Day 13: Elk Garden to Breaks: Joy the Mechanic!

May 23, 2006

I was on my way pretty quickly in the morning since everything had been packed the night before. A long climb into Council convinced me I'd made the right decision to stay at Elk Garden, and just after Council, I ran into fellow CrazyGuy Hans and traded accommodation info with him.

memorial to an ancestor of the librarian at Hayters Gap (Why aren't there more random memorials to Native Americans who got killed--the only reason this guy gets a plaque is because an Indian killed him...)

I'm gonna need some MooMoo cow juice to get me up this climb

Council City Park--didn't stay here, but it's a great place for such a small town

Council Pool--I was still wearing a jacket when I came through, but if it's hotter when you do, this might be nice!

If you lost a license plate, hubcap, or political sign, it might be here...

A couple more tiring climbs (sensing a theme?) and I was at Breaks Interstate park on the VA/KY border where I met a hillbilly running the campground--told me Ben and Jonathan and I couldn't all share the same campsite like we'd planned to to save money. He was just condescending and annoying, taking great pleasure in telling me I had to bike UP a hill to my campsite, and when I asked him how late he'd be there (knowing Ben and Jonathan wouldn't be in for a couple of hours), I couldn't figure out if he'd said "seven" or "eleven". Turns out "eben" means "eleven."

Guess what? This was at the top of ANOTHER hill!

As I was finishing my shower and laundry and thinking about looking around the park, Ben came rolling in and said Jonathan had broken a spoke. Drive side, of course, and the boys didn't know they needed special tools to reinstall a regular spoke on that side. Joy to the rescue, though, with her extra fiber-fix spoke that doesn't need those tools. We worked for hours on that wheel.

Joy attempting to replace a spoke on Jonathan's rear wheel (drive side, of course) with a FiberFix spoke.

After I got it true enough so it wouldn't rub on the brakes, I gave up--there was so much tension on some of his spokes that I thought his wheel might explode, but Ben worked on it more after I showed him what I was doing and got the wheel trued pretty well (update: Jonathan has broken another spoke on that wheel--he had the first replaced at a bike shop, and although the shop got the wheel true, it doesn't sound like they spent much time adjusting the tension all the way around, so I'm not surprised he broke another one...)

Then it was time for dinner and bed...exploring would have to wait for morning.

Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 559 miles (900 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0