8am start from Richmond into a partly cloudy, warm and humid morning with a 4pm arrival ( ar least for 3 of us) at the Governor's Inn in Historic Williamsburg. 
James, Angela and John plus me taking the picture from our hotel entrance as we get ready to hit the road this quiet Sunday morning. 
Riding east on Monument towards downtown Richmond it seemed like a very nice city with lots of brownstones and mature trees lining the boulevard. 
Downtown Richmond we weave our way around the Capital building for Virginia in search of the Capital Trail which will take us all the way to old Jamestown, 54 miles, without having to worry about vehicles!🚴
Now we're officially on the trail, this part is called the Canal Walk where we find ourselves inside very large flood control walls from the James River.
Our second mile marker, 53. We'll be riding down to 0 in Jamestown and then we'll need another 10 miles on the Colonial Parkway to get to our hotel for the next two nights. 
There happened to be a local BikeMS going on this weekend that included the Capital Trail we are on today. Mine won't be until June 25th and 26th back home in Colorado but you can still make a donation to support my Multiple Sclerosis fund raising at:
Sincere thanks to Steve, Tom, Mark and the Shryocks as well as some anonymous sponsors for their donations to date!!
As well as the rain that I've heard has been going on for weeks around here we apparently had a good rain storm last night. It was to deep to ride through so we pulled our shoes off and walked through this flooded part of the trail and one one more spot about 100 yds further. It actually soaked the bottom part of my front pannier.
Angela bravely follows me through while James and John dilly dally. 
Finally we find a place to eat lunch and rest in Charles City after 35 miles. It was a nice place for lunch. In fact so nice John's pouch with his phone and money decided to stay there in the restroom where John set them down. Poor John, it wasn't until 15 miles later when he reached for his phone to take a picture of Ang and I that he realized he had forgotten them. However, when he rode his way back to the restaurant he restored his spirits and energy with some lovely coconut cake and his afternoon coffee. He took a short cut back to Williamsburg and arrived only 2.5 hours after we had. 91 miles total for John today!
We've now moved down into the Atlantic Coastal Plains even though the water you see behind us is Chickahominy River running into an even wider James River. But we are getting closer to the Atlantic!
Just to prove my point about the widening of the James River here you can see white caps and kite surfing as well as people enjoying the beach. Luckily the wind was across or behind us most of the ride. 
Finally at the end of the ride we relax by the pool at the Governors Inn while we wait for the 4th Musketeer, John, to return from his long ride. We had a nice dinner at the Dog Street Pub followed by ice cream cones as we walked back to our hotel in a light drizzle for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we explore Colonial Williamsburg. 🏤
Very nice post today Scott. You did a nice job covering my extra miles on the trail.
ReplyDeleteSo great to be back on the road but looking forward to a rest day in Williamsburg. We have been fortunate to have a couple of great trails, the KATY and now the Capital. We hope many more will be built as cross country cycling becomes more popular.
ReplyDelete