Did a ride on Saturday in the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/123558822

This will probably be my longest/hardest ride for this year. It was darkish and cold at the start, and getting dark at the end.

I ended up with 116 miles, 9600 feet of climbing. I started at MP 0 of the parkway, rode down into Waynesboro and over to Rt 252 following the start of the Tour de Valley route. Then I rode on down to Lexington. This part was just beautiful. Largely downhill, and a combination of valley farms and wooded stream valleys. Not bad traffic, and the temperature was perfect.

Going through Lexington was a little hairy. I went right past VMI on Rt 11, and they were getting ready for a football game.

After that it was a nice climb up from Buena Vista at about 850 feet to 3300 or so feet on the parkway. Traffic was not as bad as I feared. There were lots of leaf peepers out, but I've seen it as bad on Skyline Drive in the summertime.

The last 25 miles were more of a slog than pleasure. I would have gladly pared off a bit of distance. I was just barely moving going up some of those last hills.