Day started cool, in the 70's, and right out of hotel we're onto Rt 50 for 44 miles due east, right at the rising sun, pretty huh?
We've seen some roads on this trip, this was a celebration of government pork: the Robert Byrd Memorial Highway. 4 lanes, two in each direction, divided highway, a white line to mark the highway edge, a good 2 feet for rumble strip, and then another 8 feet of wide asphalt shoulder. You could race Indy cars on the shoulder and not impact the highway traffic it was so big. Unfortunately also full of gravel and glass shards, we must have set a record for flat tires on one day in the group but Tom and I were both lucky (go Continental 4000 4 Seasons!). 7% grade up, 7% grade down, a long (1 mile) for each, and repeat for 44 miles through a forest.We got a good start, you know, at 7:01:43 so we weren't last, just far back and out on the highway behind a cluster of 15 riders or so and Tom says "I want to go easy here" which is coded language that means "let's blow the snot out of these jerks, pound the ups, crash the downs, and be the first to the rest stop by a mile." Which we did, for reasons I still don't get, we're never first, but we were today. (Note from Tom.....it just worked out that we both felt great this morning at the same time!) It helped that Racer Steve got a flat so he wasn't in competition and most of the other fast guys were like yeah, whatever, but still we were zooming, the only guy with us with Roger (the German) who tried to break away but we both caught him. So Roger Nascars the rest stop (37 seconds) and storms back out to the road while Tom and I are trying not to laugh (what, he's going to win a PAC Tour stage?) when it comes out from some other guys who come in that Roger has said he's going to attack in West Virginia since day 2 of the tour. OK, he's attacking, but is it attacking if nobody else cares? He was also very vocal about the terribleness of the road, the glass and debris, so someone gave him the nickname "Sauerkraut" which immediately stuck. Off he went, never saw him again. (He did finish the ride at 2:00, an hour before anybody else, waiting for the luggage trailer to show up after 3:00...so what's the point?)
After 44 miles on the highway we turned off on Meathouse Fork Road (hello, it's West Virginia) which was exactly what you think of West Virginia country roads. Valleys, trees, ups and down and full of cicadas screeching at the world. Beautiful riding, could have done that all day, unfortunately it was just to lunch at mile 71 at the....Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Really. Started during Civil War and closed in 1994, a castle-like brown sandstone structure in the middle of nowhere that once housed thousands of patients. We had lunch and then went for a tour which wasn't so interesting, mostly peeling paint, old bedrooms and lots of mentions for what the buildings and spaces once were (butcher, bakery, kitchen, offices, etc) from a docent who worked there for 40 years. Here are some PAC Tour riders, zombie-like, being drawn to the hospital.
Ok, we did learn two things. Time to skip this if squeamish or reading to kids. First, we learned about trans-orbital lobotomies. Electro-shock patient to unconscious (1 to 6 charges). Pull up eyelid, insert ice pick into head above eyeball, tap through spinal membrane with hammer, wiggle around in frontal lobe, extract, repeat on other side. Cures hysteria, anxiety, homosexuality, truancy, fits, etc. Yuck. Happened thousands and thousands of times in this hospital until public pressure turned against it. Second, ghosts. Sure, the Asylum was featured on the ghost-hunting TV show (Taps), and has a signed statement from the Paranormal Society, but look at the decaying halls and rooms, floors and floors of them, and listen to the docent who worked in the hospital for 40 years while it was operating. The ghosts untie her shoes, play with her hair, pull off her scarf, move things around, etc. She's not afraid of them but she's quite sure they are there. They have a real cuckoo's nest there, too. Anyone want to turn on some lights?
From there, more back roads riding parallel to Rt 33, including a 4 mile uphill and very fast downhill (loose gravel, so no speed records!) and then the last few miles on Rt 33 into Elkin, which we had to ride through on a Friday afternoon past drinking time. Maybe not such a good thing but needed to be done. Interesting about West Virginia, no "For Sale" signs on houses like there were all over in Ohio, but every house has at least one "No Trespassing" sign, I think that is so if you are trespassing they can shoot on sight. It doesn't look particularly poor but not very inviting either, as the Swiss couple said "what do these people do here?"
Dinner was across the street at the Steer Restaurant, our first buffet dinner, everything that could be fried was fried, and then some. But it was all you can eat. Took nerves of steel to cross the highway, 4 lanes of it. Roadkill report was quite light today, I remember a skunk and a couple URP but that was it. Good weather for tomorrow is the forcast and a lot of climbing. 3 days. Really? Just 3 days? It's come too soon.
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