After waving goodbye to our warm shower hosts this morning, we planned on riding from Ashcake, VA to just past Charlottesville, to Crozet, VA.  We anticipated riding 78 miles over hilly terrain.  The weather was hot and humid.  But worst of all, we faced a strong headwind all day.  Long story short, we crashed—physically, not actually—just after climbing into Charlottesville.  The photo below is Charles calling some of our closest friends to see if we might be able to stay with their friend in Charlottesville. We got to a gas station in Charlottesville just as a huge thunderstorm passed over us, with a deluge of rain and hail.  Our reluctance to ride in a thunderstorm combined with our fatigue got the better of us and we called a taxi to drive us the 12.5 miles remaining to our warm showers hosts.

The taxi story deserves a bit of elucidation.  As already mentioned, we pulled into the gas station just ahead of the storm but the roof over the pumps was not sufficient to keep us dry in the lashing rain, so Maja asked the convenience store manager if we could pull our bikes into an empty room with tables and chairs associated with the fried chicken counter in the store.  The manager at first said no, but Maja sweet talked him into changing his mind and so we planned to sit out the storm there.  It was then that we noticed what looked like a homeless man sleeping at one of the tables.  Long story short, he overheard us talking about our options for getting to Crozet—riding, taxi—and took charge.  He called a buddy at the local yellow cab and a little over an hour later, we were on our way to Crozet.  Our very nice cab driver affirmed that our guardian angel is, indeed, homeless.  He sleeps in his Crown Vic in which he also ferries customers.  We are extremely grateful that he took a liking to us, because the hotels in Charlottesville appeared to be sold out and we certainly weren’t looking forward to more hills and rain on the way to Crozet at what, by then, was a pretty late hour.

So, with the story of our 12.5 mile cheat behind us, let’s get back to the ride.  All in all it was a pretty ride and relatively uneventful.

Charles had some problems with his front brake rubbing the tire for a bit and slowing him down.  But we stopped and removed the tire (and put it back on!) and things seemed to work better from there on.

We rode on an extremely hairy road past James Monroe’s mansion and Monticello.  The lanes were so narrow and the roads so windy and hilly that traffic backed up behind us as we slowly climbed the relatively steep slopes.  It was pretty nerve wracking and we were happy that no accidents ensued.  The drivers were amazingly patient.

Maja is especially thankful for the large number of churches on our route for the bathrooms they make available to us, since peeing in the bushes is not an option given all the poison ivy everywhere.

Our warm showers hosts are very bike friendly—see our bathroom below.  In fact, they set up an aid station during the Race Across America that takes our route, but from West to East.  The record for the 4,230 mile race is 17 days, unassisted!!

Tomorrow will be our toughest climb so far.  And we thought today was bad. Total miles are estimated to be around 60 miles. Luckily, the wind is supposed to be at our backs.  Fingers crossed.