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Day 47 – Wytheville to Daleville

Posted by Alan on Fri, 23rd Jul, 2010.
Filed under: Virginia

Fri 23rd July 2010

Today we finally cycled through the 4,000 mile barrier to clock 4,011 miles by the end of the day. That leaves just 330 miles to Yorktown which we know is not far but after 47 days of cycling it’s far enough!

Today has been a hot one, probably the hottest day so far with temperatures reaching 96 degrees F. It was humid as well making it feel uncomfortable and clammy (soaking actually). To make it worse, today was full of short sharp hills making it the third highest daily climbing total of the whole ride. On top of that we had to cycle an extra 20 miles further than planned to reach Daleville because the B&B in Catawba was closed.

We've had mountains either side of us as we cycled along the valley

The New River at Radford

If the weather and terrain weren’t enough Chris and I lost each other today. I was in front and turned right at a bridge. I waited until Chris was half way across and certain he’d seen me I then carried on. He didn’t see me and went straight on for about 4 miles. I also cycled on for 4 or 5 miles and waited for Chris at the next turn and waited and waited but no sign of Chris. Luckily, for the first time on the ride, both our phones had a signal and we were able to speak but had problems working out where we had gone wrong and where we were relative to each other. Anyway we lost an hour because of this and did get back together. Thank goodness the phones worked and that the route is signed well in Virginia.

The TransAm route is well signed in Virginia. The 76 represents the year it was first ridden.

So it’s been a fun day and lots of the route had little shade to keep us cool but on the plus side the scenery was great for most of the day. Just before we reached Catawba a thunder storm passed over us and soaked us briefly. That was just wonderful but it was soon gone and replaced by scorching heat.

The store in Catawba was a welcome stop to fill our empty water bottles

We reached Daleville at about 4:30pm which was later than we wanted to finish but at least we have a very short day tomorrow of about 50 miles and the forecast is 97F. Today has made us feel tired and washed out so we ate at a restaurant that had a seafood buffet (as much as you can eat) for $10, so we are now very full as well.

Daily Mileage -91.4 miles

Time in Saddle -7 hrs 48 mins

Total Climbing – 5,671 ft