Day 83 – Mineral, Virginia to Mechanicsville, Virginia

Getting Closer to the Coast

I was up just after 6:00 on Tuesday at the fire station in Mineral, waking up often during the night to the sound of freight trains running directly past the station and as the temperature went down into the upper 30s.  The minor lower back issue I had pretty much went away.  I think sleeping on the aluminum table might have helped.

After walking over to the convenience store for a quick breakfast I was on the road after 7:00 as the sun was coming up. While it didn’t feel too cold out while walking, it was absolutely freezing while riding and especially as the wind would pick on the downhills. It didn’t help either as early on I was on tree lined roads that the sun hadn’t yet risen above. It was the coldest I’ve been while riding since the mornings I dealt with back in Wyoming.

After what seemed like a very long time I got to an open area and it finally began to warm up. After about 20 miles the hills went away for the most part and it was flat riding. But there were just a couple of short, very steep ones where you would feel the burn in your legs and you wondered how in the world you got over all the previous thousands of hills.

There wasn’t much to see, but by now I was just focused on getting to the coast. Even though the roads aren’t filled with cars, the fact that there are so many more than usual makes it less enjoyable.  One plus is that on Wednesday, the final day, I’ll be on a trail that cars aren’t allowed on for much of the ride.

I stopped in the town of Ashland for lunch and to try to correct the website issue I was having. It’s a nice place and I had thoughts of staying there, but I had to shorten up Wednesday’s ride so I went on to the busy town of Mechanicsville and got a hotel room there.  The overnight forecast called for temperatures in the mid 30s.

I rode 65 miles Tuesday.  Somehow it always seems to end up being more than it’s listed as. This leaves me with a little over 80 miles for the final stretch into  Yorktown today (as I write this on Wednesday morning).  Hard to believe that this is the last time I need to get the bike ready to go and that I’ll be on the coast this afternoon.