Spring Biking in Virginia

Dogwoods along Long Bishop

Dogwood Blooms

Spring in Virginia is a beautiful time of year. The birds are singing, trees are blooming & everything is turning a beautiful shade of green. Over the last 3 weeks one of us has been out riding most days...the other has been out driving around town sorting through the roadside junk. One of us is going to be ready for Utah rides in a few weeks...

Being back on the bike has gone pretty well...the legs have been far better than expected. The bottom has handled almost daily riding pretty well too. If compared to last year's Spring biking season the body has been in far better shape to ride. Not exactly sure what the difference has been, but not complaining about it. Maybe the yoga? That's been the only 'new thing' added this year. The daily 20 to 30 minutes of yoga has been a new experience for me. Enjoying the time spent on the mat & Adriene has been very good introduction to yoga. 

Run from the Neon Lady

17 White-tailed deer

The last few days have been some awesome rides. Sunny & warm enough to ditch the tights & jacket. A few days ago there was a huge herd of white-tailed deer laying down in the shade. Unusual to see that may white-tails hanging out together. They really didn't care for the lady in her bright neon stopping to take their photo. At least they ran away from me...for some reason the single ones always seem to run towards me on the road. Not exactly going to win that battle.

 

Thursday I decided that I may as well ride the Huckleberry Trail. I love this ride! I decided to cut a few miles off my usual 30 miles to keep from overdoing it. Met up with the better half & Bridger for lunch rather than ride all the way to Christiansburg. By the time I got back to the house I had ended up riding 21 miles...looks like I could have done the entire trail. It was a spectacular ride...except around Virginia Tech's campus. I do wish college kids would look before stepping into the road at spots that are not crosswalks...with their ear buds they don't hear or acknowledge my warnings. Yet I'm the 'bad guy'!

Long Bishop

It rained on Friday so no ride. Today the weather cleared and off I headed to do my usual daily ride...we call it Long Bishop-Short Bishop. Roughly 8 miles of country road...Long Bishop can have a few cars pass, but Short Bishop seldom has any cars. I finished off my ride in a couple of neighborhoods with big uphill climbs until I hit my average 12 to 13 miles. 

My 7 day running average for this week stands at 70.7 miles...pretty darn good if I do say so! I'm hoping to reach 100 miles in the next week or two.

Black Cherry

Top of neighborhood hill...looking west

Last Hurrah!

Last run on Southern Drawl

Our last few days of the winter season ended with a BANG! A fresh 10 inches of snow fell on the slopes early on Wednesday. We had it to ourselves for the most part since the powder hounds weren't aware of the amount of snow that had fallen. The early risers would have seen only a dusting on the snow report. Those of us that get to the mountain by 8:00 AM knew it was going to be a good powder day. By the time the lifts started spinning at 9:00 AM there was at least 4-5 inches on the ground & it kept falling. It was awesome!

Thursday was a different story. The lift line was much longer than Wednesday's & another 3 inches of freshly fallen snow certainly added to the fun. Even though the lift lines were longer & the slopes much more crowded we still found a good bit of untracked snow. We decided to skip break time due to the crowded lodge and hit the powder areas that the 'come heres' don't ride or ski. When the legs got too tired we left the mountain and headed to Mountains Walking for our reward...a carnivore pizza & Cind's favorite fruity slushie. 

Our final day of the week was one of those rare bluebird days with little to no wind, bright sunshine & just cold enough to keep us comfortable. After some discussion we decided to end our season on that high note. Once again we made it back to Virginia in 2 days. We know we are nuts, but what else do we have to do? 

It was an earlier exit than we'd originally planned, but our dear friends' daughter was getting married the next weekend. As it turned out maybe we were a bit premature on that decision since the snow started falling & the town ended up with 20 inches early Saturday. I had mentioned to SH that if 20 inches of POW fell we'd not be attending her wedding. We even tried to get her to move her wedding to Chico Hot Springs in Pray, MT. Too bad that didn't work out since the snow has continued to fall and temperatures have remained below freezing. No spring skiing this year! We hate spring skiing...next year we're staying until the end of season. Yeah it will probably be 70 degrees...then we'll bike!

The Pickle & the crazy tracks over cliffs

A few stats of the season:

Cind rode over 44 days, had approximately 500 runs, traveled over 450 miles & 316,173 vertical feet (give or take a few days due to her app's failure to launch on a few days).

Bill rode over 39 days, had approximately 440 runs, traveled over 381 miles & 137,323 vertical feet**(give or take a few days due to his app's failure to launch on a few days).

**his vertical is off due to switching from an app that doesn't record it to one that did later in the season

 
*Click pictures to enlarge