Take Me Home, Country Road.......

Almost Heaven, western Virginia. For whatever reason, as soon as I see a sign that says "Shenendoah River" I immediately start singing the classic John Denver tune.

It was no different on Monday, when I headed out with some friends after the Luray Triathlon to do an "84-mile ride" in the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains.

After volunteering for the sprint distance race on Sunday, we were rested up and ready to do a long ride. We slept in, had a hearty breakfast and were rolling at 10:30 on a glorious Monday morning.

We started out at our cabin, the Absolute Perfect Escape #3, and headed towards the first climb of the day, Massanutten Mountain. What I didn't know until it was too late, is that Massanutten Mountain is a ski resort!

Massanutten is almost 3000ft of continuous vertical climbing. It's a beautiful climb opposite the Shenandoah River and facing Skyline Drive. The climb was reminiscent of some of my France climbs....the grade was continuous, even, and neverending! I kept hoping that each bend in the road would allow for a small respite of level grade, but no, it just kept going, and going, and going!


The descent was great too, easy switchbacks with only one or two hairpin turns. And then we leveled out onto the valley floor, and the four of us, me, Mike, Ken and Jean, headed off at a good clip towards Front Royal. Jean voiced what I had been thinking--there is not a better way to spend a Monday!


At one point, I dropped my chain and we had to stop. Good thing, as it turns out, after consulting the cue sheet, we were not on course. But, fortunately, there was a kind old man sitting out on his veranda, who pointed us back in the right direction.

As the miles and hours ticked on, Jean and I realized that the leisurely ride through the valley road was ending, and we were about to hit Skyline Drive. Now, I've ridden Skyline Drive twice before, but never after having already logged 50 miles. As Jean put it, at least we were sufficiently warmed up!

Skyline was a beautiful as I'd remembered (I had just ridden it back Memorial Day) and the hills just as long. But by the time we got 25 miles into the park, and stopped at Elk's Wallow, I was done. My body was continuously hungry, and I was starting to cramp. I didn't want to know how much further we had to go, I just knew I was about ready for it to end.

We left Elk's Wallow as a group, the boys pushing the pace a little bit, but I was so happy when we finally turned off Skyline and headed on the 9 mile descent into Luray. It was a busy road, but wide and we were able to take full advantage of the descent. It was glorious! Of course, as we descended from the top of the Blue Ridge, the temperature continued to warm, and once we landed in the backside of Luray, I saw with dismay that the Bank sign read 94 degrees! It was after 5pm, and I was beat.

The hardest part of the whole ride was the 12 miles back to the cabin. It was definitely a mental challenge for me to keep going. But I knew that the faster we rode, the sooner we'd be done.

This map shows most of our ride. We started 12 miles outside of Luray (not Front Royal) and it doesn't include the part from our cabin to the base of Massanutten and back, which made it round out to a full 100 miles, 7hours, and over 5000 calories!