Starting just before 9 a.m., I rode up Thornton Gap and turned north on Skyline Drive, where the temperature was comfortable and the cloudline sometimes below me. To the west, the horizon beyond Luray was invisible, but the storm was still far enough that spots of sun shone on the mountains. By the time I reached Hogback, 10 miles north at 3500 feet, visibility was nil. Headlights of approaching cars appeared at a hundred yards. Still, the rain was intermittent.

At Front Royal, the streets were dry — for a moment. Another band dumped rain for about four minutes. I rode east on VA 55 into the wind, and turned south at Linden on one of my favorite strips, Fiery Run Road, which a mile in crosses the Appalachian Trail. It was 2 p.m., and the real hurricane was about to arrive. Rain started pouring as I crested the approach to Rattlesnake Mountain, blanketed by clouds, and dove into Fiery Run’s valley.

Reaching Hume and turning south on Leeds Manor, I finally had the wind with me! The rain backed off into a steady fall with heavy winds. I sailed all the way to Waterloo Bridge, the wood plank span over the Rappahannock, and turned west toward Amissville. I rode rollers through the forest from Viewtown to Scrabble, and turned north on the road out of Culpeper toward home. At my regular detour off US 522 onto Rudasill Mill Road, the Blue Ridge vista opened up — a vague, gray outline, but always a pleasure for stopping to take in the view.

The night was a howler, accompanied by another inch of rain. Far less than Washington got. At dawn, the wind calmed. In a little while, I caught a patch of blue breaking through. Irene had moved on.

The pics are here.

Big Meadows, Shenandoah National Park, on a summer day

After the hottest July on record, it seemed prudent to spend the first Saturday in August biking at elevation. Skyline Drive!

My theory was to ride from Sperryville over Thornton Gap to the Page Valley for the morning, then return in the afternoon via Swift Run Gap and the Drive. The beauty of riding with a map but no cue sheet is, theories change. After hugging the west side of the Blue Ridge for 10 miles, I hooked east at Kite Hollow and climbed the switchbacks of Red Gate Road — part paved, part gravel — for nearly six miles up to Skyline, and a different season.

With temps in the 70s, the ridge was enveloped in mist so thick that I got rained on under every tree, from the condensation dripping off the leaves. There was no visibility to the east, whence the winds blew, and only occasional peeks into the Page Valley as I made my way south from Big Meadows. Beautiful as it was, it was a little tedious: the fog took away the vistas, leaving me savoring only the pleasant temperature. So I descended at Swift Run Gap west to Elkton, rode across the South Fork of the Shenandoah, crossed again at the town of Shenandoah and continued east, hard by the range back toward Thornton Gap. Up top, the ridgeline was bathed in sun. But to the west, clouds were gathering for rain later in the afternoon. A hundred miles and change, averging 12.0 mph: It was a lovely afternoon for climbing.

The pics are here.

Willow Grove Mill near Luray, a piece of the "breadbasket of the Confederacy," burned by Union troops in October 1864

Heading east on Devils Half Acre Road

After several of us bailed on a two-day, 260-mile loop from Middletown to Monterey in the Virginia highlands because of temperature forecasts around 100, Joel Dechter invited me to join the Mutiny of the Wimps: a century circuit of Deep Creek Lake that Crista Borras figured was about 10,000 feet of climbing. The other attraction was the prospect of some relief from the heat dome in the lowlands.

Off we went, with Chuck Wood ferrying us and our bikes in his Dodge Caravan, to stay in a “cabin” up a hill from the lake, a major recreation attraction on the far edge of Maryland, 130 miles from D.C.

Sunday morning before 7, we rode into a heavy fog and quickly encountered showers on our Way to Friendsville, on the Youghiogheny River. On the way we fell down a hill on the approach at 48 to 52 mph — evidence of the biker’s truth: What comes down must go up.

There was a lot of up. Over the first six hours, we managed 52 miles, forcing us to consider a shortcut so as not to get back home at midnight on a school night. We clipped 13 miles off the planned route, sparking quick talk of a return in October to run the full course. Because having climbed only 8300 feet in 87 miles, we felt cheated.

The pics are here.

Bluegrass Valley, Highland County VA

To bike is to climb.

I’ve been biking since I was 5. I became a cyclist at 49, when I climbed 16 miles of Going to the Sun from the Avalanche campground to Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. Two summers later, I pedaled up Wolf Pass in the Wasatch, Rabbit Ears east of Steamboat Springs, and the 34-mile climb to the summit of Trail Ridge Road, in Rocky Mountain National Park, reaching the top with arms pumping – my “Rocky” moment.

Climbing requires all the skills developed before: focus, stamina, discipline, determination, steady breathing, and attention to the body’s signals and the world around. It is Zazen in motion.

The eight days of the Appalachian Adventure tour I shared with five friends in June was all about climbing. Our route between D.C. and the Tennessee border crossed the mountains and valleys of the Alleghenies of Virginia and West Virginia. The best of our countless ascents was on my 53rd birthday, June 21, the solstice: After 60 miles and two mountain passes, we challenged Potts Mountain, a 2000-foot rise over 5.3 miles one ridge east of West Virginia, in the heat of the afternoon. The plunge to Paint Bank was sweet, but we agreed that one-hour climb was the highlight of our tour.

Breakfast at the Lazy Fox Inn, Damascus: Dave, Crista, Joel, Chuck, Eduardo, Bennett

My 645-mile tour began in Roanoke, where Laurie drove Joel Dechter and me for our first day: a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway, then lunch and lollygagging in the festive town of Floyd, with its genial mix of hippies and farmers, followed by an afternoon of rollers to Hillsville, where we met Crista Borras, Eduardo Ruchelli and Dave Berning, who’d already been at it for days.

Day 2 covered 90 miles under some summer showers on a route passing Mt. Rogers, Virginia’s highest peak, to Damascus, a hiker/biker mecca a mile from the Tennessee line. Then we began what was for me a six-day, 485-mile return to Arlington. Nothing but hills – with a welcome tailwind pushing us.

In front of Crista, Chuck remounts the Ibis at Moorefield

Our leader was Crista. Laurie and I met her and her biking and life partner, Chuck Wood, four years ago, when we got off our bikes at the Laurel Mills store in Rappahannock County. We didn’t introduce ourselves, but we chatted, and I admired their pink-and-purple Ibis tandem – enough so that when I joined by first DC Randonneurs century ride four months later on New Year’s Day 2008, I remembered her bike. “I know you!” I exclaimed as she handed me the cue sheet.

Crista is DCR’s godmother, or at least she’s mine. She and Chuck invite the club to join them for century rides nearly every weekend, often both days. A more generous spirit I do not know. Crista crafts the cue sheets, plotting rest stops and lunches in out-of-the-way pizza joints, and noting every gravel-covered turn and railroad crossing.

For the annual two-week tours she and Chuck lead, she spares no detail. Appropriate lodging. Hours of the restaurants. Detours around busy highways. Consideration for the terrain in planning each day’s distance. All her companions have to do is show up, and all she asks of us is to share the joy of the journey. That we do.

Three years ago I joined Crista, Chuck and Eduardo for a similar Appalachian tour – for about 15 minutes. Meeting them in Harper’s Ferry after our first day out, I crashed three miles into the second morning, and spent the next eight weeks recovering from shoulder surgery.

For the 2011 edition, Chuck was nursing a riding injury, so Eduardo took up Chuck’s captain duties on the Ibis. But Chuck was still there most of the time, and for the five days from Damascus, he carried our panniers, meeting us each evening at the hotel, and seeing us off in the morning. Chuck, we want you back, but we could get used to having a SAG!

Paint Bank General Store, Depot Lodge, and our house, against Peters Mountain

That fourth day that included Potts Mountain ran from Dublin to Paint Bank, a former railroad crossing now a tiny resort with a general store and the Depot Lodge. Somebody figured out that an isolated valley between two 3000-plus-foot ridges along a rushing stream would make a pleasant vacation spot. There’s not a great deal to do there, which is the point, I think. We arrived in mid-afternoon and took up residence in a two-bedroom house next to the lodge and a refashioned caboose. That evening, a thunderstorm roared through as we sat in the lodge’s common room.

Day 7 was our most challenging: 78 miles from Moorefield to Inwood, West Virginia. Right outside Moorefield, we began climbing multiple nine-percent grades on old Route 55, which has been replaced for truck traffic by the new express 55, one of the many monuments to Robert Byrd’s tenure as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Dear American taxpayer: We thank you for diverting the trucks. Then out of Wardensville, we climbed Great North Mountain (where the old 55 remains the only highway) across the Virginia line. On the descent the Ibis passed me going 55. Whoosh! I was sustaining only 35 or 40. After lunch, we pushed over countless hills – no more mountains – another 40 miles, to our last evening together in Inwood. After dinner, Eduardo, Joel, Crista and Chuck drove home, while Dave and I shared a last night before we took separate routes to our respective sides of the Potomac outside D.C.

That final morning, Snickers Gap, up Route 7 over the Blue Ridge, felt like a molehill. I made a brief stop at the end of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail in Purcellville, where the racing guys were gathered to exchange notes on the morning. I scurried down the trail, arriving home sweet home just after noon, 80 miles from the day’s start, to the best meal since I’d left, courtesy of my resident chef Laurie, a pleasing coda to this year’s Chuck & Crista tour.

I can hardly wait for the next one.

The Flickr album is here, including a bunch of those historical markers you always pass without reading.

Lower Cove Road, east of Lost City, West Virginia

A variation on the 200km “Gappity Gap,” my Gappity Lap is shaped like a spoon. The tip of the short handle is Sperryville, and the edge of the spoon is Lost City, West Virginia. I don’t much care for out-and-backs. I like the climbing, though — up to a point.

I rode out of “downtown” Sperryville on the last Saturday morning in May under perfect weather: warm, but with patchy clouds to keep the heat modest. I took the generally prescribed route: over Thornton Gap, through Luray, over Edith Gap and Edinburg Gap on the twin Massanutten ranges, to a pit stop at Columbia Furnace, and finally up Stony Creek approaching Wolf Gap on the West Virginia line. This is where my route departed — and where my real work began. Short of the summit, I turned left onto the hardpack Sam Clark and Judge Rye roads, taking an hour or so to cover five miles, as the endless switchbacks rise to 3100 feet, just below the summit of Devil’s Hole Mountain, along the line between the Old Dominion and the Mountain State. Pavement finally returns well into the descent on Lower Cove Road, which ends at the hamlet of Lost City.

Turning south, I pedaled over gentle rollers until Route 259 meets Capon Run, the two easing down and through Brock’s Gap and its landmark granite wall, which cleave Little North Mountain on the west side of Shenandoah Valley. Which is remarkably flat, considering the ridges and rollers on either side. A nice respite before the two climbs over the final two hours: New Market Gap on Massanutten’s single ridge, and a second go at Thornton Gap. That last 3.8-mile climb, after 113 miles of pedaling, brings its reward: the swift seven-mile fall back into Sperryville.

The slideshow is here.

Shenandoah Valley, from Judge Rye Road, on the Va./W.Va. line

Buck Mountain

One of my favorite loops from Sperryville takes me to Charlottesville for lunch. Permanista Crista always wants route names; we settled on Buck Mountain Meander, after the prominent molehill in the northwest of Albemarle County.

Bacon Hollow, Greene County

Perfect weather for photos, if not for everyone’s idea of biking. An overnight rain gave way to breaking clouds as I pushed off from Sperryville on a Sunday morning about 9:30. I figured that barometric unsteadiness would bring thunderstorms in the afternoon. I caught some showers as soon as I left Charlottesville, but dodged the thunder. The hanging clouds, combined with the luminescent green of mid-May, evoked a smile around every turn.

Or the occasional melancholy. Up by the Blue Ridge in a corner of Albemarle are the abandoned villages of Boonesville and Nortonsville, now only names on a map and white-

Echo of Nortonsville

on-green signs on a country road. The same scene plays out all over rural Virginia and rural America: entropy everywhere, if you’re moving slowly enough to observe. For example, along one creek, the two sides of stone foundations for a bridge, except no evidence of the bridge itself. The wood washed away long ago, and the roadway was moved to a nearby hilltop. At 16 miles an hour over nine hours, you can see a lot of ghosts.

The photostream is here. The route is here.

The dogwoods are blooming.

Sperryville for the weekend. While my DCR buddies were biking my “home course,” the Old Rag 200K, I spent Saturday morning napping. I recovered in the afternoon, as did the weather, for a jaunt on one of my favorite loops: Gid Brown Hollow, which runs off US 211 to the edge of Shennandoah Park below Hogback Mountain, before horseshoe-ing back to Washington on Harris Hollow Road beside the Rush River, headwatered along the now-closed trail to Big Devil Stairs. Everywhere on the edge of the woods, the dogwoods exploded in color against the hardwoods whose pale leaves are just shooting.

A descent on Quaintance Road

From Washington, I headed southwest on Rock Mills and Rudasill Mill to Woodville, for a path I’d never traversed: Quaintance Road, west of the hamlet running to Slate Mills, a hardpack that is sublime in its isolation. Even for Rappahannock County, there few signs of man in this little valley along a Hazel River tributary. A couple of barns, a few more cattle, but mostly open fields and forested hillsides. I had avoided Quaintance because of the gravel, but it’s quite comfortable on most tires, and the scenery is a four-mile smile [link embed here]. 

 From Slate Mills Road, I finally caught a tailwind, sailing back to Sperryville.

For Sunday, I front-loaded a century. There are no flat routes out of the Virginia piedmont, but I wanted something special. The highlight was my first ride up Fiery Run Road. I began speculating about Fiery Run with Crista Borras

A distant cherry blossom marks the road above Fiery Run

several months ago, as we exchanged navigation notes on the permanent “We Can See Clearly Now.” Crista said she was unfamiliar with it. A road Crista doesn’t know? Fiery Run is spectacular. From the south at Hume Road, there is a stiff climb and then descent into the valley through which Fiery Run flows. The road dips the base of Rattlesnake Mountain, a 2,000-foot peak due east of Chester Gap, and then rises over Rattlesnake’s ridge, where a 1.3-mile hardpack of rollers presents no real trouble for larger tires. At the pavement, go left at Harrels Run Road for the descent to Linden, on VA 55.

The next hill was Naked Mountain, riding up Leeds Manor Road from Markham, northeast to US 17 near Sky Meadows, followed by Paris and the long climb from Ashby Gap to the top of Mount Weather, on an 11-mile stretch that plunges into Snicker’s Gap.

Forty-eight miles into the century, the work was done. All that was left was the glide to Round Hill and the cruise to Arlington on the WOD trail.

Near Tuscarora, Frederick County, Maryland

It’s still frigid, and snow covers the ground. From appearance, the plants remain dormant. But the sun is stronger. And over the next three months, the days will rapidly lengthen as the earth’s rotation takes it past the equinox, now five weeks away.

So before bidding this longer winter adieu, I took a long look at nature’s quiet period.

C&O Canal Towpath on the Monocacy Aqueduct

On a century ride, I crossed the Potomac and rode northwest straight into fierce winter winds for 30 miles, from Darnestown to Point of Rocks to Lovettsville, before finally turning southeast for the 50 miles back to Arlington through Waterford and down the Washington and Old Dominion Trail.

I felt out of shape, and I am: I hadn’t spent a full day on the bike since New Year’s. But spring is near: prime time for cycling.

The Potomac from Chain Bridge

As we told our waiter at dinner on the stopover night in Charlotte-Amalie, ice is not only what you put in a glass of rum, it’s the stuff they wash off the plane so it can fly to the Caribbean.

After taking the 25-minute ferry from Red Hood to Cruz Bay, we drove from the west side of St. John over the volcano to the East End. Two years ago, the first time I was charged with playing chauffeur for our party of four with friends Bob and Lavona, I was drained from the harrowing experience of driving at the edge of a cliff on the left side, even though all the cars are U.S.-style, left-side steering. This time I had adjusted, with the little help from my passengers occasionally admonishing, “Left side, left side.”

Points of View sits on a ridge above the ocean on one side and Coral Bay on the other. It’s a sublime spot to just sit and capture images, sun up to sun down.

My highlight was a morning 10-mile hike from POV to the village of Coral Bay and back. I have imagined biking the 10 hills, some pitched at up to 30 percent. I’ve seen a couple of bikers do it, including a guy with long white hair and beard. But I was satisfied to walk/jog the twisting road, stopping to take pictures and memorize the views.

Otherwise, our daily agenda was wake, eat, snorkel, read, nap, cook, sleep, repeat. We traveled no farther from base than the national park on the north side of the island and the coves in between in search of good snorkeling.

We could get used to this. I’d settle for a week every January.

The five-hour, eight-mile loop is part cardio, part weights, part long walk downhill. Which means you can generate enough heat to stay comfortable on a 25-degree day, provided you’re working. That long walk isn’t much work though.

Ah well, it’s a lot more comfortable than climbing Mt. Washington in February, right Mr. Campbell?

The pics: Old Rag