GRUSK Venti: Day 1

Backstory:

So, about seven weeks ago, I attempted the TransVA DC to Harrisonburg route, but had to scratch due to pretty significant knee pain.  Turns out, I tore my MCL in my right knee.  Several weeks of "kneehab", some shorter mountain bike rides, a move (we bought a house!) requiring two weeks off the bike, and one long ride on flat pedals later, I felt pretty good about attempting the 220 mile GRUSK (Gravel Race Up Spruce Knob) Venti route. 

Initially, I wanted to complete the route in two days.  However, due to wanting to keep my knee intact and avoid further damage, I opted to tour it instead of race it and take three days to do it.  My big dumb bike adventure partner was a little iffy on the big route, so I had to convince her that doing it in three days with a couple of bail out options was a good idea.  In all honesty, it did not take much arm twisting and she was ready to adventure with me!  It also may have helped that someone else created the route this time...  😉

We set off for the Experience Learning Mountain Institute (https://experience-learning.org/: Check it out, it is a magical place!) near Spruce Knob, West Virginia on an extremely hot and humid Wednesday afternoon.  No, seriously, it was 103 degrees (F) when I left my house in Falls Church at 13:45.  It was really gross out.  The ride out was relatively uneventful other than the normal traffic backup on I-66 due to all the construction.  Once getting off the interstate and onto Route 55, all the tension that had built up over the past two months from the knee injury, buying a house, and moving all seemed to just melt away.  The mountains and green of the country woods just soothe my soul like nothing else can.  The temperature steadily dropped as I drove farther and farther west.  I got caught up in a couple of storms on the way out, but nothing too bad.  By the time I pulled up to my car's resting spot for the next few days at the venue, the temperature had dropped 40 degrees.  I stepped out of my car and almost immediately got chilled.  It was GLORIOUS.  

Laurie was already there and getting her car set up for sleeping.  I set out to get my car set up, which only took a couple of minutes.  There is something to be said for being able to sleep in the back of your Subaru.  An air mattress, bag liner, and a pillow is all you need.  But whoops.  I totally forgot my car pillow.  Huge thanks to Laurie for having a spare and letting me borrow it.  

A few folks were already there and set up, including teammates Spurrier (and Christina, his wife) and Cyndi.  Spurrier was there early to see us off as he was doing the 140 one day race on Saturday.  Cyndi was doing the 220, but leaving earlier than us and hoping to finish in a day and a half (spoiler alert, she did and crushed it!).  We grabbed a couple of beers and snacks and headed over to Spurrier's camper to hang out for a bit before heading to bed.  We met Steve and Cassie who had plans similar to mine about doing it in three days and enjoying the scenery.  They had planned to leave a bit before us in the morning, though.  After a while, we headed to bed to get a full night's rest before starting our adventure in the morning.  

After that giant wall of text, here are our bikes leaning against my car.

We got up around 06:00 Thursday morning to get ready for an 08:00 roll out.  We packed up bags, ate some breakfast, and basically milled around procrastinating getting out of our warm clothes and into our kits.  Did I mention it was nice and cool?  I think it was about 55 degrees.  I even put knee warmers on!  Around 07:50, we rolled down to say good morning to Travis (race director), get our numbers, and grab Laurie's SPOT tracker.  I have my own Garmin InReach, so I did not need a SPOT.  After chatting with Travis for a few minutes and posing for a photo, we were ready to roll out.  We had an ambitious day ahead of us and wanted to get rolling.  So long friends!  See you in three days!

All smiles as we are ready to roll out of camp and into an amazing adventure!
Photo courtesy of Travis Olson

The first part of the course is just amazing.  It is 100% a completely unearned descent on glorious gravel roads.  While we were really enjoying the fast start, we knew that we were going to have to pay for that descent at some point in the very near future.  All in all, it was about 12 miles of mostly downhill at the start.  It was a bit damp and misty, but we were not complaining since it was just nasty hot and humid back home.  It felt good to be a little chilled.  We finally made it to the first paved section of the route: a little jaunt on Route 28.  

Getting ready to make the turn onto 28.  That hill is short lived, I promise!

Route 28 is super smooth and relatively low traffic, especially that early on a Thursday.  It is also mostly downhill.  Again, we knew we were going to have to pay for this eventually, but BOY did it feel good to start the longest day with a really nice long descent.  Except...  as we really started to hit the downhill on 28, it started actually raining.  It had been misting most of the morning, but these were actual raindrops.  And it was a bit chilly, especially considering that we were going 30+ mph.  Oh well, at least it was not 95 degrees and humid.  

Once we turned off Route 28, we began our first real climb of the day.  It was this lovely gravel road that was as green as green could be.  With raindrops softly falling around us, it was probably the most zen climb I have done in a really long time.  There was nothing around that was not beautiful (this is a theme for the entire weekend).  Every once in a while you see a little flash of colour with some fresh West Virginia wild flowers.  It was fantastic. 

SO MUCH GREEN!

After about 10 miles and 1100 feet of elevation, we get to the tipping point and start going downhill.  Laurie is generally a much better descender than I am (I am not slow, I am cautious...), so she pulled ahead of me, as the road got a little chunkier.  No worries, I will just take a selfie while riding in the rain...  

Why is my cap always crooked?

As I come around a bit of a bend, I see Laurie stopped on the side of the road and I immediately think something is up with her bike.  Nope, she just found this really cool barn with some very pretty wild flowers and wanted to take a picture.  We are "touring" and not "racing" after all.  Might as well stop and taken in the views!

Nothing wrong, just checking out the view!

What a lovely view!

A few more miles and we stop to admire a little patch of wild flowers that someone must have planted.  Poppies, corn flowers, just lovely pops of colour!

Random patch of poppies

World's most adorable bees!

The next milestone was to drop down into Greenbank and take a little tour through the observatory.  It was pretty neat to ride through and see the telescopes.  We also took a little detour to Arbovale to the general store to refill water and grab a snack.  It was the cutest little general store and literally had everything you could have ever wanted, including copper tubing, paint, and propane heaters.  The folks that worked there were super sweet asking us about our ride and how far we were planning on going.  I love West Virginia.  

Space is cool.

As we got back on route, we finished our tour of the observatory and detoured quickly to check out the big telescope.  It was huge.  Apologies that the only photo I have posted of it is from far away, but the area of the observatory around the big one was a radio quiet zone.  

Back into the green we go.

After leaving the observatory property, the route had us on some lovely double track before diving into Hosterman Trail, which is largely unmaintained.  Laurie was astonished that Travis knew how all these trails connected, since it was obvious that almost no one used the trail we were on.  At times it felt like we were bushwacking and there were tons of downed trees to get over.  

Tunnels of rhododendron!

But boy, was it beautiful.  There were rhododendrons everywhere!  And a small river ran beside the trail most of the time.  Plus, riding unmaintained trails on a fully loaded gravel bike is a ton of fun.  Hopping over slimy, wet logs with 60 pounds of gear can definitely test your skills!

Rivers and logs, what more could one ask for?  Yes, that IS rain falling on the river.

After a few miles, the trail crossed a little stream and turned into rocky, off camber, narrow singletrack.  There were several moments of flintstoning through some chunky rocks and root gardens.  It was a blast.  Seriously, I love stuff like this.  My bike, on the other hand, does not necessarily feel the same way about me pretending it is a mountain bike.  But she handled everything perfectly, even though my tire pressure was about 15 PSI higher than normal due to all the gear I was carrying.  

Easy does it on the super slick bridge!

After a moment, we see the bridge that indicates the end of the trail.  Laurie is ahead of me, as she is a better technical rider and seemed to breeze through the chunky singletrack section with ease.  I hear her yell back at me that the bridge is slick.  I acknowledge and had already figured it would be slick, since it was still raining.  Oh boy...  Laurie understated the slickness of that bridge!  I put one foot on it and just about took myself, my bike, and probably half the bridge with me.  Luckily, the sides were pretty sturdy and I caught myself before hitting the ground.  I steadied myself and stopped to admire the view of the Greenbrier River amidst the raindrops.  Again, the beauty of what surrounds me absolutely takes my breath away.

The Greenbrier River, dancing under the raindrops.

After crossing the river, we hit a short section of gravel road and then meander northward on a lovely paved section for a few miles to Durbin.  Once in Durbin, we jump onto the longest gravel road in the world.  Or at least, that is what it seemed like.  It was about 22 miles of gravel that rolled as it climbed.  It was still raining and the road ran alongside, just very high up from, the west branch of the Greenbrier River.  It was relatively monotonous, but still very beautiful.  

Our next planned water stop was in Glady, but we found a natural spring about four miles out from Glady that we decided to fill up from instead.  So we stopped, filled our bottles and packs, and had a quick snack break, knowing that we had about 14 miles to go to the first of two proposed camping spots.  Luckily the mileage went by pretty quickly.  So quickly that about halfway there, I thought my brain was playing tricks on me when I saw a little black head pop up out of some brambles on the side of the road.  I immediately tensed, because I thought it was a dog (bad dog bite experience on the bike from a few years ago).  But then there were more little heads that popped out of the brambles.  I yelled to Laurie to slow down, because she was a little ahead of me.

I was too slow to snap a photo of them as
they all jumped out onto the road.

"GOATS!!!"  She immediately slammed on the brakes and turned her head around, eyes wide with delight.  

She is coming in for some snuggles!

Then, they all jumped out of the brush and onto the road and paraded down to the next driveway, stopping for pets along the way.  There was probably 25 goats just hanging out next to the road snacking on whatever delicious brambles were down the drop off.  THEY WERE SO CUTE!

Good little goats heading back home.

We stopped to pet them, and some even came back for more butt scratches.  It was so unexpected and such a delightful surprise.  Did I mention that I love West Virginia.  Where else can you find a trip of goats on the side of a lovely country road?  

Goats like scritches, too!

So after getting as many goat snuggles in as we could, we headed on towards our destination, which was the Experience Learning Center director's driveway.  Travis had arranged to have a fully stocked aid station and backyard camping at the director's house.  We had two plans for camping on the first night, and this was the first one.  The second involved about 10 more miles and 1600 more feet of elevation.  

Once we got to the driveway and saw the snack spread awaiting us, we stopped and just started eating!  Salty snacks are a godsend after 86 miles on the bike.  Laurie and I stopped stuffing our faces for a minute to weigh our options.  Should we call it a day now, or head up to the top of the ridge and camp on Bickle Knob?  When we first got there, I think we were both thinking of calling it a day and tackling the climb first thing in the morning.  But after eating, I decided I wanted to press on, especially since we had about two hours of good quality daylight left.  Laurie agreed and off we went.  

The first couple of miles on pavement was pretty easy: a gradual climb and a nice descent down to Route 33.  We crossed over by the now open Alpine Lodge (it was under renovation two years ago when I was there) and both Laurie and I laughed about how we should have stayed there with a real bed and showers.  Maybe next year!  

After crossing 33, we immediately start climbing and then take a sharp left up by the graveyard in Alpena.  And then we just keep climbing.  The road almost immediately degraded and turned into chunky rock.  My heart sunk, as I realized what should have taken at most an hour and a half was probably going to take longer.  I was reliving the white gravel road from last summer all over again (that is another, very long, very fun story to tell another day).  

To my relief, after about a mile, we turned on to a forest service road, which was very well maintained gravel.  WOOHOO!  We are going to make it before dark!  We are both getting tired, and the road, while nicely maintained gravel, was still a climb.  We were both head down, grinding out the miles, when we both notice that there are lovely springs every half mile or so.  The course description mentioned that there was a spring at Bickle Knob and the springs leading up the mountain were running pretty steadily, so we both opted to just keep climbing and fill up our water at Bickle Knob, if needed.  (We had filled up at the aid station, so both had a decent supply, or so we thought.)

We finally got to the turn off for Bickle Knob.  My knee was giving me a little sign that it was about done with climbing for the day, so once the turn off got super steep, I hopped off and walked the rest of the way up.  It actually felt pretty good to get off the saddle and stretch my legs.  But all in all, after almost 100 miles on the day and over 10k feet of elevation gain, I felt pretty damned good.  I was tired and my body ached in all the places that a body aches after a long, hard day on the bike.  

This was the most amazing view.  The picture does not do it justice.

We propped our bikes up and went about setting up camp.  We found a lovely overlook and decided it was flat enough and set up our tents so that we could watch the sun set over the valley.  After getting tents and sleep systems set up, we changed clothes and set about making dinner.  

The sunset was lovely, even if there were a few clouds.

I was super stoked to eat the pasta dinner that I had bought specifically for Day 2 of the TransVA that I missed out on eating.  I was craving something savoury and knew it was going to hit the spot.  Laurie, bless her heart, brough wine.  So I had wine and pasta.  FANCY!  Laurie had a three cheese mac & cheese dinner that smelled amazing.  It apparently WAS pretty tasty, as she ate the entire thing.  Needless to say, we had full bellies, a glass of wine, and a spectacular view.  What could be better?

Robot birds.  That is what.  

As we were relaxing after eating ALL of the food, I kept hearing these birds that sounded robotic.  I had never heard anything quite like it.  It was mesmerizing.  I took a video of the skyline just so I could keep the birds' song in mind to figure out what kind of bird it was.  I have never tried to imbed a video before, so if the above video fails, my apologies.

Obviously, we were exhausted, so shortly after the sun set, we headed to bed.  We knew we had an easy start to the day, but we were still hopeful for a restful night's sleep. 

See next post for the continuation of our adventure tale!