I did extensive research on our route, since we had no travel company planning for and supporting us. The New River Trail is documented in 40 Great Rail-Trails in the Mid-Atlantic by Karen-Lee Ryan. The Rails-To-Trails Conservancy has a web site at http://www.railtrails.org. I purchased the TransAmerica Trail map from Adventure Cycling at http://www.adv-cycling.org. I got advice to use the Skyline Drive from a forum on bicycling touring at http://www.cycling.org/pvt-cgi-bin/forum_tour.pl and more information on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive in Bicycling the Blue Ridge by Elizabeth and Charlie Skinner. A web site about a self-supported bicycle tour in the Shenandoah area is http://www.tomswenson.com/vatrip.htm .
Using Compton’s Complete Street Guide (a computer CD program), I printed extra maps to each of the B&Bs (their brochure maps are pretty sketchy), and also for any places where we might get off the documented routes. Car road maps are NOT good enough! There are lots of back roads not documented on car maps, and we would have been stuck on very busy roads had we relied on them. I made sure that we had lunch and dinner locations where we needed them, or places where we could buy ahead and carry.
I highly recommend Adventure Cycling’s routes. The portion of the TransAmerica Trail that we were on was well documented, the surfaces of the roads were good, the traffic was scarce, the grades were minimized as much as could be. Whenever we strayed off the Trail to get to a B&B or sightseeing location, we hit worse hills or worse traffic. Clearly, they had chosen the best route for the Trail, even though there were still a couple very steep hills and some short sections of heavier traffic. The Trail even managed to stay away from roads bordering interstates, where you have to listen to the interstate traffic.
I also highly recommend Rails-To-Trails. The wonderful scenery, lack of motorized traffic, and gentle grades make for incredible cycling. The only problem with Rails-To-Trails is that there aren’t enough of them and those that exist are often short, designed for city exercisers, not through-travelers. The land dispute that currently closes a section of the New River Trail illustrates why so few retired railways are converted to Rails-To-Trails.
To find B&Bs, I got books from the library. Just before I started calling to make reservations, I discovered that you can call the Virginia Office of Tourism at 1-800-934-9184, give them the dates and locations, and they find B&Bs and make all the reservations for you! That worked great, except they did give us one in completely the wrong town (Troutvale instead of Troutville), I’m glad I caught that! They also asked in advance if we wanted secluded or in-town locations, and I stupidly said "a mix". When traveling by bike, arrange for in-town locations, unless you want to ride ten extra miles for dinner that night in your dinner clothes. Luckily, I was able to arrange for dinner at some of the more secluded B&Bs, or make other arrangements.
I highly recommend any of the B&Bs we stayed at, and B&Bs in general. Its nice to be pampered at the end of a day on the bike. Each B&B has its own character, and the value is very good, considering the food you get. One problem with B&B traveling is that you have to bike according to a prearranged plan, regardless of the weather or how good you feel that day, because reservations are hard to come by. This was never a problem for us, but we were lucky with the weather. Next time I will ask ahead about washing clothes at the B&Bs, because we managed to offend one proprietor with our hand washing, although she accommodated us by drying it for us.
We used our mountain bikes because they were recommended for the New River Trail, unpaved as it was. However, we got slick 1.5" tires to replace the knobby off-road tires, since the majority of our trip was on paved roads. The gearing of the mountain bikes was good for the hills in Virginia.
For tools and spare parts, we took patch kits, tire levers, a CO2 inflation tool with two extra cartridges, one extra tube, an "Alien" tool (a beefed-up Swiss Army knife type of tool specialized for bicycling), a pedal / headset combination wrench, small and medium cable ties, oil, and a small book Mountain Bike Emergency Repair by Tim Toyoshima. We used the Alien tool to put our bikes back together after shipping, and oiled the bikes every few days, but didn’t touch the rest of the stuff. We consider ourselves lucky and would take every tool and spare part again.
We had one front and one back safety light, figuring if we really needed them, we should get off the bikes, but we would do OK in emergencies if we stuck together. Of course, we had helmets, and both of us have rear-view mirrors attached. I have bicycling shoes with recessed cleats that attach to special pedals, and Mark has bicycle shoes with toe clips on his pedals. Both worked fine, except that I managed to fall down and skin my knee on the cinder of the New River Trail because I wasn’t completely accustomed to the cleats. Both of us had some knee problems, but nothing that stopped us from riding, nor that caused us any permanent damage, as far as we can tell.
For training, I rode 2-4 times per week, working up to 1 1/2 hours per ride. I did about half of this with our 3 1/2 year old, 35 lb. daughter on the back, which was good training, but I am amazed I was able to talk her into it week after week. For the longer rides, we had to stop for ice cream in the middle, and I carried juice, books, and games in a backpack. On the weekends, I rode longer, starting about 2 months prior to the trip. Mark and I rode 50 miles together once, about 2 weeks prior to the trip, but that was our longest ride. We were both bushed, but satisfied that since we did it in 3 1/2 hours, we could easily cover that much distance over an entire day. This training worked fine for our planned distances.
I was most worried about sitting in one position, hour after hour, day after day. My shoulders were the quickest to suffer, but I found a stretch that really helped: scrunch the shoulders up to your ears, holding for a second, then roll them back and down, stretching the chest muscles. I did some strengthening exercises for those mid-back muscles ahead of time, too. I did a few lower back exercises, but those muscles never bothered me during training rides, so I got lazy. I should have done more, because my lower back was extremely tired the first two days, but then it was fine. I guess it got strong enough, the hard way! My soft bike seat with springs did really well, along with two really good pairs of bike shorts. Once I rode a training ride with an old pair of shorts and found out how much difference a good pair can make!
During the longer training rides, I discovered that my eyes got very dry and irritated, something that had never happened on shorter rides. I experimented with various options, but I was reluctant to spend much money on special sunglasses, just for this trip. I settled on using an ancient pair of ski goggles, which look incredibly stupid, but kept the wind completely off my eyes while still venting to keep relatively cool.
We got by with one pair of panniers for our personal stuff and one expandable rack pack for tools, snacks, maps, camera and sunscreen. We each took two pairs of biking clothes, but Mark managed with one non-biking outfit with convertible shorts/pants. He also just used his bike shoes all the time. I took a pair of sandals, one short outfit for sightseeing, and two dress-up outfits for evening. We used compactor bags to line the panniers, and I coated the outside of them with Scotch Guard. With only our last six miles rainy, we don’t really know how well these precautions would have worked in a lot of rain, but everything stayed dry for us.
| To get the bikes to Virginia, we shipped them UPS to avoid the hassles of taking them on the plane. Bad plan. It cost as much as the plane, but took a week. If there is any damage to the bike, to collect the insurance money you have to let UPS have it back for several weeks to inspect it and decide how much they will pay you. My bike was smashed on the way there, it must have been run over, it was mangled so badly. Since we left for our bike trip only one day after arriving in Virginia, I had to run out and buy a bike quick! Then UPS had the gall to deny my claim, saying I hadn’t packaged it well enough, as if any type of packaging would have protected the bike from a fork lift running over it!! |
They eventually paid me the insurance money, so it worked out for me. In the future, I might UPS the bike home after the trip, when I have the time to fool around with insurance inspections and don’t need a bike, but I will take the bike on the plane on the way there. The baggage handlers might be gorillas, but they don’t use forklifts. And they don’t expect you to live without your luggage for two weeks while they inspect it after damage, they settle the insurance right there at the airport.
To compare costs with a trip through a company is rather difficult, since there are no exact trips to compare to. We spent $2000 on things that would have been covered in a company trip. There is little doubt that our trip was less expensive. Considering that we had no support van, had to carry our own luggage, and do all the planning ourselves, I would hope so! We didn’t go the do-it-yourself way to save money, though. Privacy, solitude, customization, and spontaneity were our goals, all well met.
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