Blue Ridge Parkway Bike Tour: Part 2

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BRP Bike Tour Part 1 - https://youtu.be/hjKwuW2YTBQ

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Tags: Bike Tour,Bikepacking,Blue Ridge Parkway,Surly ECR,Surly Ogre,Zpacks Duplex,Adventure,AT,Appalachian Trail,AT Thru Hike,Blue Ridge Mountains,Mountains to Sea Trail,National Park System,Smoky Mountains NP,UL Hiking

Video Transcription

it is Monday morning and the parkway is beautiful no more rain no more fog no more wind and the temperatures rose about double of what it was yesterday it's about 64 degrees right now so pretty nice so the plan today is to do just under 50 just to try to make up what we lost yesterday so from here on out really just looking to do like average 30 miles a day and that's really the beauty of doing something like a bike tour it's just can just kind of take our time and we don't have anywhere to be no no it's just different from hiking you know like whether I do 30 or 50 or whatever last night we pretty much only did 17 and then took the rest of day off cuz it was gross just out here to have fun out here to ride the whole Parkway but also just to have fun [Music]

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it's the great thing about the parkway are sometimes there are these little bitty like stop offs this is the North West Trading Post so inside it's essentially like a bunch of arts and crafts and gifts for people's houses but they also have snacks and cookies and candy and they make sandwiches here so pretty cool good place to take a afternoon break

a lot of clients for the end of the day good morning it is day 9 and we just woke up and we are leaving this place that we stayed last night which is Miller's campground the check-in building behind me that's Naugles and there are the campsites way up in there bunch of RVs but there are some really nice tent sites it's really cool because it's right here on the BRP but the mountains to see trail which is a long distance trail it's about 1,100 miles that goes all the way through North Carolina also crosses like right here basically and like the front yard of this place so pretty cool it's been here for a long time it's really really nice the people who were really nice and yeah it was nice don't really know what type of mileage that we're gonna do today but I do know that within the first 20 miles we will be crossing into Virginia and we'll be done with North Carolina so time to go [Music]

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shame that people want to carve their name and stuff like this [Music]

Snickers and I have been waiting for this section of the Blue Ridge Parkway ever since we started it's just nice cruzi flat and the roads not chip sealed it's nice smooth pavement amazing

we have made it to Virginia [Music]

we got a bit of a late start this morning because of a tire problem that snuggles had on our bike but we are finally on the road and rolling it is crazy crazy windy today and the plan is to try to put in our biggest day yet so we can get really close to Roanoke and then tomorrow we'll be going into Roanoke into Daleville which is just outside of Roanoke to stay with our friend rube that we hiked the 80 with back in 15 and we just stopped off this really cool place that rube let us know about called the Mayberry Trading Post it's here in Mayberry Virginia this little bitty old old school general store that was built like back in the 1800s and it's just so cool on the inside

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today has been a pretty tough day that's weird because today's terrain has probably been some of the flattest terrain of the entire Blue Ridge so far but because of all the chip seal and the headwind and the restless' stuff it's been tough so we're about 45 miles for the day I'm planning on doing 50 we were planning on doing 60 but we are whooped so we stopped here SmartView picnic area which is awesome super awesome place I wish this is where we were stopping for the night because it would be a great place to camp but Lee's filled up on some water while we still can

because we don't know if there's gonna be water where we're gonna stop tonight so the day before yesterday we ended up riding to milepost 122 which is Roanoke Virginia and luckily we have a really good friend that lives here mister group that we hiked the 80 with in 2015 and we decided to take a day off so we had a routes house when did a couple things around Roanoke took care of some errands worked on the bikes and now we are headed back to milepost 120 to finish out the last 20 miles so we should have about three days left I think we're gonna just kind of shorten our days a little bit probably end up doing like 40s we felt real good we might push it a little bit more but this last 120 miles starts to get pretty hilly again kind of like the beginning of the parkway so we'll see what happens it's really awesome taking a day off and run up and hanging out with Ruth and he's actually going to ride out like 20 miles with us so we're gonna get him a grant get him out here get him active he's insanely active yeah he has rode the Parkway one and a half times and he's actually currently walking the Blue Ridge Parkway so he is working on like a thru-hike of the whole Blue Ridge which is pretty awesome so rude just rode up with us to milepost 100 and then seen us off he's got about 20 miles back to the truck and he's going home we have a hundred miles left and thanks so much roof for letting us stay riding with us today I'm just being awesome thank you so one really cool thing about leaving Roanoke today and right near the hundred mile mark is we are right next to the Appalachian Trail this is about the first time that the 80 crosses are comes right next to the Blue Ridge Parkway and we were here in 2015 and we hiked down that trail on our way to Maine so pretty cool

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we ended up doing 45 miles today the plan was just to do 40s for the last three days but that's sort of just what happens sometimes so we found this cool little camp spot on this like right off to the side of a fire service road which is really cool because right over here is the Appalachian Trail it literally runs like right next to this fire service road so technically we're like camped on the 80 which is pretty cool snuggles is uh outside eating dinner and I'm already relaxing in the tent because I'm still pretty full we ended up stopping up at the peaks of otter which was about 34 miles in today we decided to do 34 before we stopped for lunch we stopped about 1:30 and they had an all you could eat buffet at the peaks of otter so we went ahead and took advantage of that so the important lesson to be learned from eating a buffet and then having like 10 more miles to do as you get the food sweats and then the old stomach doesn't feel so good so that's why I'm laying in the tent and not eating ramen because pretty much done for the evening we are right at the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia so the highest point in Virginia which is right at like 4,000 feet and tomorrow morning we got a big descent down to the James River and a big climb back out so it's getting dark it's windy it's getting cold it's time to put all into my quilt and hit the hay good morning it got really windy and really really cold last night so snows and I are having hard time getting out of the tent Sun finally came up so we're wrapping up I'm gonna make our move it's really cold we're hoping that once we drop down an elevational that it's gonna warm up [Music]

so we just got done doing it in an insane descent down to the lowest point of the parkway which is the James River we actually crossed the James River on the 80 in 2015 there's a really famous footbridge and a lot of hikers jump off into the river but uh yeah pretty frozen luckily we'll be able to go into a nice big climb here in a minute and start warming back up stopped here for a second and sucking up some Sun before we start making this client [Music]

so far this morning's been pretty good Bardia twenty-five miles and it's only 11 a.m. a lot of climbing after leaving the James River but it's been pretty gradual nothing too insane steep I'm a little bit ahead of snuggles but uh should be catching up here any second the plan was to just do 40 today really just to do 40 for the last three days that we're out here but yesterday we did a 44 or 45 and by the time we get done with 40 today I think it's going to be pretty early so we might just go ahead and push it and see where it gets us that way tomorrow we have a really small day into Waynesboro the end [Music]

it's a really awesome old vlogging railroad bed that they've like converted into a bridge he's got that super awesome waterfall going under it full of places like this on the Parkway so today ended up not really working out as we planned we had to do 50 miles because there wasn't really any place to camp it is really really cold so our plan was to get into this little gap at about 49 miles and they're supposed to be like a little bed and breakfast or something and we just figured screw it we're gonna stay it's way too cold a night to be out here and there's nothing really between you know where we started today all the way to Waynesboro and the bed-and-breakfast has a bunch of rooms available but apparently none of them are clean so we couldn't stay so we ended up writing another mile up the parkway we're just past mile post 27 so we're probably like 26 and a half and we are here at a little stealth spot on the side of this hill it's not very stealthy there's actually a parking lot right down from where I tent set and there's already been a bunch of people that have walked up here and looked at us like we were crazy homeless people so hopefully we don't get a ticket tonight but there is no other option there's nothing else around here to camp at so this is gonna have to do temperature is probably gonna drop pretty low tonight so it should be interesting we should be pretty pretty damn cold I have a nice view though the only good thing is tomorrow we'll only have like 26 miles until we are done in Waynesboro we're gonna eat some Chinese and probably get a room for the night [Music]

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so it is Monday morning and we just left camp broke down camp a little bit later but it is a lot warmer this morning than yesterday morning and it's not that windy actually there's no wind right now which is awesome we only have like 26 or 27 miles until we hit Waynesboro in the Shenandoah which means today we finish the parkway yay time to do it

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but he's excited [Music]

[Laughter]

after 469 miles we are finally done Blue Ridge Parkway Bowie Cherokee North Carolina to rockfish gap Waynesboro Virginia the Smoky Mountain National Park to the Shenandoah National Park [Music]

[Applause]

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