Bike Virginia 2004 Shenandoah Odyssey

Previous | Harrisonburg to New Market | June 21, 2004 Next

Let the climbing continue. While the profile map for today's ride did not appear as bad as yesterday's, there was still a lot of climbing. The climbing elevation was 3490 feet, and climbing distance was 22.9 miles. The grades were not as steep, so there were fewer people walking their bikes.

We checked out of our Harrisonburg motel room and rode down the hill to Tent City on the JMU campus. The day was another rare, cool, Bike Virginia morning, unlike the usual sweltering heat on most BikeVA trips. The JMU campus is attractive, with many old stone buildings and well-kept grounds. The ride out of town was mostly uphill, along some of the backstreets, through a section that appeared to be professor's homes. It was unfortunate that the campus town had no bike lanes and few sidewalks.

The first rest stop was at a private camp, Camp Horizon, at the foot of Massanutten Mountain. The BikeVA organizers seemed to have heeded the complaints of the day before, as the six food tables were loaded with cookies, fruit, and breakfast bars. Even the long porta-john line seemed to move faster than usual. The morning ride was very scenic, probably one of the most scenic Bike VA rides that I've experienced.

Rest stop at Broadway VFD

After lunch we flew down some great descents, then we continued to climb and descend to the second rest stop at the Broadway Vol Fire Dept, which also had plenty of food and drinks. The longer route option that we took, which added 18 miles to the 48 mile ride, branched off after the rest stop.

We continued on to lunch on the rollercoaster-like terrain to the New Market State Historical Park, where the Confederate soldiers, including a group of young lads from Virginia Military Institute, handed the Union troops another defeat.

New Market State Historical Park

If you visit many of the Civil War sites in Virginia, you will wonder how the South ever lost the war, what with their many valiant victories over the bumbling Northerners. At New Market, the conditions were so wet that many of the VMI students lost their shoes in the muddy battlefield. From then on it became known as The Field of Lost Shoes. Around five of them lost their lives. We stayed at the visitors center to watch an informative movie about the battle.

Entrance to American Celebration on Parade

Lunch consisted of penne pasta with sauce, lettuce salad, fruit salad, and cookies, served under a tent in the middle of one of the fields. The ride after lunch was about 10 easy miles, past Shenandoah Caverns and the parade float museum, American Celebration on Parade. We couldn't resist the free admission to the parade museum, and as one fellow biker commented, “that's about the strangest museum I've ever seen”. There were floats from the Rose Bowl, presidential inaugurations, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, etc. Weird.

Tent city at Stonewall Jackson High School was nearby, and for once we were glad that the mileage chart was wrong, as it was wrong in our favor, by two miles. There appeared to be lots of good camping spots, several taken by the Sherpa service that caters to campers who want to be pampered. They set up your tent, provide towels, and generally take care of your basic needs, for a price.

We locked up our bikes in the tennis court and waited for the shuttle. Since the accommodations were so spread out, with people staying as far north as Woodstock, about 10 miles away, and as far as Harrisonburg, 10 miles to the south, there were several bus routes. Bike VA usually does a great job of providing shuttle buses from Tent City to all official motels, the downtown area when there is one, and to local attractions. Today was the exception. People had been waiting for 40 minutes for the motel bus and the crowd was getting rowdy. Then the ride to our motel in Woodstock took another 30 minutes. We were pretty grouchy by the time we arrived, to wait in yet another line to check in.

We had a quick, uneventful dinner at Pizza Hut. It was our lucky night; pizza buffet with a special deal for Bike VA cyclists, $1 off. Dinner came to $10, as much as we later spent on breakfast foods at the local quick mart. We didn't feel like going through the shuttle bus ordeal again, so we retreated to our motel room for some down time, trying to remember that this is supposed to be a vacation after all.