Day 2 (Henrik)

Today was the day that was (at least on paper) going to be the toughest one. Due to a closed section of the Parkway, we had to ride in the car from Asheville to Marion (about an hours drive), and ride Highway 80 from Marion up to the Parkway. At the Parkway, we rode in the 'wrong direction', and finally up to the highest peak in the Appalachian mountains (and also East of Mississippi) : Mount Mitchell. The elevation at that point is around 6300 feet, if I remember it correctly. After meeting our excellent support crew (today consisting of three people - Katie, Susan and Paul), we went back the same way as we had come up, and finally (after about 4 hours after starting the ride) rode the correct way (south to north). We wanted to do this extra ride, to make up for the closed section of Parkway between Craggy Gardens and the entrance to the Mt Mitchell State Park. In reptrospect, I would say that we rode much more than we really had to, but that was ok,
since the view from the summit of Mt Mitchell is really nice. (And the decent from it is also pretty nice. More than 30 minutes of (almost) pure downhill (at a speed of 50-60 km/h)!)
When doing the 2h50m climb from Marion to Mt Mitchell, we rode parts of it with 2 other guys from Durham, and Chapel Hill. It was real nice talking to them while going up. It gave me much energy (which I did not have much of after the really tough climb from Marion to the Parkway). The first hour of riding is clearly the most difficult for me, since I feel yesterdays effort in my legs. However, after a few hours on the bike, you are back into 'the zone'... (I actually felt worse after 1 hour today, than after the full ride, which is pretty surprising to me.)

The rest of the (long) day went pretty well. There were no major climbs left, and the road surface is really nice and smooth (compared to many Swedish roads). There were also not much traffic on the road, which makes it a safer ride. I had the elevation profile memorized (and the milepost numbers of the most significant peaks written on my arm), so I kind of knew what to expect, even though I hadn't ridden this part of the Parkway before. About 7 hours into the ride whe passed the Linn Cove Viaduct, which is the most beautiful place I have seen on the Parkway so far. It features an amazing view, over an incredibly large area consisting of green mountains, as far as the eye can see. I had to slow down a little bit to look at the view, for half a minute... But then, I had to catch up with Mitch again, who set the pace most of the day. Mitch is probably in a little better shape than I am, and I had to tell him to slow down a little bit about three times
during the day. 

The support crew did a great job today, stopping to see us many times during the ride. I think we stopped about 5 times today. (1 long stop on Mt Mitchell, and a few shorter ones). The stats are pretty impressive:
Distance: 157 km
Avg Speed: 22km/h (ok, this might not look very impressive...)
Max Speed: 64km/h
Climbing: 3710m
Total time: 8h11m
Roadkills: 1 snake and 3 squirrels
Mechanical Problems: 1 chain stuck between the cassette and the spokes on Mitch's bike. Fixed in 10 minutes.

I actually feel better overall right now than I did yesterday, and considering this was the hardest day of riding in our schedule, I very much think that we will be able to make it to the end of the Parkway on Wednesday. Tomorrow it will be much less climbing, and also a shorter distance, which will be good. I am actually looking forward to tomorrow.

/Henrik