Ride C2C #4 - Day 10: Gateway to the Breaks to Rosedale (United Methodist Bike Hostel)

Date: 7/2/2023
Day: 9
Route: Gateway to the Breaks to Rosedale, Virginia
Miles: 45.5, with 4,408 feet climbing
Total Miles: 394.93
MyZone MEPs: 732

We sleep in a bit, oatmeal in the microwave is great. Pack and out by 8:20 AM. Brutal climb first thing up to the entrance to the breaks interstate Park

and then steady up and down up and down up and down. Tough climbs as we head South to Haysi.

Outside of Haysi at the bottom of the big hill the rain starts and we pull over just in time under a closed shop with an overhang and the deluge began. (watch the video for live action rain)

It’s a monster downpour with huge fat drops of rain. Lots of water very fast. We sit and watch for 10 minutes and it lightened up just enough for us to get back on our bikes and head into Haysi.

We stop at a convenience store bought a Gatorade and a payday.

Back on the bikes and have some great riding in pouring rain. Road is curvey following the Russell Fork River. No huge climbs just steady cruising but raining and dark. We breezed through Birchleaf

and stop at a post office next to a closed container convenience store. the post office is closed because it’s Sunday, so we took advantage of the dry entryway.

Made peanut butter and honey sandwiches and sit out of the rain for a bit. Doug is impressed very nice Porsche that goes by on these perfect roads to drive.

Back on as a rains let up a little bit and we head uphill some more. Town of Council has zero businesses but a wonderful park pool play area recreation center with lots of people.

Now the fun begins. The clouds are clearing As we start uphill again. Heading up “big A mountain” with 4 to 6% steady climb that quickly gets steeper.

We ride, we walk the steep parts, we ride in our bottom gear and just get up the hill. It’s bright and sunny and steep and we finally get to the top. We pull off to have a little snack and map check

and here we meet the first nice dog on our entire trip.

This black lab works his way over to us I was happy to come up and say hello comes in for a scratch and a head rub, and then he’s on his way. Now that’s good dog behavior!

Next we have a curvy steep down and some uphill the entire scenery has changed… From steep tree and vine covered hills dropping into Stevi valleys to more Rollinghills with a mix of grass, pasture, and trees. We get into Honaker and stop at a convenience store for snacks and drinks and supplies.

Now last two climbs of the day, Highway 80 is now busy with a narrow shoulder reclaim out of Honaker about 400 feet in our bottom gear to the top back down to the clinch River and then another slug up to Rosedale. We stop at the first convenience store and check the phone… There is no restaurant here and no grocery store. UGG.

We do the best we can and buy two cans of Chef boy RD spaghetti some drinks, sliced meat, Fritos, and potato chips. Not our normal eating cuisine but not much else to choose from.
As we’re sitting out front a skinny 45 to 50 year old guy chats with us – he seems really nice but something is a little wrong and we can’t quite put our finger on it.

He has stories about living a living at the governors mansion, that the mistresses mansion was built next door, that he has 60 acres with 300 head of cattle, He even offered to get us food.

from Rosedale we have just about 3 miles to go And we pull onto the four lane divided highway 19. It’s not so busy so that’s a relief.

We take a left on Highway 80 and go to the Methodist school… But that wasn’t the right place. Just down the road was a wonderful to see Pike hostel sign at the Elk Garden United Methodist Church.  We follow the directions to send a text to let someone know that we’re here… And then they send us back the code to let ourselves into the church.

As we waited, we made the delicacy of sliced turkey - frito roll ups.  In desperate times...

We enter into the kitchen and meeting room area and there is a book Welcoming us, giving us the directions on where to find everything here.
It’s just amazing and this church has been offering a cyclists hostel for over 40 years. There is even a cold shower outdoors!

A fellow cyclist arrives, Randy from Minnesota,. He’s just retired has always wanted to do the Trans Am since he was 18 years old. He was a meat plant manager, has biked all his life, beat stomach cancer two years ago. He does lots more miles than we do. We all sat outside in the gazebo sharing stories.

There’s a shelf shared food cupboard here and we swapped our SpaghettiOs for Dinty Moore beef stew. The three of us enjoyed the stew and wrapping up the night with writing, Doug went out to play the French horn, and Randy had to go check it out because he thought that was insane.