May 30th, 2025
Dear Diary,
Fuck... my legs are tired. I'm absolutely cooked and I'm going to feel today tomorrow. I may have bitten off more than I can chew this time. I thought I could do this, but now I'm not so sure. What I am sure of... is that I should have trained more with a loaded bike. These hills with a load are absolute ball-breakers... or would be if I actually had balls. Thank God I went with my lowest gear cassette, or I'd be pushing.
I'm only three days into the trip, so I'm not willing to give up yet. I made my fifty miles today, if barely, and if I can make at least fifty miles again tomorrow, I should be able to hold that pace all the way into Cherokee. If not... I have a few extra days built into the schedule, but I
NEED
fifty miles a day! I just need to average five miles an hour! Five! That's all! I can do that, even with a loaded bike! I know I can!
I sat in the opening
of my small, lightweight tent, blowing cool and nibbling at my reconstituted chicken and dumplings. I was on one of my bucket list rides, bikepacking the entire length of the Blueridge Parkway. I'd taken two weeks of vacation, driven down from DC, and was doing it.
The parkway was almost five hundred miles from its northern end at Rockfish Gap, Virginia, to its southern end in Cherokee, North Carolina. I wanted to average fifty miles a day to ensure I had enough time to complete the entire length, while leaving a couple of days at home to recover before I went back to work. That was a big ask with all the hills, but I'd been training for two years for this ride. I was three days into the ride and was averaging sixty-three miles a day. If I could hold that pace, I'd make it easily, but today the hills had humbled me. Knowing I had to, I'd started strong leaving Rockfish Gap. After the first day, just as I knew it would, my daily average had been steadily dropping as I made the climb into the mountains. Even though I'd pushed, almost to the point of chewing the handlebars, I'd only managed fifty-four miles today, and the climbs were only going to get tougher.
I was already in the pedal, eat, sleep grind, and despite my training, my legs were feeling the strain. I'd done a few long weekend bikepacking trips before, but this was my first truly ambitious journey. I'd selected the southbound route because it gave me a chance to work out any problem with my gear early, when the going was still easy. If I was going to run into trouble and have to bail, I wanted to know sooner rather than later, while I was still relatively close to home, plus as the ride got tougher, I was lightening the bike's load as I ate my food. Each dehydrated food packet didn't weigh much, but I'd found out today just how much every ounce added up. I also had a friend that lived in Asheville, and she was going to give me a ride back to my Jeep... assuming I made it all the way.
I scraped the edges of the food packet for every last morsel. I considered opening another pouch, but I had to ration my provisions. I'd packed enough, plus a little extra, for the entire trip, but not if I was wolfing down two meals at a time. I'd always been trim and athletic, and I was even more so now after two years of fairly hard training, but I was going to drop some additional pounds on this ride because there was no way I was taking in as many calories as I was consuming.
As I cleaned my spork and disposed of my trash, my damn hunger wouldn't go away, so I ripped open one of my calorie dense protein bars. Savoring the bar, and giving my body time to realize I'd eaten, the sun was nearly fully set as I popped the last of the bar into my mouth and washed it down with water. I wasn't what I'd call full, but at least I wasn't hungry anymore.
I couldn't ride in the morning before sunrise, or in the evening after sunset, for obvious reasons, but I wanted to be rolling as early as possible tomorrow, so I checked over my bike using my small flashlight. I'd rather know now, so I had the luxury of fixing it in the relative comfort of my campsite, that I had something in a tire, or there was a problem with the pedals, chain, or gear cassette.
After checking my bike and giving it a clean bill of health, I crawled into my tent, closed the fly, and stripped. The tent was so small it required some contortion, but I managed. This campground didn't have showers, so I used a cloth, dampened with the remainder of the water I'd collected for my meal, to bathe as much as I could. Mostly clean, and slightly less smelly, I packed away today's clothes before pulling out fresh for tomorrow. Now all I had to do in the morning was pour hot water into my breakfast pouch and eat it while I packed my tent and sleeping bag, and loaded the bike for the day's ride.
It was a typical muggy southern summer evening. It wasn't particularly hot, but I felt that if I grabbed two handfuls of air and twisted, I could wring water from it. I'd closed the fly for privacy while bathing and changing, but now I flipped it open again for more ventilation. As a soft breeze wafted through the mesh, I settled down on top of my lightweight sleeping bag in my sports bra and panties. I'd probably have to close the fly and snuggle into the bag later as the night chilled, but for now I was enjoying the cool breeze softly caressing my flesh.
I was getting drowsy when I heard the heavy thuds of a motorcycle putt-putting its way through the campsite in my direction. My eyelids heavy, I watched as the motorcycle, towing the smallest trailer I'd ever seen, pulled into the plot next to mine, the headlamp flashing my campsite as it circled. Lighting up someone else's tent with headlamps was considered bad form, but it had been only a moment, and my tent had privacy mesh to prevent anyone from easily seeing me. The motorcycle with two riders aboard idled for a bare moment before falling silent. As the riders dismounted, I lazily watched the man and woman.
"Goddammit," the man muttered as he pulled off his helmet. He wasn't being loud, but the slight breeze brought his words to me clearly.
"I said I was sorry," the woman replied, though her words didn't match her tone.
"Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that we're going to have to setup the tent in the dark." The man opened a small door on the side of the trailer and then flicked on a flashlight, keeping the beam pointed at the ground. "Hold this. Don't shine it in anyone's tent."
The woman took the light. "I don't know why you're being such an asshole. If you want any this weekend, I needed my pills."
"I don't know why you waited so late to get them. Shine the light here."
The woman directed the light where he indicated. "Because I didn't know we were doing this until the last moment."
"I told you a month ago."
"Yeah... and I forgot."
My drowsiness was disappearing as I watched the man disconnect the trailer from the motorcycle and then drop four legs, one at each corner of the trailer. He then lifted a corner and kicked the leg straight. He pointed at the corner and the woman shined the light there. He did the same at each corner before going around the trailer a second time, lifting the corner of the trailer, kicking the leg loose, adjusting the length, kicking it straight again, and then checking whatever was on the corner of the trailer. After inspecting what I could only assume was some type of level indicator, he either repeated the process or moved on to the next leg.
The man had obviously done that before because in less than ten minutes, he had the trailer as he wanted it. "Close enough," he grumbled.
As the woman followed him, pointing the light where he indicated, he worked latches, snaps, and poles, and soon enough the tiny trailer had been transformed into a large tent. The tent had an enclosed sitting area at the side of the trailer, and a raised sleeping platform positioned on the trailer proper, the extra length supported by four legs to make it strong and stable.
"Dammit," the man growled as the woman entered the tent. "What did I tell you about shoes in the tent?"
"Jesus Christ. Is all you're going to do is bitch?" the woman muttered as she stepped out of the tent.
"I told you, it's hard to get all the dirt out, and I don't want dirt in everything when I pack up the tent."
"Okay, fine, but you don't have to be such an asshole about it," the woman complained as she unbuckled her boots.
"You're the one who said you wanted to come along," the man replied, holding the flashlight as the woman removed a boot before stepping into the tent with her socked foot.
"Well excuse the fuck out of me if I wanted to spend time with you," she grumbled as she removed her other boot and reentered the tent, shoeless this time.
With the flashlight dancing crazily, I watched as the man bent and pulled something from beneath the bed where the trailer's cargo door was located. He flicked it on and hung it from the top of the tent. The lantern providing plenty of illumination, the flashlight disappeared. I continued to watch as the man and woman shrugged out of their jackets. The couple appeared to be ten to maybe fifteen years older than my own twenty-nine years, and though I couldn't tell that much about the man, other than he was tall and appeared to be powerfully built, it was easy to see the woman's two most obvious assets.
The man bent again before rising with a roll of foam that he spread on the sleeping platform. He bent a third time before two sleeping bags were tossed onto the sleeping deck and unrolled. After squatting a fourth time, two folding chairs appeared that the woman placed in the sitting area. As she was doing that, the man bent a final time before I heard the sounds of ice and water. Rising, he handed the woman a bottle.
"Thanks," she muttered as she accepted the beverage. She flopped into a chair. "Setting up didn't seem so bad. You made it sound like it was going to be a pain in the ass."
"Yeah... well... it helped that you were here to hold the flashlight," he rumbled as he sat in the second chair.
"So you're glad I came along?" the woman wheedled.
He took a pull from his bottle before he looked at her with a teasing smile. "I guess."
"You guess!" the woman cried softly in mock outrage. "If that's how you feel, I guess we didn't need to stop for my pills after all."
The man rumbled out a soft chuckle before taking another sip. "We'll see."
Closing my eyes, I listened to their good-natured sniping at each other as my drowsiness returned, the exhaustion from the day's ride slowly pulling me into the darkness of sleep.
