Day 79, Harlan, KY to Gate City, VA

Miles – 57

Miles From Start/To Finish – 3,720/625

Ave Riding Speed – 3-21 mph

Hours Start to Finish – 8

Weather – Partly Cloudy, Humid and 90

Our alarms again went off at 5am, but neither of us could get up. We rolled out of bed at 6am and feeling sluggish. I walked down the steps from our second-floor hotel room, at the Quality Inn, to fetch some coffee from the breakfast nook for Kim and I. Breakfast started at 6:30am, so we showered and packed, before heading down for some yogurt and cereal. We rode the elevator down to the first-floor with our bikes and hit the fresh Kentucky air at 7:30am. We headed southeast on Hwy 421. It was mostly 4 lanes with half a shoulder and a rumble strip between us and the vehicle lanes.

We rode 15-miles to the Virginia border and noticed the Virginia welcome sign up a head. As we approached the sign, we saw one dog notice us from the house on the right side of the road. The dog started barking as we slowed down and then out came the rest of his posse and they were ready for a chase. We kept moving and they came a running and barking. Kim was in front of me so I pulled out the pepper spray and gave short squirt to the dogs that were closing in on me. They immediately halted and stopped barking. We were a little disappointed we didn’t get a picture of our last state sign on the adventure and settled for a picture of the Virginia Coal Heritage Trail sign about a half-mile further up to mark our historic feat.

8-miles later we rode into Pennington Gap, Virginia and stopped at a convenience store for a Gatorade. I went in to use the bathroom and when I returned Kim was speaking with a gentleman near our bikes leaned up against the building. We met Don. He has lived in the area his whole life. Back in high school in the 70’s he was an All-American in football and had a chance to play at a big-time college, but as he said, he was mature enough back then. He did graduate from college and became a teacher. He said after three-years of teaching and making less than $700 a month and watching all his buddies making all this money in the coal mines, he joined them. He worked in the mines for 25-years and loved it. Don is retired now and doing some lawn maintenance on the side. He asked if we were doing a fundraiser on our ride and Kim talked to him about that. He opened up his wallet and gave Kim some cash for the LCBA. Pretty cool. Don was a super nice guy and we wished we could have talked with him for longer.

We continued southeast on Hwy 421 until we hooked up with Hwy 58 heading east. Don has warned us about a couple climbs we’d hit to get on top of Powell Mountain. They were a couple camel humps for about 1.5-miles up each that we had to walk. We pulled over at the top for the awesome view and took a break. We hung out there for a half-hour. Kim Face-Timed her mom to show her the view. She also tried my mom, but she wasn’t available.

Since we had another 35-miles to go and it was heating up, we got back on the road for a nice downhill. When we hit the road again, I was dragging. Kim’s feeling pretty good though. We finally pulled off Hwy 58 to head into Gate City and googled the B&B we are staying at for directions. We rode on. I was in the lead and didn’t notice that Kim wasn’t behind me until I was almost in town. I turned around and rode back a half-mile and found her walking her bike with a rear flat tire. It’s been a while since we had a flat and we were probably due. Riding those shoulders are tough on the tires.

We walked the bike to a shady tree next to the street we pulled off on and found a couple pieces of wire stuck in her rear tire. I pulled out the wire, replaced the tube and pumped it up. We were back in business in less than 30-minutes and continued into Gate City to our B&B just off the main drag. When we arrived our hostess, Cameron, walked out to the street to greet us and said she has some Asian takeout ready for us. We were hungry and ate before going up to our room.

We been seeing this vine growing everywhere and hanging from trees, electrical poles and even the electrical lines along the forested roads in eastern Kentucky and into Virginia and asked Cameron about that. She said it called Kudlzu. It was introduced back in 1876 to mitigate soil erosion and an ornamental plant from Japan. Today it’s an invasive plant growing everywhere

We also met Mark, our host. He said we can bring our bikes inside. As we were rolling them inside, he noticed Kim’s back tire was flat again. I remembered that I didn’t run my fingers around the inside of the tire. That’s what I get. We’ll be in bed by 8pm tonight and will tackle the re-repair in the morning.

Mark said they’ll have omelets and bacon at 6:30am. We have about a 70-mile day tomorrow and heading northeast as we work to rejoin the TransAm route in a few days.