Rode an overnighter from Sparta NC to Galax Va in April and then followed the New River Trail to Pulaski Va 78 miles one way. First tour in 3 years. I had been busy moving from NY to NC and building my house here. Rode the route with an acquaintance from the long gone touring@phred listserv. Except for a couple of pretty good hills on the 21 mile road portion between Sparta and Galax it was all rail-trail and a nice sunny Tuesday with temps in the 70's. We camped in Pulaski and ate dinner just off the trail at Tex-Mex called "Compadres". Wednesday morning we woke up to a steady rain around 5am. We stayed in our tents until about 8:30 and decided we couldn't wait it out. We packed up the wet tents and headed back towards Galax. The trail is mostly stone dust over the old ballast, little mud to deal with but the surface was pretty soft. I had mounted up a pair of 2.3 Kenda Conniptions and Greg was riding Continental Country 1.95. That setup gave us enough flotation to maintain a good pace. Rain finally let up about 3 hours later and was just overcast and damp afterwards. The roads had dried out by the time we hit the pavement for the 21 mile final leg. It was a nice ride, I hope to do it again in the fall with my wife on our tandem