Before getting into Roanoke we stopped for some wine tasting at a local vineyard.
An amazing farm along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Matt next to the sign marking our highest elevation to date on the ride.

Ross descending down a hill through the Appalachian Mountains.

Ross asking a local to throw him up a beer, to bad the valley below was nearly 2,000 feet down.

Looking out over "20 minute cliff"

Over this rock there is approximately a 200 foot drop.

Enjoying the view before our decent out of the Appalachian Mountains.

Our camp site at Lake Sherando, which was nearly 1,000 feet below our bicycle route. It was one heck of a climb getting back to our route the next morning!

Action photo of Matt eating on the side of the road. We are constantly eating anything we can get our hands on.

Ross riding with the rain covers on. We have been threatened by rain every day thus far.

Day 3 - Climbing the Appalachian Mountains

June "The Cookie Lady" Curry is a lady who provides housing and food for cyclists at the base of the Appalacian Mountains in Afton, VA. She is famous among riders who do the Trans Am bicycle path. We stopped in and met The Cookie Lady. She showed us the Bike House where cyclists stay. The tradition is to leave something behind. The house is something of a museum with nic-nacs from riders ever since people began taking this route in 1976.

Matt and I are approximately 220 miles into our journey. Above is a picture of us overlooking the Thomas Jefferson Vineyard. In front of us are the grape vineyards and in the distance to the right are the mountains we rode up in a few hours to get to Monticello (For those of you amateurs look at the back of a nickel). Today went very well, we are feeling good considering the mileage we have covered in the past 3 days. Our butts hurts a little, our legs are a little sore, but our spirits are high (Helped in part by the Mexican Restaurant we found in Charlottsville, VA and their jumbo margaritas). Tomorrow we will begin climbing to the top of the Appalachian Mountains. We will climb 5,000 ft in elevation. This will be the steepest climb of the entire cross country trek as we'll as the steepest longest descent or the route. Today we descended at nearly 40 mph so tomorrow should be even dicier.

Bumpass, VA

We are so mature...after 4 hours on a bike we about lost it when we went through this little town. This is our tribute to that old Aerosmith album cover for Pump.

Night two we stayed in Bumpass, VA / Lake Anna with a wonderful couple. We meet them in their church parking lot while we were sucking down sweet tea (with the help of Vern). The stay was compleate with boating, swimming, pasta, wine, A/C....the worksss!
Food Stop in Ashland, VA.

Ross and Matt at a battlefield (and just figured out how to set the self timer on the camera!

Home for night one. We were welcomed by the Willis Methodist Church just before Glendale, VA. Aprox. 60 miles into the ride, although we rode 72 sinde we checked out Williamsberg!

The "official" start of the TransAm trail. Vistory Monument Yorktown, VA.

Dipping our wheels in the Atlantic at Yorktown, VA.

Were two days and around 130 miles into the TransAm trail. We had a wonderful goodbye with my (matt's) folks! It was great that they were able to make it down to see us of. The first day we road through historic Jamestown and Williamsburg. We ended in Glendale, VA at Willis Methodist with 72 miles completed, although only 62 were progress. This was a mix of my map reading skills up to now and road detours. We ended the night with some much needed pizza and sleep. It was great to enjoy some AC the first night. Day two can be summed up by saying it was very hot and we must carry more water. We have now begun to see some hills, but there very minor compared to what we will see at the end of the week. We were welcomed by a couple at the end of our day who opened their house up to us. We were fed and also enjoyed some swimming in warm Lake Anna. Today's mileage was right around 70, which puts as at a grand total of approximately 132 miles into the ride.

Pictures!

Training ride to Minster, Oh

Guest Speakers @ Tipp City Rotary

Interview on Bucher's Beat!

May 21st Ross and I were interviewed by Jim Bucher on Channel 2 news.  Despite us having to be up at 4:30am it was an awesome experience.  We had numerous people from the community come out and support us!  

Each day were getting closer and closer to our $10,000 goal for the ABTA.  If your not keeping track at hope.abta.org/wrightflyers2009 we are just about to the 10% marker.  We both feel this is a good start, as we hope many more donations come in as we hit the road.  

We have made our plans for departure, which will happen June 6th.  We will be driving down to Virginia Saturday the 6th, then starting our journey either that afternoon or early Sunday the 7th.  We will be updating this blog at least twice a week, but hope to see that number be more like 5 times a week.  We know that you all will be very anxious to see how were doing!

Dayton Daily News & Tipp City Rotary

On Thursday May 7th the Dayton Daily News ran an article on our bicycle trip.  I think that the article was very well written and should be positive for gaining donations.  On Tuesday May 13th Ross and myself will be the guest speakers for the Tipp City Rotary.  This is going to be a wonderful chance for us to get in front of up to 75 local business owners who are potential sponsors.  We are both looking forward to taking the next month to promote the trip as we will depart in early June.  You can see our news article by clicking here.