It turned out we were too tired on Friday for the drive so we got up early on Saturday (5:30 a.m.) and drove the 3 hours to do the ride. We took our camping gear in case we decided to stay and camp Saturday night.
The Virginia Creeper trail is an old railroad line that has been converted into a bike trail. The entire trip is 46 miles round trip from Abingdon thru Damascus up to White Top Station. Most people get shuttled to the top and ride all the way back to Damascus.
We chose to start a little after Damascus and ride UP, eat a picnic lunch at White Top Station and then ride back down.
Most people just coast all of the way down as the entire trail is a hill. We found that we were actually going faster on our way up than most people went on the way down.
Our total mileage for the trip was 26.7 miles. We made it up in 2 hours. Lunch was hickory smoked tuna on crackers, fruit cups and trail mix. Coming down, we made it in 1 hour, passing over 100 people on the way. We had a max speed of 25 mph on our bikes coming down with an average of 12 mph for the trip (thanks to GPS tracking we know stuff like elevation gain, exact mileage and mph)!
We had a great time riding. The weather was overcast and a perfect temp. We were back at the car with bikes loaded by 2:30. It was starting to get humid and thunderstorms were threatening and we were pretty nasty, so we decided to drive on back to Charlotte.
We stopped at Outback Steakhouse on our way home. When we got out of our car, one of the To Go guys took one look at us and asked if we would be placing a To Go Order. Nope... we are dining in tonight :) Outback's tagline is No Rules, Just Right, so we should be able to come in dirty and sweaty to eat, right? Our ribs and chicken were awesome! You always appreciate a meal like that so much more when you have just come off the trail!
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