A Day of Genius – Day 50

Date: Monday 27^th September   

Route:  Charlottesville, Virginia – Bumpass, Virginia 

Distance: 72.5 miles 

Total climb: 2841ft

Net climb: 63ft

We had made it through the rain, but the yesterday had taken its toll on our bikes.  Rosie’s brakes had decided to stop working, and Diana, as ever, was keen for a tune-up.  So after grabbing a quick continental breakfast from our motel, we headed out to find a bike shop.  A few wrong turns had the advantage of giving us a tour of Charlottesville, which seemed like a great town, but we did eventually arrive at what was by far the swankiest bike shop on the route.  Students use bikes, so it’s fair to assume they get a lot of business, despite the fact that they were tucked away on an industrial estate, and they did an excellent job.  After the tune up the girls were moving better than they had done for weeks.  The stop was a little disappointing though, partly because it took the shop half an hour to process Fred’s card payment and partly because the staff were somewhat unwelcoming.  The staff of every other bike shop we had visited on the trip had been friendly and interested in our adventures; these chaps seemed a little too cool for school.  We assumed it was due to the fact that, being close to Yorktown, they must see lots of TransAmerica riders, but even so, their attitude took a little bit of the sheen off our stay in Charlottesville.

Still, the bikes were fixed and we were within 200 miles of Yorktown.  There was one complication.  After four miles of riding we arrived at Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monitcello; one of the places that I had been desperate to visit when planning the route.  We met Team Stockham at the visitors’ entrance and despite Fred’s schedule meaning that we needed to finish in two days he agreed, without hesitation, to let me go and do the tour.  Mother Stockham was also keen to visit so we headed up in the tour bus and up to the entrance of the house itself.  American’s do tourist attractions very well indeed; they have no aversion to glorifying their own history, something which the British now seem rather embarrassed to do, and there is much to glorify in Monticello.  Jefferson was a genuine polymath and not only was he responsible for designing and supervising the building of the whole house (twice) he also invented a number of the creature comforts that made the house so advanced for its time.  There are a number of reminders though, that even a man as brilliant as Jefferson was flawed.  As Fred pointed out it seems utterly baffling that a man who wrote so eloquently about freedom and the equality of all men in the Declaration of Independence, could have owned slaves.  This becomes all the more difficult to understand in light of the fact that he fell in love with, and had a family with one of those slaves.

We finished the tour of Monticello and drove back past Jefferson’s grave, upon which all that is inscribed is “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom and father of the University of Virginia.”  Not a bad CV and he didn’t even mention that he had been President.  It was a solemn but inspiring end to the trip to Monticello.

Back at the visitors’ centre we met back up with Fred and Poppa Stockham, who had bought sandwiches and hot chocolate for us to tuck into.  It had been driving with rain for the whole morning and it looked set to continue, but it was now 2pm and we had cycled less than 5 miles.  We had to get cracking. 

Our route for the remainder of the day was through the Virginia piedmont; although we knew there were no more significant climbs on the route, the areas is criss-crossed by rivers and streams meaning that the landscape undulates continually between each water source.  The driving rain continued as we passed Ash Law, the home of James Monroe, the fifth President of the US and another of its founding fathers.  There was no time to stop now though as we carried on a fair pace through the water-soaked landscape.  We paused briefly when Fred’s chain jammed (for about the fifth time on the trip) after a sharp right turn; but after that Parkes was flying – keen to make up the time that we had lost in the morning.  I was not as keen to sprint in the wet weather and for a while we were separated by a distance of a few hundred metres.  As we pulled into a supermarket at Palmyra tempers were a little frayed (something which had barely happened at all during the entire trip), due in no small part to the rain, which by now was so heavy as to be limiting our range of visibility. 

We had arranged to meet Team Stockham at Palmyra, but there was no sign of them at the supermarket.  We pressed on along the route to a bank where Fred stopped to get some cash out and I managed to cut my finger on a plastic sign.  We sheltered under the drive-through cashpoint (people really never walk in America) trying to call Team Stockham and figure out what to do.  At last we received a text message telling us to wait at the junction at which the bank was located – Team Stockham were returning with food.   Fred was keen to press on, but just in time Tammy the Texas Chariot pulled into view.  In a moment of genius Team Stockham had driven a 20 mile round trip to find a Burger King – it was just what the doctor ordered.  Any tension there had been vanished, as did my lingering concern that my back wheel might be catching on my brakes.

Rarely had a meal had such a positive effect on our morale.  We were rolling again, and when the rain finally stopped (at around 5pm), rolling quickly.  We turned left on SR 605 at Tabscott, passed the service station which we had planned to stop at, and on into Mineral, home of Total Body Fitness by Tammy (the local gym) and the inviting “Almost Heaven Smoke BBQ” restaurant.   Barbeque food could have been enough to break our resolve and make us stop but we were now both determined to put ourselves in a position where we could complete the ride the following day.  We continued and turned right onto SR 652, where in a display of driving brilliance a car overtook us at such speed that in subsequently turning right he almost flipped his car.  After Jefferson, he was unquestionably the day’s second genius.

The route continued across the beautiful shores of Lake Ann.  Exclusive and glamorous, it seemed odd that the next town should have been named Bumpass, but there we had to stop.  In an ideal world we would have made it to Ashland – our planned stopping point and still 20 miles away – but by the time we arrived at Bumpass the night was pitch black and the sensible option was to stop, get a proper dinner and make an early start.  Fortunately, Team Stockham were at Bumpass Fire Station to meet us and drive us back to the town of Louisa, where we had rooms at the Rebel Motel.

Our plan was to get some food on board and then get to bed.  Luckily for us there was a Pizza Hut just around the corner from our hotel (as well as those other staples McDonalds, Wendy’s and a few other purveyors of hôt cuisine) and there we dined like kings.  We were informed by the waitress that Louisa was the “bright lights” of the local area, nonetheless at 9:30 everywhere was empty.  Still our focus was on getting to sleep – no bars for us.  Our main concern was the people in the room next to us, who when we arrived we playing very loud guitar music.  By the time we returned from the Hut, though, their thrash music vigil had ended.  We could get some sleep.  We had a big day ahead of us.

 Other matters of note:

• At Monticello, Mother Stockham, as keen to speak to strangers as ever, struck up a conversation with the tour bus driver.  Randomly, we found out that his daughter had married a man from Saltburn – a twenty minute drive from our home in North Yorkshire.  We also found out that one of the security guards at the site had a friend visiting him from England who was in the US doing a bike ride across Virginia.  Small world.