Four Experiences in Haysi, VA

October 27, 2007: Day 8.

From Elkhorn City, KY to Near Council, VA
Distance: 32.6; Time: 4:15; Max Speed 38.2 mph; Average Speed 7.6 mph; Total Distance 221 miles

We awakened at the Gateway to the Breaks Interstate Park Motel and headed back west on route 80 five miles to Elkhorn City to pick up our ride at yesterday’s stopping point. First we had breakfast at the restaurant where the waitress said no to my grits order adding, “We don’t eat them up here, they are down south!” It was in the mid 50’s at the start (cool for cycling) so I put on my trusty Duofold Polyester Long Sleeve under shirt I bought in Gatlinburg on the Appalachian Trail more than seven years ago. It’s a marvelous shirt that keeps me warm and wicks sweat to its outer frizzy fibers where it evaporates faster than any shirt I own. I wore this shirt about half the days when we walked the Appalachian Trail in the year 2000 (worn about 100 days). It also doesn’t stink as much as it should when worn during exercise. Over the black under shirt I wore a short sleeve neon yellow t-shirt. Each day I wear a pair of biking shorts with a built in synthetic chamois that pads the perineum (bottom). Over these bike shorts for modesty and visibility I wear a pair of neon orange shorts. My helmet is white. So from top to bottom I am white, neon yellow, and neon orange. What a site going down the road but good visibility. This was comfortable in today’s temperature varying from 55 to 65 degrees. On the walks up the three major climbs of the day I sweated profusely so when I started down I put on my neon yellow synthetic polypropylene cycling jacket to block wind and hold heat.

I also wear a pair of biking shoes with a metal cleat on the bottom that snaps into the pedals. With these I can pedal by pushing down and by pulling up so the power stroke can be a full circle instead of just a mashing down. This is much more efficient and less tiring. However, when stopping one must always remember to unclick the feet or I’ll fall over when I stop with my foot still stuck in the pedal. This has not happened this trip but happened often last year until I got used to the process.

On the way out of Elkhorn City, KY, route 80 goes along the Russell Fork River, which is a very popular class five white water river. I met a couple from the New River area of West Virginia who own a rafting company and were here to camp along the river and photograph the rapids. The New River is noted as very beautiful and these folks said this river is even more beautiful. They advised me of viewpoints along the road for my viewing pleasure where I was able to see down six hundred feet from the road to the water. At one stop the view was great all the way to the water, and just fifteen feet away was a freezer and washing machine and a dozen or so tires thrown over the cliff! What’s wrong with these people? Also a crew of workers from a power company was sitting at the overlook having lunch when I pulled up. They must have seen the movie Deliverance. As I walked over to the Gazebo to read the history one of them said, “Don’t miss anything honey.” I read for a few minutes, but I could hear them chuckling. Then as I got on the bike one said, “Goodbye, sweetheart.”

Today we had to walk on three different mountains for a total of about 5 miles of walking I would guess out of today’s 32.6 miles. I think my general cycling is fairly good but my hill climbing technique is non-existent. Cimarron has worked on trails at the Phil Mont Boy Scout camp where the standard steepest trail is 9% grade. He says many of our grades on this trip have been more than 9% grade so my estimate last week of 6% was way off. The good cyclists will often stand to pedal on the steepest slopes. Because the bike then wobbles from side to side and the legs are more powerful standing a higher gear is used to limit the pedal revolutions per minute. However, the breathing rate rises considerably. When my respiratory rate gets too high, I have to stop and walk. I seem to be able to walk and push the bike up any slope, but my speed is just a little over two miles per hour. It’s amazing to me that I have run 39 standard marathons and over 100 races of fifty miles in length each between 4 hours and 15 hours. So why can’t I go more than 50 miles on the bike? The variables are many and include: age, weight, training, desire, and terrain.

At Haysi (long i) I had four great experiences. As I came into town I saw my first original Trans-America bike ride road sign. Recall that in 1976 for the Bicentennial an organization named Bikecentenial organized a very successful cross-country group bike ride and this is the route they plotted. (That organization changed its name to Adventure Cycling and sells the maps I use.) The entire route was marked with permanent signs using “76” as the main logo. There are very few of these signs left across the country and I have read they are mostly in this area of Virginia. I’m glad I got to see them, and I got a picture.

The second experience was being stopped by a Virginia State Policeman who was conducting a random traffic stop to check licenses. He stood in the middle of the narrow road in Haysi and had two flares burning. I pulled up in the eastbound lane behind three cars. He also had a half dozen stopped in the other direction. There was such a traffic jam I thought he’d just wave us through but he checked every license until I got there and he waived me through. I said, “No, I want my license checked and I want a picture of you checking it!” He said, “I have a customer (his word), here with an expired license and I need to give her a ticket before she drives off.” So I said, “Can I take a picture of that?” And, can you believe it, he said, “Sure, go ahead!” I waited about ten minutes in hopes that I could get a picture of the Trail Boss and the cop, but the TB never showed up.

The third experience was a tobacco shop with the sign that said, “Tobacco Outlet, Tanning,” and “Tobacco Tavern” and on a small hand written sign in the window it said, “Now available Piercing Rings for tongue, nose, lip, ear, legbet, umbilicus, and nipple.” (What’s a legbet?) Wow, what a place here in Haysi, Virginia, population 186! We didn’t try any of it, but I made the Trail Boss mad when I told him I had told them he was on his way!

But the best of all was the last Haysi experience. As I made my way out of town along the Priest Fork River and near the Haysi High School I saw a woman wading in the river some fifty feet below the road. She was using a commercial size hoe and hoeing the muddy bottom along the other side of the river, which was about 100 feet wide at that point. She appeared elderly and had a bandage on her right face. She was wearing what looked like neoprene diving suit tights and a pair of rubber boots up to her knees. She had a dark shirt or jacket and a floppy sun hat. So I stopped and watched thinking she was scooping some type of critter from the water like crawdads in Louisiana. But she never picked anything up and so finally I rang my little bike bell until she looked up. I yelled, “What are you doing?” And she said, “You may think, like the others around here, that I am a little crazy.” And I said, “Hey, I’m a doctor, I’ve talked to lots of crazy people and I like most of them, and believe some of them” And she said (I swear she did, you can’t make this stuff up), “I’m moving the river!”

I shouted down, “Why?” And she shouted back, “Because the government won’t move it for me. They say it will cost too much in dollars and in ecological damage.” Now, this woman may be a little ‘touched’ as she put it, but she isn’t stupid. I then said, “But why do you want it moved and how long have you been working on the project?” She said, “My house flooded in 1976 and I’ve been working on it ever since.” So I said, “It sounds to me like the project is working perfectly if it hasn’t flooded since you began the work.” And she said, “I know. I think I’m a civil engineer and should be working for the Army Corps of Engineers.” I couldn’t agree more. As I was about to pull out I shouted, “What’s your name?” “Vivian Owens, and I’m 78 years old,” she said. As I sped off I shouted down to her: “Goodbye Vivian Owens of the Army Corps of Engineers.” And she said, “Have a safe trip and God be with you.”

As I rode my mind flashed back to Pikeville where the government moved the river several miles for a cost of $80 million. If they can move the river in Pikeville, I figure it’s okay for Vivian Owens to move the river in Haysi. Just one hundred yards up stream from where she worked was her beautifully kept cottage just ten feet above the water level. She had beautiful mums on her porch and a nice porch swing. The yard was well kept and the house clean and fresh. Behind the house I could see four 50-yard long lines of stone piled in the river so as to funnel the water toward the other bank and away from her property. Vivian Owens is diligently at work on her project.

Haysi is my newest favorite town and Vivian Owens my newest best friend.

After Haysi we pedaled about 17 more uneventful miles to near Council where we stopped for the day. These 17 miles were more than half of the day’s mileage, but only took about one fourth of the day’s time. If I could get some easier terrain, I could do much better mileage. I did stop at about three stores and got some cappuccino, but the Trail Boss found some cappuccino powder in a Dollar General (The new Wal-Mart of the smallest towns it seems as they all have this brand new store). So now I have TBC (Trail Boss Cappuccino).

In each of the stores they like to tell me, “You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until you get to Big A Mountain. (The Mountain is called Big A because some view to some person at some time looked like the letter A.) Well at the end of the day on driving east on our route to find a motel we had to drive over Big A Mountain. We finally found a motel Lebanon, VA, some 40 miles from our stopping point. All the advisers are correct; the “Big A Mountain” is a big deal. It rises from 1600 to 2600 feet over 5 miles of intense switchbacks. (This data was calculated by use of Garmin GPS mapping program on topo USA Maps on my laptop computer at the hotel.) I’ll walk that devil tomorrow pushing the bike but it will take me a couple of hours and kills the day’s total mileage again. But please don’t let the cycling community know, I like the walking. Wish me luck.

In Birchleaf, just 2 miles east of Haysi and west of Big A Mountain, I pulled into a fairly modern country store/gas station that had no coffee and the clerk wasn’t too nice about it saying gruffly, “We only make it in the morning.” As I walked out a beautiful tall young woman drove up in a new Honda Sports car for gas. She looked like a professional woman in a one-piece dress near the knees and with high heel shoes. Her hair was well managed and she wore appropriate makeup. We knew something was amiss, as we had not seen such a sophisticated sight in a week. And she didn’t have a cigarette hanging from her lips. We learned later that Big A Mountain seems to divide the more sophisticated Virginia from the Kentucky like far western Virginia hill country.

What a great trip. What a diverse country.