52 miles, Natural Bridge, VA, to Elliston, VA
To me, balance is the key to contentment. My best days are always those with a good balance – of rest, social interaction, time with family, productive time, creativity, peace, adventure.
So far, most days on this 70-day xUS bike trip have not been balanced. Every day has been lopsided with either mostly riding or mostly work, either dozens of miles of heavy traffic or hours of empty roads (that I don’t mind).
Finally, today, Day 13, was a day of ideal balance.
I slept in for a change, till 7 a.m., then put in 2 hours of work. I headed out at 10 a.m. from Natural Bridge. Four miles down the road was Natural Bridge Park, featuring the requisite tourist ripoff gift shop with a door out back to walk down to the Natural Bridge. It’s a 215-foot high rock formation, 500 million years old, a remarkable work of nature, impossible to do justice in photos, but here you go, views from both sides.
From Natural Bridge I rode along Route 11 south through a cute little town called Troutville. Lots of good fishing spots, as you’d expect.
But the highlight of Troutville was that I came across my first fellow xUS cyclists! I passed them at first cruising through downtown Troutville, then circled back. We commiserated on the Virginia hills, the wind, carrying weight, food, and other distance cycling issues. You can follow their trip on Inta, @joyrideacrossamerica.
It was wonderful to share some of the challenges of distance riding with others going through the same things (e.g. sore behinds all around).
Today’s ride was also a good balance of hills, some flat (-ish) roads, some rural country lanes and heavy city traffic as I passed through Roanoke. Even the wind played along, little gusts here and there, but a decent balance of low breeze and direction change. Sometimes it even helped me out.
A day of balance: some morning work, a little tourism, a decent ride, and met some new friends.
That is a good day.