Day 15: Breaks to Pippa Passes (60 miles)

July 15th, mostly sunny, very hot

My performance surely depends on the weather and temperature a lot. I was able to finish ~ 80 miles with 5000 feet of elevation gain yesterday. However, I can only do 60 miles (with a bit less elevation gain) today.

I started at the beautiful Breaks Interstate Park, where I camped last night.

After a very short ride, I finially finished Virginia! I entered the second state of my journey, Kentucky.

My first stop in Kentucky was Elkhorn City. My friend Cyhs ordered a solar charger, couple cables, and a medical lotion for me. She had them sent to Elkhorn City. Therefore, I stopped by the post office and picked them up. Thanks a lot! I enjoyed a huge grill chicken salad in a local restaurant. It was getting late, I start biking again at almost 2pm.

There were four mountains that I needed to climb. Because of the sun, I had a very hard time pedaling up. I ended up just pushing my bike up about half of the time. When I was up on the first hill, I met two other bikers. They started at San Francisco and did the Western Express Trail, which merges with the TransAmerica Trail at Pueblo, Colorado. If I don't have enough time to finish my trip, I may switch to the Western Express. The disadvantages are 1) I will miss the most interesting part of the TransAmerica Trial, 2) I will need pass the desert area! Let me pedal for a few more days and see how much I can speed up, then I will decide.

People were very friendly along the way. Two young men on a pickup truck offered me a ride to the top of a hill. I turned down the offer because I want to pedal all by myself. They actually drove back and forth a few times and waved hand when I went over the hill!

I arrived Pippa Passes pretty late and got a few dogs chasing me. I met one old gentleman at an interction, who offered me a ride to Hindman (the next town that I will hit) to find a hotel. Again I turned him down even it was so already dark. Another lady told me that the hostel described in Ikenberry's book was not operating anymore. She suggested me to ask the police department inside the beautiful Alice Lloyd College. The officers there was extremely nice and helpful. They allowed me to camp right outside a student dorm. I chatted with a couple students. It turned out that there were couple other bikers camped near the dorm a few days ago.