Bicycling Skyline Drive

Always wanted to bike Skyline Drive; the 105-mile road meandering along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park (yes, the same Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River from John Denver’s “Country Roads”).  Always wanted - never done it; until a few days ago when I drove to the Mountains, entered the park at Thornton Gap (around mile 31), parked at the Panorama rest stop immediately next to the entrance, and biked South from that point.  

The first thing I noticed was a “sudden” change in temperature, which dropped several degrees of Centigrade and made me almost regret not wearing long sleeves.  Never mind, I toughed, the first hill will warm you up.  And, it did.  Entering the Drive at that point and turning right South, heralds the rider with an almost constant 4-mile-long climb, netting about 800 feet of vertical climb.  Riding through the 610-foot Mary’s Rock Tunnel was quite remarkable; panting and puffing while pedaling up to the mountain (the tunnel is slopped uphill just like the rest of the road at that section).  In order to avoid the Mountain putting more psychological pressure on me than it already had, I kept my head down focusing only on a few meters ahead, and lifting the head from time to time to scan larger sections of the road laying ahead.  

However slow and laborious climbing up was, going down the hill was quick and rewarding.  It almost felt like being catapulted from 6-7 miles per hour to 40-45 miles per hour.  In addition to a number of shorter or longer climbs, two of them were more memorable than others.  The first one was from Stony Man Mountain Overlook to Skyland Resort, and the second from Fishers Gap Overlook to Big Meadows.  They were long and arduous.  Continued until Hazeltop Ridge Overlook at mile post 54.5, before concluding that bicycling the Mountain for the first time ever for 23 miles in one direction would be quite enough.   Stopped for the first time, eat a sandwich, and turned back. 

For some reason, returning seems always to be faster and easier than going out.  To make it short, those long climbs paid off; the first time ever experiencing long climbs down made me feel more like gliding down the hills than bicycling.  You just take your position and navigate almost solely by your thoughts; like in a dream. Of course, one always has to maintain his/her awareness as one is sharing the road with occasional cars, motorcycles, and, yes, wild animals. 

At the moment when I was already feeling great and when my pre-ride concerns relative to my ability to ride all those long climbs, which for years I was pondering from my car, were making room to some great feeling of accomplishment, something really great happened: I rode just a few meters from a mother black bear and her three cubs! The four of them were rather lazily climbing up to the opposite side of the road side with the mother only taking a cursory look of me.  Fortunately, she did not perceive me as a threat to her cubs, and the climb that followed was not too long to prohibit accelerating if necessary. There was no other living soul in the vicinity, which made me feel additionally privileged by experiencing this precious moment.  It almost made me feel as Robin Williams must have felt playing Patch Adams when butterfly landed on his chest. It happened in these same Mountains in the movie titled “Patch Adams”.  This experience, my first ever sightseeing of bears in these Mountains, only accentuated the joy of gliding those last four miles down to the Mountain, which quickly followed.  One thing for certain, riding back through the tunnel, this time downhill at about 35 miles per hour, felt really weird.  There is no lighting inside the tunnel, I am still wearing my sunglasses, and the only light around is that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel..., you do not see almost anything around while being focused at that light.  

Spending three hours to ride 46 miles may not sound as something, but riding on a flat terrain and riding in the mountains are two different types of riding. Mountains could be treacherous. The weather could change suddenly… 

The quality of the roadway itself was excellent. A few years ago the road was repaved and that still holds rather well. Unlike at so many other roads, where the sides of the roads undisturbed by the tires tend to contain lots of small rocks, broken glass, and other unwelcome trash, this road was equally clean in its entire width in length.  Skyline Drive is open to other vehicles too, which means cars and motorcycles will be passing you (not on your way downhill, though). Because the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and because people do not use the Drive simply to move from one point to another, but rather to enjoy the scenery, cars and bikes get along quite well. Besides, there are no traffic lights, and if you do not exit the Drive, no stop or other traffic signs limiting your bicycling experience.    

  

More on the Skyline Drive could be found at: http://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/driving-skyline-drive.htm, and on Mary’s Rock Tunnel at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%27s_Rock.