it, it’s hard for me to convey it in words that don’t come off dismissive.

The ride out of Mt. Airy was anything but worthy of dismissal. I left out at around 10am, knowing today would be an “easy day” — words I should know better than to ever utter — and so I could push my leaving time a bit. I just had about 35 miles to cover and to go up a minor mountain, climbing around 1600 ft. Keep in mind though, that because of the constant undulation I would be covering something like 3400 ft of climbs.

It was a cool (for summer in NC) 80 degrees when I set out and never topped 90 the whole day. It was clear as a bell and with a bit of a headwind it could get just shy of cool at times.

After a steady climb I came to the top of a ridge that gave a stunning vantage of the Sauratown Mountains, and Mt. Pilot — the funny looking mountain that has circular knob of rock jutting out of it.

Mt. Pilot is a geologic oddity, as are all of the Sauratown mountains in this area. They are lonely mountains, fully disconnected from any other range and not part of the nearby frontal edge of the blue ridge.

Rather their formation wasn’t from the collision of continents in the same way the ancient Appalachians was. They formed from sandstone sediments layed down under the vast primordial oceans. Over time those sediments were unevenly thrust up through tectonic action and began to metamorphize into harder rocks than the surrounding deposits. Somewhat like taking soil compactor to force the soil in your yard together, it formed a localized area of very tough rock which erodes more slowly. Over time they simply rose up out of the soil, resisting the forces that formed the deeply rutted foothills all around them.

Pilot is not any different in that formation, it just stands as an oddity because the knoblike pillar that juts out of it has an unusual shape.

Here is a closer view of the knob in question. This photo was taken months back when I biked up to the top when testing equipment. (And almost died on the way down when my brakes failed).

Other disconnected formations of the Sauratown range stand as lonesome sentinels, guarding the nearby blue ridge.

Rural NC is a mishmash of comically weird, wildly wealthy, and dirt poor all within the span of a mile or two. You genuinely never know what you’ll see around the next bend. Usually it’s just some field full of wheat or corn or cows, but every now and then you roll by things that speak to some person’s strange passion. Or the dying gasps of infrastructure forgotten when larger highways came through.

Living where I do, I have a fond love of the Blue Ridge. Often seen as a glimpse on the horizon on a clear day. A low, undulating line of shades of light blue forty or so miles out.

My family spent falls and summers driving and crawling across this landscape, and my father taught me a deep love for its rhododendrons which look like a magnolia tree turned into a bush with broad waxy leaves and beautiful pink and white blooms.

I’ve seen the buttes of the West, and the high Rockies, and while they inspire awe in their own way, they don’t leave me with a deep feeling of my mountains.

And so when I started to feel like the bike was feeling oddly slow I pulled over into a church shelter at the foot of Low Gap and did what I needed. My electric pump lied about its battery state and died midway through a fillup. So I gladly sat in the cool, breezy shade at the foot of these gentle giants for a bit.

But eventually, again, I was off to make miles and find my way up.

The climb up Low Gap was somehow simultaneously easy and hard. I can’t righly explain it because I wasn’t pushing particularly hard, making decent time up, but perhaps because I’m slightly detrained or maybe a little sick it just didn’t feel like my best effort. I was leaning hard on the motor to help me up, especially given that I think my estimate for the whole system weight was off, and I’m probably closer to 600lbs of bike, me, trailer and kit. Yes, I know, this trailer needs to go on a diet. I can probably chuck a good 20lbs out or mail it home. Probably more. I just need probably a week to figure out what’s worth the keeping and what is just dead weight.

About halfway up the mountain the tree cover suddenly opened up and I could see out across the foothills, and the now distant Mt. Pilot.

I had planned to visit the Bluegrass Music Center, a museum just off the Blue Ridge Parkway and only about half a mile off my route as a planned stop.

As I pulled in I saw a sign for live music, which implied I had missed the window, arriving at 3:30 when it ended at 3:00. However when I actually got to the venue I could hear people playing from an alcove next to the Museum. So I stocked up on water first and then went out and sat and listened to them play for four or five songs. I toddled through the museum with thoughts of sharing some of the history with you (maybe later?) and added to my growing collection of stickers on the frame of my bike.

Eventually it seemed prudent to start closing the last 10 miles to Galax and bed down for the night. However as I was leaving I struck up a conversation with two ladies sitting by my bike.

Kathleen and Amy (sp?) had just concluded a four mile hike in the surrounding area and Kathleen started asking questions about my bike. These questions eventually spawned off others and we just started talking about our lives, where we live, our spouses and kids… They both exuded a calming, cheerful energy that I didn’t feel compelled to rip myself away from simply to make miles. So we sat and talked for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. It was a genuine blessing to me and just a reminder that one of the biggest gifts we can give anyone is our time and attention.

I won’t share the details of what we talked about because it’s not my place to talk about their lives, but they are fairly local to me and so I genuinely hope to see them again when I return (Amy if you read this, hopefully you can join my wife at the Tilted Ladder some Thursday before then).

In climbing up Low Gap I had finally made it into Virginia proper, and after leaving the Blue Ridge Music Center I ambled down a particularly beautiful side road through some small holler on my way to Galax.

It was a lovely ride before entering the town.

What is there to say about Galax? I don’t really know… it’s Monday and so most of the things one might want to do were closed. I stopped at the Dairy Bar for an early dinner and then set up for what I hope will be the last hotel stay for some time.

I rested for a while in the room after a shower and then eventually ventured out when I got a bit hungry. Honestly, what I really wanted was a beer. I get ridiculously strong cravings for wheat beer when I start touring. I think it’s vitamin B or D… regardless I was prowling for a bar or pub. I found one and walked in, but after waiting for anyone who looked like they worked their to address me I ended up leaving. I walked down main street, and even though it was only 6:30, all but perhaps two shops were closed

So rather than eat out again I just went on over to the Dollar Tree and got some ramen to combine with some tuna I had bought the night previous. It actually turned out pretty tasty.

But just be warned, stay out of any small town on a Monday if you want anything approaching food.

Anyway — Tomorrow is going to be me tackling the New River Trail, one of my favorite rides to take off on a saturday and do a section. All told I think the trail is around 45 miles and is absolutely gorgeous. After completing the trail I’ll just have to see how my legs are feeling and if I’m up for another 30 or so miles, or if I’ll need to cut it short. But that’s a story for tomorrow.