Huntington, WV

After Blacksburg, we headed to Hinton, WV, crossing the state line around lunchtime. I rode by myself for most of the morning, which I actually enjoyed pretty well. It was peaceful and nice to go my own pace. I met up with Lee, Will, Tony, and Eli before lunch and rode with them the rest of the day (except Eli, who had some unfortunate luck with his chain. 3 times.) We got to go swimming in the Greenbrier River when we got to Hinton. It was freezing, but kind of refreshing. Like an ice bath. We woke up an hour early at 5 am on Sunday to get an early start on a long day. We rode 30 miles up and over mountain #1 before stopping for our first lunch. Then we rode 30 more miles up Bolt Mountain, which was killer. Apparently there were some inclines of 13%. The downhill after was fantastic, though. I hit 44.8 mph, it was awesome. We had our second lunch around 1 before finishing the day with 30 more miles into Madison, WV. The people in Madison are incredible. They not only provided us with places to sleep, but bought us an awesome dinner and breakfast, and washed our laundry, which is no small chore. We also received a few donations from random people who heard about what we're doing.

Today we got to sleep in until 7, which felt like such a luxury. We didn't leave Madison until 10:30 or so, after going out for breakfast. I got to ride with Ellen all day. It was a nice relaxing 60-mile day, and we didn't hit any real hills until the last 20 miles. Tonight we're staying at the First Presbyterian Church in Huntington, WV, which is a pretty big town compared to where we've been. We'll probably explore some tonight.