Dog Gone and a Hill Billy Philosopher

Riding Stats: Distance 29.5; Average Speed 7.4; 10:10 AM to 5:45 PM; Wheels in motion time: 3:57; top speed 37 mph; goof off time 3:35.

Weather: 53 degrees at the start and overcast. Later reached a high of 66 degrees. Very light rain started intermittently at noon. Steady light rain at 4 PM to the end. This was my first time on this Trans-Am trip that I rode in the rain including all of last year’s mileage. At home I have ridden in rain several times in the past and have walked in the rain hundreds of times, actually never missing a daily walk or run over twenty years for rain alone. I do not, however, go out in lightning. I like rain and when we lived in Seattle for a year I often took my three-year-old granddaughter out for an eight-mile stroller ride around the city in the rain. When asked about the rain by her grandmothers she was taught to say, “What rain?”

Dogs: Today there were NO dog attacks. I saw probably 100 dogs, but only a dozen or so were not chained. Several barked, but none ever left the yard. Later at a store a local said, “The dogs in Perry County are under control.” He was incredulous that they were such a problem over in Estill County.

The Course: I was very disappointed with today’s total mileage. I had hoped for a fifty-mile day with the earlier start. We started off 2 miles out of Booneville having licked the first big hill out of town the evening before by walking the bike a mile or so up 500 or so of elevation gain. It was overcast and a cool 53 degrees so I put on a jacket. When it’s below 60 degrees, it’s downright cold on the bike. I used to feel like a wimp about being cold at 60 degrees until I read a book by David Phinney a professional bike rider and former Olympian who lives in Colorado. He wrote that when the temperature is below 60 he wears long legged tights and long sleeve shirts and a jacket and warm cycling gloves. I felt better to hear that.

The road from Booneville to Buckhorn and then to Chavies was one of unbelievable climbs and switchbacked turns at about a 6% grade. There were no bike lanes and thank goodness little traffic as the road is narrow. The drivers remained cooperative. I walked at least 3 or 4 miles pushing the bike and this cost me, as the walk pace was less than 2 miles per hour. The initial hour I made a nice 12 miles riding and thought I might do 50 miles today; however, the ride quickly turned into a walk.

And then the rain started. They need rain around here, so I was happy to see it, and it was just a steady light drizzle. However, there is a significant danger in down hill riding in the rain. The left brake stops the front wheel and the right stops the rear. When the road surface is wet, there is little friction between wheel and road. The brakes work by pads squeezing against the rims. So it’s possible to squeeze the brakes and stop the wheel (since there is less friction between wheel and wet road) and send the bike into an uncontrollable skid. This is especially dangerous if the front wheel skids. With my excess weight, I generate excess down hill speed. So I was concerned about this all day as the downhills are as severe as the ups. Once I got going faster than I wanted and a sharp switchback was ahead. I thought I might skid out on the turn if I let her run out, or might stop the wheel and skid if I applied too much brake. This was a very unpleasant situation, but I got her under control and survived.

Today’s views included a large cut through a 400-foot mountain where the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River is dammed for the Buckhorn Lake. Later I saw the “Regular Baptist Church” with two entry doors, a hitching post, and adjoining male and female outhouses. I saw shacks with dual satellite dishes. And at the Buckhorn Post Office we saw a disabled elderly man (older than me and Cimarron) drive up in an old Junker maroon colored Jaguar. Near Chavies I saw a huge mountain at least 600 feet high of fresh dirt that was tailings from a strip mine. I never saw anything near this huge in my Pennsylvania coal country.

My ordeal from Booneville to Buckhorn was tough. I walked and pedaled on the worst hills I’ve ever seen. Along the way I saw Cimarron once and advised that I hoped for a cup of coffee at Buckhorn. When I arrived there was an old dilapidated strip center with a Post Office on the right and a store on the left. As I pulled in it started to rain harder and I was cold. I said to Cimarron, “What’s at the store?” And he said, “Nothing, I walked through and they have nothing more than I’ve got here in the van.” And I said, “What about coffee?” He said, I didn’t see any and the guy at the post office says they sometimes put on a pot. I didn’t ask at the store!” I said, “I’ll ask at the store.” And he said, “I’m not going in again!”

So I walked into the store and the clerk was very pleasant. He saw I was a cyclist and pulled out a Trans-Am journal book for my signature and gave me information about a change in the course in Pippa Passes and the name of a place to stay free in Radford, Virginia, some 100 miles up the road. He then said I looked like I could use a cup of coffee and pointed me to the fresh pot near the door. I looked around in there where Cimarron saw nothing. They had an inventory that could rival a Wal-Mart, although they probably couldn’t find some of it. One customer said I could buy a pair of boots twenty years old. Cimarron and I certainly have a different view of these places. He had a pistol hanging beside the cash register in easy view. I said, “Do you ever need to shoot anybody?” And he said, “Oh, it’s just for show; it’s a B-B gun!” Later Cimarron said, “You should never have asked him about that gun. I thought next you were going to ask if he married his cousin!” I might have had I thought of it!

After two more long walks up the hills out of Buckhorn toward Chavies, it rained even harder. Then I had the exciting two-mile downhill on wet pavement into Chavies. At one downhill switchback there was a sign showing a ninety-degree turn with a 15 mph speed limit. That’s a switchback like my Dad used to say, “You can look out the window and see your own ass as you go around!” It was about 4 o’clock and school buses were running. I saw about a dozen. The school buses, unlike the cars, cannot yield the road to my bike. I’m glad I have good mirrors and can see what’s coming. I saw no coal trucks and only a few log trucks. All the drivers were polite and again there were no shouts or horn blowing.

Finally I got to Chavies still thinking I’d do another 15 miles. Again as I entered this town Cimarron was sitting along the road at the first sign of civilization. I could see a gas station down the road. I said, “What do they have at the station?” And he said, “There’s no station here, you told me yesterday when you reviewed the maps.” So I rode the bike on down and went in to a wonderful store where I had a great piece of pizza and a cup of coffee. I met a man named Sam who immediately asked me about my Trans-Am ride. He said, “Did you start in Astoria, Oregon, or Yorktown, Virginia?” He knew the Atlantic and the Pacific terminal towns of the trail! Then he proceeded to congratulate me for my successful trip from Booneville to Chavies saying it was one of the toughest sections of the entire trail. I lamented that I had to walk the three big hills and thought the youngsters all pedaled it; and he said, “I’ve lived here for twenty years and seen them all walk those hills.” He then told us of the trail for the next hundred miles and where to get a room and the price in Hazard, KY, some ten miles down the trail.

I commented that I had not seen many spoils of strip mining and he said, “If you were in an airplane you’d see plenty. We ruined this land, just not near your road.” Then he added, “You know, we don’t often notice the damages we create when we are receiving a pay check!”

Then Sam said, “Gary, you’ve ridden enough for today. It’s getting late; it’s raining; the road to Hazard is easy, but the traffic is heavy now. Load that bike up and get a room.”

So we did.

In Hazard, population 4000, we found an Applebee’s and had a nice dinner. The food was good. The local hospital nurses are on strike and had tents all over the front yard of the hospital. I never saw that in my medical career. The Hazard Herald (Newspaper) has the following headlines on the front page today:
· Shepard not guilty in shooting case
· Murder suspect makes court appearance
· Attempted murder case goes to grand jury


How good is this.