Phase 5, Day 9. Petersburg- Yorktown, VA.

75 miles to end the trip at Chesapeake Bay.

Weather not good but could be much worse.  

...then turn left for Tom Petty concert. 

The last few miles on this abandonded road was a sweet end. 

Crossing James River. 

Williamsburg. Contrived but nice. 

75 miles to end the trip at Chesapeake Bay. 

Without a big day ahead, not a ton of miles and mostly flat, I went to bed thinking how nice a late start might be. Still woke up at 5am and anxious to start the day. The weather still dodgy with low clouds, mist and light showers which kept the roads wet all day but never really saw any rain. 

More miles on country roads and the last miles clicked off one at a time.  I was counting each mile down along those wet roads. Nav was easy with many turns at country junctions but got it right every time. Getting savvy at road signage in Virginia..every state is different. Still mostly wooded but every now and then soybean fields and dairy farms. 

At mile 40 found my way to the Scotland-Jamestown ferry for the 15 minute ride across the James River. Landed in Jamestown where the first Europeans settled 400 years ago. Only men and boys came initially. Guess they didn't plan to stay long, later they realized the ladies should come too. Send the ladies!


Jamestown makes up a corner of the "Historic Triangle". I visited all corners today. Williamsburg is a nice place. 18th century town Disneyland style. Very touristy but cute. The 3rd corner is Yorktown and my final destination. To be honest I didn't see Yorktown proper because the waterside and Chesapeake Bay was my destination. 

Arrival was great but anticlimactic, perhaps because I still had another hour of riding ahead. Felt good to reach the end though and I've had a lot of emotions about this trip today.  Of course traveling alone there is no one to celebrate with. I did find a nice lady sitting on a rock looking out to the bay and asked her if she would take my picture. Pretty soon she was so excited about my story she was on Facebook telling all her Brazilian friends about my ride and asked me if she could take pictures with her phone too. She was more excited than me it seemed. 

Yorktown's War Memorial is a traditional place to end a cross country cycling journey. The TransAmerica bike route ends there, Race Across America ends there too. I officially ended my ride while rolling up to the War Memorial. 

This crazy project has taken 5 summers to complete. I don't know that I'll ever accomplish anything as grand again but it's been such a great life experience for me. I can honestly say I've seen a narrow slice of America few people have seen.  It's a wonderful country. 

I've had some nice surprises: Nebraska riding far exceeded my expectations,  Nevada was remote and beautiful (I will go back), and the Appalachians are an amazing riding experience. So many other great memories. Not nice? Not much. 30 miles navigating Salt Lake City sucked...that's about it. 

5 summers have passed since leaving Sacramento. Since I began this ride in 2012 real life has gone on. I've lost my mother; she would have loved to read these stories. We've lost Chester, the family dog. Alex graduated from 2 universities and moved to Europe. Abby graduated high school and now at 21 is a beautiful and wonderful woman. We've moved to Santa Cruz, and on and on. Its easy to let life distract you from a goal but I'm glad I stuck with it. 

I could never have done this without the wonderful support from Carrie though. Always so encouraging and understanding of my goofy bike ride. She gets me, that it's important to me, and for that, thank you Carrie. 

The bike ran perfectly the last 1000+ miles. Not even a single flat tire. Today, 1 short mile from my final destination, Newport News, VA airport, the right pedal completely came apart. This would have been a disaster at any other point on the journey but I pedaled with one leg that last mile and enjoyed every bit of it. I think the bike gave up. 

I constantly got the same question when people asked about my trip: Why do you do this?  I never had a good answer. Perhaps one day I'll know why. 

Phase 5, Day 8. Appomattox - Petersburg, VA

114 miles. Spent all day outrunning Harvey but lost in the end.

Tobacco drying. Lots of tobacco today. 

High Bridge rail trail. Good lay of the land from on high. 

Fort Lee, VA. 

Covered a lot of ground today and it was nice to leave the climbing behind. It's never really flat, unless on a river flood plain, but it was pretty easy going and net downhill all day. 

What's left of the hurricane is charging past about 500 miles behind me but bands of associated weather threatened to catch me today so I left Appomattox as early as possible. Granny Bee's opened at 6am, 6:09 actually, and shoveled down a greasy meal for energy to start riding. 

Was feeling pretty good about myself with the early start.  So good in fact that I missed the first critical turn and had to re-nav back to course adding 5 miles to an already long day ahead.  So much for leaving early. 

The scenery was OK but mundane from what I've seen the past few days. Hills have flattened out and mostly covered with pine trees now. The roads are still quiet and in nice shape but the epic scenery is gone. 

Highlight of the day was 30 miles riding on High Bridge Trail, a rails to trails route. High Bridge is enormous at half a mile long and hundreds of feet above the Appomattox River. This bridge played a pivotal role at end of the Civil War and was burned by Confederate soldiers in an attempt to stop the advancing enemy. Bridge was restored and used for another 100+ years but now the only thing crossing High Bridge is a lonely cyclist. 

The weather approached from the west and I was headed away from it so it became a race. I packed food last night so I could eat on the fly. All day felt  like one of those Tour riders who breaks away from the peloton on his own, and pedals like mad for hours, to know they will all catch him eventually. I was trying to outrun the storm and it worked great until about mile 95. Had to bust out the rain jacket for the first time since leaving Kansas City. 

This was no regular rain. Suddenly roads flooded, I'm getting splashed by passing cars and I was glad there were only 15 miles to go. 15 miles usually takes 1.hour. Today, 2 hours. 

I've learned a few things during this adventure. For example, for every 3 or 4 ideal riding days there is 1 day that brings a challenge of some sort. Today was that day. I've also learned that one can ride a bike in 1 week the same distance a jet can cover in 1 hour. When you spend hours a day riding your bike you think about these things. 

Tomorrow is my last day crossing the country. It's about 60 miles to Yorktown, VA on the Chesapeake Bay. Of course I'm excited to end the adventure but this journey has been such a focus for me for 5 years I'm not sure how it will feel to reach the end. I will see tomorrow.