Meredith (my girlfriend) and I took a trip up to the Virginia Creeper Bike Trail last weekend. It’s about 35 miles downhill from Whitetop Mountain to Abingdon, VA, which is a quaint town surrounded by rolling hills that were once and still are used for farming
and cattle.
The drive up was fine, but I had spent the night before trying unsuccessfully to get this page synced up with my own domain, www.dannyclimber.com, so Meredith drove a good portion of the way. The town had many early 1900s buildings and the bike shop was one of the more prominent buildings right off the highway. Hanging our bikes from a trailer and borrowing some unwashed helmets, we took the shuttle through Damascus to White Top. Damascus was having a city wide rummage sale that took about 20 minutes to get through!
The trail and weather were beau
tiful and all downhill as you can see from the terrain map, but it still got a little tiring after three hours. There is an optional shuttle ride after about 15 miles, but what’s the fun in that? TI saw some geology, did some wheelies (about wiping out once), and enjoyed Meredith’s company. My bike is way to small now and my back was killing me when we were done, but I felt pretty well accomplished. I think it would be a great course to run for an ultra marathon. Uphill would be nuts.