Four Days on the TransVirginia

2021-05-16

The TransVirginia is a gravel bikepacking route from DC to Damascus, VA. Its ~550 miles long.

I wanted to bike the TransVA as my next trip. My previous trip was ~120 miles form DC to Harpers Ferry, so this one would be a lot longer. I planned on completing the route in 12 days.

I left my apartment on a Saturday morning in April.

Day 1

The original route calls for riding the C&O from DC to White's Ferry. Normally there is a ferry to carry you accross the Potomac, but it stopped running recently. So the TransVA creator had to come up with some alternate routes at the beginning. Regardless of the ferry, I didn't want to ride the beginning of the C&O again because I had done it many times before.

So I took the W&OD from Arlington to Purceville, and get back on the TransVA proper there. The W&OD is a flat rail trail, so I was able to do the 45 miles pretty easily.

Biking through Loudon County was fine. I encountered my first gravel roads of the trip. At the end of they day the route goes along a highway for a bit and that part was bad. I had never biked on the shoulder of the highway before. At one point I had to dart accross 4 lanes of traffic (like making a left turn onto the highway). There was a little median in the middle to wait at, so I played it super safe and only went accross when there were no cars. By that point I was super tired and not able to make it to where I was planning on camping that night. So I ended up finding a sketchy place close to the highway and set up camp there. I almost fell asleep eating some refried beans.

Day 2

The morning of day 2, I got up when the sun rose because I was awake and cold. I packed up and made it down the highway section pretty easily as the traffic was light. There was never really any danger on this section because the shoulder was pretty wide, but it still made me nervous.

I biked ~10 miles, eventually crossing the highway back again and stopped to make breakfast at this park. Oatmeal, yum. While eating breakfast I took a look at the route notes and realized that that day had a whole lot of miles I had to do.

The next miles were nice, on some roads with very little traffic. I biked past a lot of horses. And by some big properties with huge houses.

The surroundings become a bit more rural and opened up into fields. There were tons of "No trespassing", "Private Property", and "No hunting, No fishing" signs.

Eventually I stopped at this small store attached to gas station to buy some snacks. As I was putting my stuff away and getting ready to bike again, a man came up to me and struck up a conversation about biking. He said that he also liked to take camping trips with his bike. I told him I was doing the TransVirginia but I wasn't sure if he knew it (I'm not sure how famous this route is), but he did ask me how many days I was biking for.

After that the route went back to being forest-y. Eventually I grew extremely tired. With maybe like 5 miles to go for the day I had to convince myself to keep pedaling and not to walk the bike.

Finally, I got the campsite, and it was a beautiful one. Much better than the night before. It was flat and had some logs to sit on. And it was right next to a stream.

Day 3

I had nice morning at that great campsite then set off. I promptly went the wrong way and didn't realize it for 30 minutes. Luckily I was going all up hill, so to get back the right way was a lot faster than 30 mintues.

The roads were pretty rock, so it was slow going.

Soon after I got to the hike-a-bike section. I can't imagine riding this section. I also can't imagine doing it with panniers. It was single track with huge boulders and fallen logs. The whole thing had a small stream of water coming through 80% of the trail. I started off trying to stay dry but eventually gave up on that. It was too difficult to try to push through the dry parts so I just went straight down the middle and got wet.

As I was pushing my bike through this section, I ran into a guy coming the opposite way. He was wearing all camo and had a rifle. He said it looked like I had it tough and I said yeah there should be a road soon. He confirmed there was road about 1 mile more along the trail. That mile took me a long time.

Eventually I popped out onto some gravel roads. Then there was a huge, huge downhill. It was downhill for 30 minutes. Multiple times I was going so fast I hit bumps and caught air. I felt my backpack lift off my shoulders. And a couple times I hit a bump and one of my water bottles flew out of the cage and I had to stop and walk back 50 feet to get it.

The gravel roads were extremely enjoyable and I was the only one on them. No other bikes. A car passed me once in like 2 hours. It was amazing.

Eventually the route took my uphill. The next hours were really tiring. Most of it I walked my bike. In the future I would like a bike with lower gear ratio.

I became extremely tired and started going a lot slower. Everytime I thought I was at the top and there was no more mountain left to go, the route went into the distance and uphill some more.

Eventually I reached the top without really noticing and started going downhill. Now I was in some really rural areas. There were a lot of abandoned lots and rundown houses.

Also I started to pass chicken farms. They had signs like "Purdue family farm since 2017" and that sort of thing, so these were real factory farm type chicken farms.

I was biking on asphalt roads now. I was biking down this road sticking to the right as much as possible (no shoulder) when I heard barking to my left. This dog came running out of the yard and runs accross the street and starts chasing me. It got real close to my left leg as I'm pedaling and bit me. I got really startled and bike away. I stopped and examined the 2 bike marks on my left ankle. They weren't bleeding, so at the time I didn't think much, but my heart was still racing from the encounter. 5 minutes later I found out I was going the wrong way so I had to turn back and bike past that same yard. Luckily the dog didn't come out.

At time time I didn't know that dog bites were dangerous and could get easily infected, so I just went about my way. I was still riding on the road through some rural areas. At this time I realized I wasn't going to make it to the planned sleep stop at my usual 6-7pm time. I was running behind due to all the walking up the mountain.

The sun began to set and I started thinking about stealth camping at some random spot. I couldn't really find anything though and was still kinda sketched out due to the dog bite.

Eventually the sun completely set and I put on my head lamp to see where I'm going. I followed the route but see this sign on a tree with my head lamp that says something like "Private property no through route to National Forest". I spent 10 minutes going the other way and trying to find the right route. I was using my iPhone and OSMAnd as navigation, and it updated my position on the map very sporadically. Eventually though I realized the route was past that sign. So I turned off my head lamp and headed towards someones house before crossing this sketchy bridge and making it into the national forest. It was pitch black and the campsite marked on the route was 5 miles away or so. I gave up and set up camp at the next flat spot I saw.

Day 4

Then next morning I woke up and got right back on those National Forest roads. I was the only one there for the next 5 hours or so. The path was wide but pretty rocky and bumpy. It started going up and up and up. I pedaled about half of it and walked the other half

Eventually I reached the top and found out that I was on some hunting roads. Or thats what the signs said anyways. I saw this house on top of the mountain but I don't think anybody was in it. Maybe they just come up to stay there when they're hunting. Eventually I passed a guy walking his dog and said whats up so I figured I wasn't far from an actual road. I was in pretty good spirits at that point. Pretty tired but just loving the nature. I was pedaling up a brief uphill, taking it easy when I heard a loud snap. I looked down and saw that my bike chain broke

I did not have the tools to repair it. No chain tool. No powerlink, no nothing. I could tell by the GPS map that I wasn't far from the highway. After half an hour of pushing I made it to a parking lot for the High Knob trail in West Virginia. I had some brief ideas of going into Harrisonburg and getting a new chain to continue. I tried hitchhiking for like 10 minutes, but didn't have any luck, maybe since this was still during the pandemic (I had my first dose of the vaccine at the time). I also asked a couple people in the parking lot for rides. But then I gave up on the trip and called someone to get a ride back home.

Conclusions

Once home, I went to the bike store and they said I needed a new cassette as well. My knee had also been giving me some trouble, so I decided to just give up and not try to do the rest right then. I also found out that dog bites are pretty serious so I made sure to get it checked out. Maybe it was good I had to stop before the 12 days because if my chain didn't break I don't think I would've stopped to seek medical attention. but I know more now.

But maybe sometime soon I'll be back, better prepared. Maybe I should get a bike thats the proper size and not 10 years old.