Tonight we are camped in Buckhorn Campsite near the town of Buckhorn, Kentucky. Today was a comfortable 55 miles, but there were still seven peaks to climb. Today I was going 35 mph going down one of those peaks and as I was going around a curve, leaning into it good, I saw a sign that said 25 mph, and I thought, cool!

Virginia was my favorite State to ride a bicycle in, and Kentucky has become my least favorite State. It seems everybody has a dog or two or three or more, and they all hate bicycles and are looking out for them to chase them and bite them. My brother Cliff had a big one bite his pannier on his bike. He had a rain cover that ripped off when the dog pulled on it. Otherwise, the dog probably would have caused Cliff to crash. Then he would have a crash because he ran into a mailbox and one caused by a big dog pulling him down.

I mostly outrun them using turbo mode on my bicycle, and yell and try to sound like a bear to scare them. Kathy my sister-in-law bought some pepper spray made just for bicycle riders to protect themselves from dogs and it has been working good, dogs don’t like that pepper spray, for sure. I was riding behind Kathy and a big dog ran out towards her and she pulled out her can quicker than Matt Dillion on Gun Smoke drew his gun, and she gave the dog a big blast. The problem was that there was a hard head wind that picked up just then and all the pepper spray blew right on me. I thought I was going to crash, I couldn’t see anything. It took awhile, and most of my bottled water that I had, but I finally got it all washed out, but it burned for the next 30 minutes.

Kathy felt really bad and is dreading this blog about it. Tomorrow I will ride in front or waaaay behind her!

This is the second blog for today because I had no internet to send yesterdays until an hour ago.

Wow, ten days of riding already. It seems short, but also seems long in that I can’t remember much about the first several days without going back and reading my blogs. I think that it is a form of information overload. I am thankful for my journal and pictures to relive the adventure.

One of the fun things on the trip is the number of friendly people we have had conversations with about our trip, Oregon, and even hunting and fishing. I stopped today to get out of the rain at a city park/playground area. There was an old firetruck in it, so I climbed up and sat in the cab for a while. A young guy came by in a golf cart who was a groundskeeper and he had never been out of Virginia in his life. We had a great time talking about deer hunting in Virginia and Oregon, and about our bike trip. He fished but had never caught anything bigger than a 10-inch trout or bullhead. I invited him out to Oregon to fish with me, and gave him my cell number. I also suggested that he save up his money and fly up to Alaska and fish with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to do it.

My bicycle is an e-bike which means it has an electric motor on it that helps me out. It has been a lifesaver for me because one of the problems with my Parkinson’s disease is that my balance is shot. At four miles an hour I can’t balance the bike without wobbling all over the place, which means when a hill gets much over 6 % incline I have to walk pushing my bike. With my new bike I can go up most hills at 5 miles an hour instead of walking. I have four settings on it, “econo” which I keep it at most of the time, “tour” which I switch it up to if the hill gets steeper than 8%, “sport” which I switch it to if the hill gets steeper than 10%, and “turbo” if I am trying to outrace a dog that is chasing me. I never use “turbo” much because it will suck my battery dry in a very short time. The amount of electricity that goes to the motor is determined by how hard I press on the pedal. If I put normal pressure that I would use on flat or mildly hilly ground at 12 mph I will get very little help, but if I start pushing harder because of a steeper hill I get more help, so the more I give in energy the more I get in energy.

I have two batteries that I charge up at night in camp. I usually use all of one batter and half of the second in a normal day, but all of the second if it is hilly like this trip so far. A number of days I have plugged into camp all on my own power because I ran out of juice in both batteries. A couple of days ago I lost the key that unlocks my battery on my bike so I haven’t been able to change batteries. I run it of juice around 40 miles, and the hills are so steep that I have had Dave pick me up, and I ride the last 30 miles in the pick up; how embarrassing! I ordered a new key from the place I bought the bike and they are mailing it to the campground we will be at on Monday night.

Poured rain today!!! And there is a tornado warning for our area! That would be a new adventure. Today was another hill climbing day. We had over 6,000 feet of climbing in 67 miles. My “ride gps” program said that we climbed 8 major peaks and some as steep as 15 % in spots with an average of 11 %. Under 3000 Ft is fairly easy, 4,000 takes more energy, 5,000 is serious, and anything over 6,000 is pure pain. We have three 6,000-foot days on this trip, the one today, tomorrow and a third in the Rockies.

We are camping in “The Breaks” tonight and is called the Grand Canyon of the Appalachians. Gorgeous scenery all day-to-day and especially here in camp.

It was raining so hard when we got to the campground that we decided to rent some rooms in the lodge and sleep on a real bed tonight. We even went to the lodge restaurant and had fried catfish, and baked potatoes with ice cream for dessert.

Today, Thursday, May 5th was a great day of bicycling. Only 60 miles, with half the hill-climbing that we have had so far, no head wind, a Subway sandwich place right at noon, no rain, and amazing beauty as we continued down the Appalachian mountains. We are camping at the Riverside Campground near Abingdon, Virginia tonight.

If you didn’t know we are bicycling a designated bicycle route called the “TransAmerica“. It was established by a bicycle association called, “ Adventure Cycling” in 1976. There are road signs along the entire route with “76” on them, check out the picture. It was planned and routed on mostly country roads often with no white or orange lines painted on them with minimal traffic. Again, check the picture. Because so many people have bicycled this route ever since the exact year I started Pastoring in Jefferson people along the route are very bicycle-friendly. People mowing their yards wave, campgrounds are extra accommodating and friendly, restaurants, and gas stations are all enthusiastic about meeting us and hearing our story.

We did’t have Wi-Fi where we were last night so this is the blog for May 4th, yesterday. Yesterday was a hard day of of bicycling. We road 67 miles with a bunch of rollers and hills and we also had a nasty headwind of 10 mph most of the day. I hate headwinds!

We camped at a Virginia State park last night called Racoon branch and we had a great camp fire for most of night.

When we get done with this ride I will have ridden my bicycle in every State in the Unitrd States, and I have ranked all the States on how bicycle-friendly they are.

Up until this trip I had ranked Florida as the best state to ride a bicycle in, but now Virginia has taken first place. It isn’t necessarily because they are friendly but everybody seems to know how to drive around bicycles. Bicycles are legal residents of the road with laws governing how to inhabit the same roads with them. The easiest way to understand those laws is to imagine a bicycle as a tractor pulling a plow. If you came up behind them you would wait until it was clear to go around them safely. You for sure wouldn’t pass when another car was coming in the other lane from the opposite direction. Every car that has passed me in the last four days in Virginia has slowed down, passed when it was clear, never passing when another car was coming from the opposite direction, and always passed at least three feet away from me. Nobody yelled, stomped on the gas when beside me, or any other rude things. I got lots of waves, honk honks, great conversation at stops, and camp grounds as people asked us about our trip. The worst State is Texas and Oregon is in the top ten of the worst States.

Some major relational principles in the Bible are, “always treat people the same way you want to be treated.” “

“Put others needs, interests, and values ahead of your own.”

“ Be patient, even if you are in a hurry

It seems that most of those in Virginia know those principles.

Everybody is doing good. No more wrecks or break downs yet. Dave who is doing the driving was unfamiliar on how to back a trailer so I have been backing it whenever there was a need, and in cramped campgrounds there is always the need to back the trailer. When we got into camp this afternoon Dave had already backed the trailer in the camping spot perfectly.

I and others have done long-distance bicycle ride for ten years now, and on everyone, we have scheduled rest days anywhere from every five days to once per week and one trip we did every ten days. But because I was in such a time crunch, we didn’t schedule any for this trip. My plan at the beginning of the planning for this trip was that we would rotate drivers of our support vehicle so that it would be rest enough with five bikers taking turns to drive. But Dave Kennedy volunteered to go along and be our designated driver. I decided I would take a rest day once a week and ride with Dave anyway. Otherwise, I would start getting too fatigued to enjoy the trip. Yesterday was such an energy-draining day, I decided to take a day off from riding today, and it has been refreshing. It was an excellent day to take off because we Just had a major thunderstorm that dumped a bunch of rain. When it rains here, it gets black quickly, then deafening thunder and lightning and then a deluge for 15 minutes, then it quits, and the sun comes out. And an hour or two later it does it again.

Cliff, Kathy, and Terri are still riding and will have about 70 miles done when they get into camp.

Today we road 51 miles so it was shorter than average, but I have never ridden a section of road that had as steep of hills as today did. Almost every hill was 8 to 10 percent incline, it was almost to steep to walk up in places, and believe me, I know because I did a lot of walking today, two miles anyway. The steep hills only lasted a couple hundred feet and then we would go down and then right back up. It was like a big giant roller coaster, up and down, up and down, it seemed like a hundred times we went up and then down. The ups were longer than the downs because we were climbing into the Appalachian mountains. It was extremely difficult biking today but amazingly beautiful. Most of the time we were riding under this big canopy of hardwood trees of every variety imaginable. In spite of the very high difficulty rating for today’s ride, I am feeling pretty good, no neck aches, shoulder aches, feet aches, hand aches, and just a little bit of butt hurt. My left knee is still very sore, but it only bothers me when I walk, it feels great while I am biking. Cliff is feeling good after has wreck Yesterday, but his right brake is still broke. We are going to take it to a bike shop that we will pass tomorrow and see if they can fix it.

We are camping at Montebello, Virginia tonight, way up in the Appalachian mountains and we have no cell service or WiFi so I will have to send this tomorrow.

One of the Scripture passages that came to mind today was Romans 1:19-20, “that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them, For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Today was an amazing display of God’s attributes, His power, and His nature. Only those who choose not to believe in God because they don’t want to be accountable to them could miss the obvious signs of His existence.

Eve

Last night we camped in Americamps in Ashland, Virginia and tonight we are camped at “Horseshoe Flats Campground,” in Scottsville, Virginia. The ladies rode 72 miles from camp to camp, Cliff had a wreck after 30 miles of riding and Dave came and picked him up and took him to camp and I hated to see him go by himself so I went with him. I wasn’t going to ride today but I felt much better when I got up so I did, but about the time Cliff had his wreck my knee was hurting pretty good so I quit with him. You are wanting to know about the wreck?

Cliff put some sun screen on and a little bit latter it got into his eyes, and while he was trying to get it out he hit a mailbox. He hit it with his right handlebar, and it knocked him to the ground. Kathy was riding behind him and ran over him. He broke his right brake and shifter on the bike, and he got a bunch of bumps and bruises. He has ice on one knee now, and he is trying to get some sympathy from me. The funny thing is that someone drove by and saw him on the ground and called 911 and reported a bicycle accident, and after he got up and bicycled to where I was waiting, two police cars came by with their lights on, and then an EMT rig and an ambulance. The EMT rig slowed down and asked us where the bike accident was, and we responded, “don’t know,” and it wasn’t until they came back by again with their lights and sirens still going that we figured out that it was Cliff they were looking for.

I have always said that as brothers, I was much more intelligent than him, and now there is proof!

Our campground tonight is right on the James River and is very beautiful.

We bicycled 72 miles today and 46 miles of it was on a paved bicycle trail. That means there were no cars and it was very beautiful. I am sorry that I didn’t get any pictures, I was having some cell phone problems today, mostly from poor planning getting it charged. Today was my first day of biking and about mile 50 I ran out of gas. So I decided to use my electric assist motor on my bike to help me out. There is a key that locks the battery on the bike because they are expensive and people steal them. I forgot to take the key off of my keyring with the pickup key which Dave had because he is driving the pickup, so I couldn’t put the charged battery on my bike. I called Dave who was already in camp and he said he would be glad to bring me the key. He came and I took the rings and took my bicycle key off and put the rest of the keys in my pocket and we took off on our bicycles for camp. It wasn’t long before Dave called and said he had no pickup keys. I assured him that I laid them on the passenger seat, so he looked diligently and couldn’t find them, so I reached into my pocket, and was I embarrassed🥵.

I am really feeling the results of the ride tonight and the worst thing is my left knee hurts really bad and is starting to swell noticeably. I am hoping that a good nights sleep will fix it, but if it is still in bad shape in the morning I will probably take the day off and ride in the pickup.

Well, speaking of sleep, I think I will hit the hay.

Well, day one started out different than we expected. We spent until about midnight working on our trailer in the parking lot of the Norfork Airport where Kathy and Terri flew into. We thought we had it fixed but drove one block and it was dragging on the road. We pulled into the parking lot of a “Dollar General,” and found a cheap motel close by. Dave drove us all to the motel and he went back and slept in the pick up so no one would break into the trailer and steal our bikes. We spent some time on the phone this morning, and found a welding shop only a mile away so we worked on the trailer some more and fixed it enough to limp into the shop. It was finally finished at 5:00 pm so we drove the distance we were supposed to bike today to our reserved campground. We are all ready for tomorrow and expect a good day of biking! We will see.

One of my mottos is to work “hard, but don’t get uptight with the unexpected. “ Another is, “life is too short to have even a single boring day, so enjoy the challenges, the unexpected, and the adventures!”