Ride C2C #4 - Day 8: Hindman, Kentucky to Breaks, Virginia

Date: 6/30/23 Friday
Day: 8
Route: Hindman, Kentucky to Gateway to the Breaks Motel,Virginia
Miles: 72.47
Total Miles: 344.97
MyZone MEPs: 1085

Words of the day “Humbled and Walking in Eastern Kentucky”

Note:  the gps did not record about 5 miles of this route!
Up at 5:30 AM in the church. We’re warm and dry but it’s pouring rain, lightning and thundering outside. I didn’t sleep that well last night - our mattress on the floor felt especially hard.

Eat, pack, and rain slows down so we’re out the door at about 7:10 AM. It’s dark, wet and still threatening. But we’re on the road again heading south east on 160. We go over a big hill and fly down the other side when Doug noticed that the compass was pointed the wrong way, but really WE were pointed the wrong way we figure that we’ve made a mistake.

So we turn around and head back to the route. Going up over the hill at a crawl we run into a big huge nasty boxer dog. It comes out of his yard at a tear, barking and snarling. The road is too steep to ride by the dog with any speed, so we get off our bikes, walk, blow the air horn with no avail.  

Several cars pass us and the dog backed off, but then he comes right back. Doug gets out the pepper spray but he’s just out of range.

Thankfully, a white car comes up behind us and runs cover, each time the dog lunges closer to us, the driver kind of pulls around a bit so the dog had to back off.  When the dog finally gave up, the woman in the white car passes us as I blew her kisses of thanks.

We blast down the hill, get back on the route turning right up the hill. It’s our “first” hill, on the route, the day. The grade was OK and we had a big shoulder. We have snacks at the top and then breeze downhill into the mists. 

But it’s still pretty cool out and wet so we’re barely staying warm. This section was the best riding of the day: we blow through Pippa passes (actually in the valley) and cruise along a quiet two-lane winding road that follows Kearny Creek with a gentle downhill. Just wonderful ride.

We turn left onto State Route 7, now heading south east. The road’s not too busy, but this one’s a steady uphill along the creek wash.  There are lots of “Break in Road” signs which means that a chunk of the road has fallen off.  The person riding in front is responsible for calling out road hazards - and now these are knows as “BIPs”. 

We made the left onto 1091, and it’s the first of 4 major hills of the day. At first to steady climb about 4 to 6%, but then it pitches up to a steep 7 13%. We have to walk a bit as it’s too steep to ride. We are both struggling with the grade and pushing 100 lbs of bike and gear while cars creep by us as the hill just keeps going up.

The road is almost completely covered with overhanging trees so we can’t see very far. Just around each corner, it keeps going up. We finally get to the top and it’s is just the knife edge of the top of the ridge with a brief view out over where we came and we were going.

We’ve come up a long way. We head down the hill but have to stay on the brakes because it’s rough road and steep, sharp corners. That’s the tough part, it takes about a 10th time going down the hill as it does going up. So as the day goes on, we’re spending 90% of our time climbing…

At the bottom of the hill we take a right and do a quick map check. An older gentleman walked out from his house and asked “why are the bikes gone by here?“. We explained this is the Transamerica route and talk for a bit. He’s a nice gentleman who’s retired from his work In Columbus.

He and his wife moved back here because his wife’s dad built the house that they now live in. He likes it because it’s quiet and not so busy. Really nice gentleman. He then asks where we’re going and we tell him east. He goes  ‘“oh no, that’s up over Mount Abner. That’s a steep and winding road, I would even take my trailer up over that one.”

The sun has now come out and it’s getting hot. We ride into the “town” and stop at a convenience store to eat. But there are nasty trio of dogs in the parking lot, snarling and challenging and barking at us. We’ve both had it with being harassed by dogs  —

Doug chases the biggest one around the parking lot with his bike, then drops the bike, gets a rock and nails the dog in the hind quarter. That’s the last time we saw that dog. In the mean time, the other 2 dogs are coming at me and I circle around to chase them off by running my bike toward them.  This is insane.

We go to the store buy drinks, sit at the picnic bench out front of the store and make peanut butter and honey sandwiches. The stupid dogs sit about 5 feet away from the table and just bark at us periodically. We’ve been sweating so much that our shorts are way too wet. So we go in and put on a dry pair of bike shorts so that we make it through the rest of the day.

Climb #2: pretty much the same pattern as we head up the hill with a long slow climb at the beginning of about 4 to 6%, then the hill pitches up to 6 - 10%. We ride much of it, walk some, put a foot down periodically with breaks leaning on the guard rail.

It’s just up and up and up and up. Fortunately, we still have the trees growing over the road so we’re in the shade for much of it. At the top it’s another knife edge of the ridge with a brief view out over the valley on both sides (and oddly, a huge pile of junk dumped off to the side of the road).

Quick view out, stand off the bike for a second, and down down down. We have to sit on the brakes most the time because the roads kind of rough and really curvy. 

At the bottom is another ghost of a town called Virgie. It’s hot out, so we pull into a Dollar General and sit in the shade around back. Robin goes in and get a couple drinks, snacks consisting of payday candy bars, and we even nap on the sidewalk for five or 10 minutes as it’s hot and we’re tired.

Quick map check, and we’re back on the bikes.

Now we get a bit of a respite with generally level road with small rolling hills heading east/south east on 1469 again following Caney Creek. Getting in some miles at 11 to 14 miles an hour instead of hill climbing at 4 miles an hour (or when we walk its 2.5 mph).

Turn onto Highway 23 divided 4 Lane Rd, with a wide shoulder.  It’s noisy, but more faster miles with no dogs. We’ve both decided that this kind of Highway is better than banjo-land side roads with all of the vicious dogs.  If you don’t get the banjo reference go watch the movie “Deliverance”.

We pull off the highway and turn onto 611 and make a quick pull off to a small walk up fast food joint. We order a couple full sugar Pepsi’s at the Sunshine Dairy Bar anticipating a long climb up ahead of us.

A car pulls up with dad and two kids and they all pile out. Dad has to ask what everything costs because he obviously doesn’t have that much money. So as we’re sitting at the picnic table, we scoot over and ask them to sit down with us. It’s Leann, Hunter, and Billy (dad).

She is boisterous, talk talk talk talk talk (have a play station, like the video games “vacation,” the pool’s all dirty with frog poop, etc. etc.). Billy says that they were locked out of their car for a while while they’re shopping at Rent-A-Center. He is divorced, told us about his big old copper snake that was in his house when his kids were small. More stories go back-and-forth.

It’s just tough to see the dad didn’t have much opportunity, didn’t seem like he had much education, and his kids are probably going along the same path. As Corey said, it’s the brain drain that’s killing this area, only leaving behind the lower 50%.

Climb #3: the biggest hill of all, starts with the same routine but the second half of this hill is way too much. All of it is way over 6% so we walked for a long ways. It’s just a long hill. As cars go by, we listen to their engine sound to see if the car is still working at climbing to get a sense of what’s coming…we go around the next corner and hill goes up.

Go around the next corner, gets even steeper, and it keeps going up…. We finally get to the top of this beastie for a bit of a break.

Another blast down the hill, but still on the brakes because of the twists winds and “BIPs”.  Stop outside of Lookout, at a convenience store. We buy some waters and eat a bit. So tired that when I leave I almost go the wrong way. And then…

Climb #4: turn on the 195 and do the obligatory 6% slope up to the real Climb. This is our big last hill of the day and quickly the pitch jumps up and we are walking and walking. There’s a bit of riding but not that much.  Another pretty steep hill that’s wearing us down. It’s about 4:45 when we finally reach the summit, or I should say 15 feet that’s not going up or down.

The top is just a cut through the rock wall where we stop and enjoy a lemon flavored energy drink and a payday.

But we’ve climbed the last big hill for the day, or so we thought.

We’re now going downhill, blow through Ashcamp and take a left onto 197. Now we’re following the Elkhorn Creek downhill for 10 great miles. Have to pedal some, but it is much better than the huge ups and fast downs that most of this day has been. It’s nice to be cruising, but a bit scary because that each little uphill, my legs are really feeling like concrete.

We pull into Elkhorn at about 5:40 PM. We go to “Ducker’s Barn and Grill”and eat more americana food. We walk over to the dollar store to get some supplies.

There’s a bridge over the Russell Fork, a river that goes through town, and it’s beautiful. People are swimming and tubing in the crystal Clearwater that slowly rolls through the town. We’re hot and tired, so the river looks very inviting.

We get on the bikes at about 6:30 PM and are heading out of town when a white car stops: “hey, do you want to camp at City Hall? I am the mayor and I’d be happy to open up for you” we thank him hardly but say we’re heading up to our motel. He smiles waves and said “oh come on back if you want to” -How nice!

Surprise surprise surprise – – another hill. This one’s at a constant 4 to 6% as we follow the Russell fork up into the “Breaks”. We stop at an overlook and see the canyon below - it’s absolutely beautiful.

We then climb more, and more, and finally hit the Kentucky/Virginia state line.

We stopped for a picture and are frankly glad we’re done with Kentucky.

We have had enough of “walk our bikes in eastern Kentucky”. Just a Mile or so more of climbing And there it is, the motel is on our right. Frankly, during part of this day, both of us doubted that we’d ever get this far.

We pull into the parking lot and there’s a whole bunch of activity with people around. The motel looks great, but the first impression is not good. The office really smells bad. But everyone’s really nice, we get the room, shower, change, I wash our clothes in the sink, we get a couple sodas and sit down. We are both really totally exhausted.

But the rest of the night was one of the best social nights of the trip. Doug sat out front room and rocking chairs chatting with an older gentleman that was traveling with his lady friend on a Harley trike. His twin brother was traveling with them on his own Harley. He showed me the Maps with a were going and they were just cruising the countryside.

We talked about a lot of nothing and exchanged a lot of similar stories about life. The guy on the Harley trike came back because here because he came to the park as a kid and worked with horses with his grandpa.

His lady friend heard that we rode 72 miles on our bicycles and she said “I can’t believe that, I will never forget you two. 70 miles on those things, you’re nuts”. 

We then wright for a bit, and come out to a barbecue in the parking lot. Jennifer and Tom are the managers and they’ve laid out a nice spread - for free! 

Their old buddy Tim (and overalls who could talk forever) cooked up all the hamburgers and hotdogs. They had a nice spread of burgers, dogs, buns, beans, salads… It was great.

We already had dinner but we have course ate more, just to be sociable, you see ;-). I conned of beer out of a construction worker named Korey.  Korey is working for traveling construction company replacing the bridge decking on some bridge that he said he didn’t actually need replacing - but if they don’t use the federal funding, it would be gone next year. He’s working hard for MONEY because he’s going to have his first kid in November.

We got talking with Tim for a long time about his hot rod Chevy pick up from the 1970s that he was very proud to show along with his daughter who’s going to be a nurse.

We then met Bill and Polly who live outside Salem Oregon. Polly has been riding her bicycle across the country. Couple years ago she was riding out of Berea and was attacked by a dog and fell, breaking her collarbone. So she’s starting again this year with Bill following her in their big traveling van.

There was a younger couple who are both med school students who set up a hammock in the trees, Tom dumps gas on the bonfire (KABOOM), lights are hanging from the trees…Just tons of chatting, eating and having a good time on a warm Southern night.

Finally after 9:15 we head into our room, and watched old westerns including the Rifleman. The internet is not so great and the show kept breaking up so finally we went to sleep a long hard but very satisfying day.