"Entry for Thursday, 11 September 1997

1. Steve riding on the new section of US 25E with the wide paved shoulders. The ridges are used to wake up sleepy drivers who wander off onto the shoulder. On narrow shoulders they can be used to keep bicyclers from riding on the shoulder.

2. Virginia Giles at lunch in the Subway restaurant.

Last Modified on 9/24/97 at 5:33:59

Day's Narrative: Steve and I left Corbin a little after 7 am and headed for Middlesboro, KY and the one mile long tunnel under Cumberland Gap. This would be about 40 miles (60 km). We had asked several people about the tunnel, and all said we could go through using the pedestrian walkway.

The four lane US 25E out of Corbin turned out to both have a paved shoulder and not have one. The old section near Corbin had a very narrow paved shoulder, which was broken up in many places, making it unusable most of the time. A few miles out of town we got to the newer section of US 25E, and it had a wide paved shoulder (see photo). The ridges next to the roadway make a humming sound when a car drives on it, and is used to alert a sleepy driver if he wanders off the traffic lane. Sometimes when the shoulders are narrow these ridges are effective barriers preventing bicycles from riding on the shoulder.

At Pineville, KY we stopped at the Subway restaurant to get lunch and met a fellow bicycler Virginia Giles (photo 2). She convinced us that taking the highway into Tennessee was not the thing to do, and that the Virginia route was best.

We had been warned about the steep road up Pine Mountain on 25E right after Pineville. We never found it. There was a hill which went up about 250 feet (80 m) in altitude, but other than that we never found Pine Mountain.

Just after Middlesboro, KY we cycled up to the entrance to Cumberland Gap tunnel. We were stopped by tunnel employees who were there to escort hazmat (hazardous materials) trucks through the tunnel, and were emphatically told that we had to take the road over the mountain. We could not use the tunnel as pedestrians or as bicyclers. They pointed out the road to us. We went back to the road, which also happened to be the Cumberland Gap National Park road to the Park's Pinnacle Overlook.

The road was steep. We started out at about 1200 feet (400 m) elevation. The grades were so steep (greater than 6%, probably about 8% or so. I can manage a 6% grade.) that we had to get off and walk several times. Finally we reached the peak at 2200 feet (about 750 m), having climbed 1000 feet in 3 miles. (That's about 325 m in 5 km to the rest of the world.) Steve remarked that it built character.

The road reached a dead end in the Pinnacle Overlook parking lot. There was no road down the other side. We were just a little upset. We stopped and talked to an older couple in their van and looked at their Park map. Yes, it was a dead end. Furthermore, there was no road over Cumberland Gap anymore at all -- it had been closed. The only way to get to the other side was through the tunnel.

So we went back down the the hill to the tunnel riding our brakes all the way down. At the bottom we saw the barracaded old road off on a side road partially hidden by trees. It was definitely closed. So we went back to the tunnel and started trying to hitch a ride through on a truck. Within five minutes a pickup stopped. We put the bikes in the back and hopped in after them. He let us out at the tunnel exit on the other side. We thanked him profusely and he drove off.

Just after we mounted up and were cycling away, a park ranger drove up ahead of us in a pickup and parked. She got out and asked, "Did you two just come through the tunnel?"

"Yes," I replied, "in a pickup. We hitched a ride." She said that was ok. It was clear there would have been a heavy fine if we had cycled through it.

The ranger went on to explain that she was giving a woman cyclist a ride through the tunnel. We could see the bicycle on the back of the truck. It dawned on us that all we had to do was go to the Park Headquarters near the entrance to the tunnel, and they would have given us a ride through too. Oh, well.

It was now 2:30 pm and we had about 40 miles (60 km) still to go. We were estimating it would be 6 pm or later before we got to Pennington Gap, VA. I called Connie on the cell phone to tell her we would be late, and discovered she had rooms at the only motel in Jonesville, instead of Pennington Gap. Jonesville was 9 miles (13 km) closer to us. Be thankful for small things.

We arrived at the motel just after 6 pm, very tired. We had ridden about 94 miles (152 km).

Tomorrow we will be going to Abington, VA, about 80 miles (130 km) away. Jonathan and Robby with their wives Stacy and Lynne will meet us there to continue the ride on to the North Carolina coast.

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© Ray & Connie Poore, 1997