GoGeezGo : Shakedowns

Skyline Drive

Before heading out for a major bicycle tour, it’s a good idea to do a shakedown ride to test your gear and mettle closer to home.

It’s better to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t—and to make any necessary adjustments—before you head out of town.

As a group of friends and I discovered earlier this year, shakedowns can also be great adventures themselves.

Because we were training for a ride on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, we selected shakedown venues near our Washington, D.C., area homes that we thought would approximate the gravel and hills for which the GDMBR is notorious.

The first shakedown was a four-day, 250-mile lap of the Great Allegheny Passage, a picturesque gravel path that links Cumberland MD and Pittsburgh PA, and mostly tracks the Casselman, Youghiogheny and Monongaleha rivers.

There is a bit of an ascent on the GAP climbing the first 24 miles heading west from Cumberland to the Eastern continental divide. This is not nearly as steep as the hills on the GDMBR, and the GAP gravel is smoother. But the ride proved to be a valuable learning experience for us.

Two of our four riders got painfully acquainted with saddle sores. They will have to figure out how to prevent the sores from recurring in the future.

I discovered that my sleeping mattress leaked, that my Thudbuster seat post caused my seatpost bag to hit my rear tire whenever I rode over a bump, and that my rain gear was inadequate for the downpour we endured over the entire 24 miles east to Cumberland back from the continental divide. The mattress, seat post and rain gear were replaced.

We liked the two campgrounds we stayed at on the GAP—The Outflow campground in Confluence PA and Dravo’s Landing near Buena Vista PA. The Outflow campground has hiker-biker sites and a shower. There are several restaurants in Confluence.

Dravo’s, which has a well, two shelters, vault toilets, and a covered picnic pavilion, was originally constructed by Boy Scouts for an Eagle Scout project. There are no showers or restaurants. But there is plenty of complimentary firewood and admission is free.

The second shakedown was Shenandoah National Park’s Skyline Drive. The spectacularly scenic 105-mile road that winds its way across the top of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains is a roller-coaster ride for challenge-seeking cyclists.

Unlike the GDMBR, Skyline Drive is paved. Also unlike the GDMBR, Skyline Drive has ample automobile traffic to worry about, and offers little to no shoulder. But the sustained quality of the ascents and descents is similar in both venues.

We started our ride at the Dickey Ridge visitor center, milepost 4.6 on the park’s northern end, then rode to Big Meadows campground (MP 51) where we spent the first night.

On day 2, Dave and I did a short lap south and camped again at Big Meadows, while Peter, the third member of the team, continued riding south to where his car was parked near the park’s southern end.

On day 3, Dave and I rode back to our cars at Dickey Ridge. This time, all the gear worked fine.

Overall, we rode 124.3 miles over three days, with a total ascent of 12,756 feet. We got too close for comfort to a bear and a deer during a couple of those screaming descents, and we got walloped by a thunderstorm on the ride back to the cars on day 3.

Skyline seemed like a venue that should be considered by experienced riders only. If you try this one yourself, check your brakes, because you’ll need good ones to stay under the park’s 35 mph speed limit on the downhills. Also, wear a brightly colored jersey and use a stroboscopic reflector to make sure that drivers can see you.

The Big Meadows campground is huge but very popular so reservations are recommended. The campground has showers. The Big Meadows Lodge has rooms and a restaurant.

I thought our Skyline ride was a great workout. I liked it enough that I returned a few days later and did another lap, this time solo.