May 8, 2017
It's All Part of the Adventure
A long day with a stressful end, plus camping next to a rushing river, equals deep and luxurious sleep. But as soon as I'm awake my mind cranks to life, powered by what-ifs. I'd like to be one of those people that say things like, "It's okay! We'll get it fixed! It's all part of the adventure!" But I've been in this position before. I know too much.
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I know that not only is the derailleur trashed, but that the bolt holding it in place won't come loose without a fight. At best it's just stuck. But it might be cross-threaded. If that's case, it could split apart and leave a little chunk of metal behind in the dropout, which a small-town bike shop might not be able to remove. Or it could strip the dropout threads entirely, meaning the dropout would have to be rethreaded, which a small-town bike shop also might not be able to do. If it has to be rethreaded, I have no idea if a larger-sized bolt will work with whatever new derailleur the shop says it has for us. Or it could simply break the metal of the dropout and ruin the frame entirely. So many wonderful possibilities.
Then there's the chain. If the shop can piece back together the bits we took out yesterday, we're golden. But if we need a new chain, then we'll also need a new cassette, because the current cassette is old, and pairing a new chain with it would lead to terrible skipping whenever Kristen started cranking hard up a hill. We've got more than a few of those ahead of us. But of course Kristen is running an eight-speed cassette, which is nowhere near as common as a nine or ten or eleven. Most small-town bike shops won't have one of those either. Lastly, there's the spoke on the rear wheel that bent when the broken derailleur was shoved into it. That's the only simple fix.
At least it's a beautiful morning.
But knowing we'll have to rely on one small-town bike shop eats at me. It's not hard to imagine a situation where we're stuck there in a cheap motel for four days waiting for parts to arrive. We've been in that spot twice before, both times when we broke down in rural Australia where the nearest shop was hundreds of miles away. I know that about seventy miles west of here is Damascus, a small town that sits at the junction of the Appalachian Trail and one of the country's most popular rail trails. If we can get there, we'll have four or five shops to choose from. If something goes sideways, we'll have options. And if we end up stuck somewhere for two or three days, I'd rather be in Damascus than anywhere else out here.
I pull to a stop next to Kristen.
"So I had I thought," I tell her. "I think there's a better chance to get your bike fixed in Damascus."
I explain all the reasons why.
"I think we might be able to ride there. It's all rolling hills. You can probably get up most of them because you're in your third-lowest gear; somehow we managed to get the chain the exact right length last night. You might have to walk the steepest parts, but we don't ride much faster than that anyway. Then you can coast down the backs of the hills."
She's willing to give it a shot. We agree that I'll take as much weight off her bike as I can, which should make that third-lowest gear feel more like the second lowest in comparison. There's hardly any flat ground out here, so there shouldn't be much furious five mile per hour leg spinning.
We stock up on chid in Ivanhoe at a place with a handmade sign called Robin's Git-N-Go. They don't sell coffee and only take cash. I'm almost certain it's a front for weed or opioids or moonshine. Then we're off, down old dirt roads I imagine no bicycle tourist has ever traveled. The edges are lined with little flowers of a brilliant purple. Beyond, a wide creek rushes and swirls over the smooth rocks that stand in its path.
Within a few miles it turns paved. The signs tell us it's a Virginia Byway. I call it a dream, a gift, a joy. It's a place of one-lane bridges, cats of orange and black looking for mice in the tall grass, and trucks with red and white license plates that say FARM USE. The hills shoot up toward the sky at impossible angles. We pass a cemetery built into one of the steep slopes, where all of the old headstones tilt left and down toward the road.
We're in good spirits. I'm braced for bad news when we get to a bike shop, but that won't be today, so there's no sense worrying too much now. We revel in the beauty, the isolation, the peace.
Riding along the gentle twists and bends of Cripple Creek I wonder to myself, Has any woman ever ridden a loaded single speed bicycle out here? When the road turns too steep, Kristen has to get off and push, but that doesn't happen often. We're slower than we would have been without the mechanical problems, but it's not like we would have been blazing over these hills anyway. So far our plan is working.
We rejoin the TransAm at Cedar Springs and push on to Sugar Grove. The hills are relentless. They might stay that way until Kansas. Every time I think about that I just kind of stare off into the distance with a vacant expression on my face and dead eyes.
I try not to think about it.
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Surprise of all surprises: beyond Sugar Grove we ride into the hills. Only these ones are big and grand and they bring us up into the mountains of the Jefferson National Forest. It's one last climb of more than a thousand feet toward Troutdale, where we plan to spend the night. Our legs are tired, but our minds are motivated. We practice our Chewbacca impressions as we go.
All the cranking and focus and wookiee sounds work. We push our bikes up the longest driveway in the world and end up at a tiny hostel run by a Baptist church. It's here for all the AT hikers, but bikers can use it too. The appeal of shacking up with a bunch of bearded dudes rocking six weeks worth of baked-in body stank is low, so we set up the tent under a pavilion far enough away that the only terrible smells are our own.
Okay, my own.
It's cold up at 3,000 feet with the sun setting and the wind gusting and surging. Inside the tent, I tell Kristen over and over again how proud I am of her. She just pedaled fifty miles up more than 3,000 feet of elevation on a loaded bike with exactly one working gear. What an absolute beast.
I also shake my head when I think about what an absolute surprise it is to have ended up here. It would have been inconceivable when we woke up this morning. But the challenge of traveling in this way brings out the best in us. We end up in places we never wanted to go, then find experiences that forever alter who we are. We become broken, then wander the crooked path of rebuilding. We despair, then prevail.
It's all part of the adventure.
Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 480 miles (772 km)
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6 years ago