Skyline Drive!

This past weekend I had a “cousin’s weekend” with my husband’s family. They randomly picked near Luray, VA. Naturally I was going to bring my bike so I could still train while there. It’s nice being able to explore new places. While looking for common routes on Strava heatmaps (love that website!) I noticed this road that went through mountains highlighted. Turns out it was Skyline Drive which is a 100+ mile road in the mountains which I think is all part of a state park. I got a 3 hour “have fun!” ride on my schedule for Skyline and was very excited to be able to go out and ride in a new place and not worry about numbers.

The week leading up to this I kept checking the weather (naturally) and of course it kept changing. It went from nice to raining to nice to raining and I was pretty convinced I was going to be riding in the cold and rain but I was determined to do this ride either way. I’ve been a giant pansy all winter and would never ride outside unless it was light out in the in the 60s, maybe once or twice in the 50s. I don’t own cold gear for riding. I ordered real riding gloves and leg warmers two days before I was going to leave for the weekend and prayed to the Amazon gods that the my prime 2 day shipping would serve me well. It literally arrived 5 minutes before we left. Even with these purchases I knew I still didn’t have the right gear like some type of cycling jacket for wind/rain and covers/boots for over my shoes.

So Saturday morning I woke up hours before everyone else and headed out to Skyline Drive. The GPS got very screwed up in where it was trying to take me so I ended up getting there when it was still dark so I drove south for a while and enjoyed the view before heading out on my bike heading north.

I was excited for this ride because I haven’t done climbing in literally months. At the same time the weather seemed to be giving me anxiety because my resting heartrate was high. The first several miles were more like rollers before I started to climb the first big section. I was putting in what felt like a solid effort for my legs but my heartrate was staying lower than I wanted which seems to be a trend for me all winter. I was cold but it was manageable. Somewhere during this climb it started snowing. Yes….snowing. Now I’m not saying I was happy to be riding in temperatures that cold but at least it was just cold enough to be snow vs rain. The snow was very pretty and it made for a new experience for sure. During the climb it wasn’t that bad because I was working harder and barely chugging along at like 8mph.

Then it was time to descend. I like descending and it’s something I’d like to improve on to get over my fear of going really fast. I always have images of my friend who crashed while descending though and that makes me break when I start to get close to 40mph or am going around a curve. During the first descent is when I started to feel cold. At this point my feet were pretty much numb. My hands were very cold but everything else was mostly ok.

Did the climb on the next section and once I started to descend down the back half of that I quickly decided that it was time to turn around before going any further downhill. Descending was brutal. Going over 30mph while it was snowing and windy was starting to chill me to the bone. I started intentionally breaking more in hopes that the wind wouldn’t be as bad and because I was getting nervous with the wet roads. I stopped at some of the outlooks to take my gloves off and thaw my hands out a bit on my stomach (and take pictures naturally while trying to pretend I was still happy). It was so cold that I had to put my bars in my jersey in an attempt warm them up so I could bite into them but after the first bite it would turn back into a rock. I literally thought I was going to break my teeth on it but I needed the fuel. I drank half of what I brought because for the first time in my life I wasn’t sweating at all and the bottle tops kept freezing over. By the end my whole body was shaking and all I could do was count down the miles until I got back to my car.

I made it back to my car in one frozen piece. I spent the whole drive back to the house with the heat full blast and seat warmers on high and couldn’t stop shaking the whole time. It wasn’t until maybe 2 hours later and a long hot shower that I finally got feeling completely back in my feet.

Despite the fact that I was truly miserable for most of the ride, I’m glad I did it. Goes back to how I felt about run camp. It’s good to put yourself in tough situations sometimes to help build up what you can and are willing to put yourself through (as long as it doesn’t include hypothermia). And the ride itself really was awesome. Other than the whole being freezing part, I loved the descending and climbing and the views were great.  I’d love to do it again sometime and I realized the north entrance of the road is an hour from my parents’ house so hopefully I can do it again one day. Next time in nicer weather though.