crossing state lines
We’ve rounded the end of week one. Day six ended in Abingdon, a smidge off the TransAm and at the end of the beautifully green Creeper trail. Day seven was a rest day of 40 miles, ending in Council with zero signal and a not-too-damp campspot with hours of reading soviet sci-fi. Week 2, day 8, started strong - 95 mile day with 11000 ft of elevation ending at a hostel to share with other cyclists and late night board games. But the notable milestone - we hit Kentucky!
After winding through the tail end of Virginia, it was a climb into Breaks Interstate National Park to cross the border. A nondescript sign said welcome to Kentucky, with wide double lane roads, half built high way struts towering above, and naked rock faces regularly patterned by blast zones. Dog chases were immediately more frequent, and the friendly cheers and waves immediately vanished, replaced with heckling and stares. Stopping for a fallen tree, a contractor warned me to be careful in Kentucky; don’t camp alone, get through here fast. Same from a shop assistant. A lady outside another food shop echoed the message, emphasised with a prayer for me and my safety. My optimistic outlook on strangers and their risk has been eroded a little by these conversations with locals. So for the next couple of days my mileage is determined by where hostels are, so I don’t risk camping outside. It means more variability (67 today, a little low. 105 tomorrow, a little high) but after talking to other cyclists it’s the wiser thing to do until I reach the Ozarks.
The contrast with how I left Virginia only amplifies the general suspicion and aggression that hangs in the air. I stayed with a couple, a little familiar hub of European-ness in the expanse of disjointed American culture - superstores, tricky accents, and freedom orientated philosophy.
They were from Germany and the UK. Their kindness started before I reached their home, with company on the cycle to Abingdon (and stopping to point out the views), and extended beyond my stay with texts to check how I was doing. A dinner of ratatouille and roast potatoes felt perfectly homey. The after dinner trip to local bars with Appalachian yodelling by a band with a double bass, acoustic, and bass all in cowboy hats was surreal. The night only got more American as we entered a BBQ-come-bar with sports playing, a pig head on the wall, and a friendly crowd of locals served by a rotund barman. Ambling home from our beers and ciders, my hosts pointed out the history of Abingdon; it’s old wolf tale, why the town is split in two with half new builds, and the strong support for local businesses around the town. It felt like a positive pocket of development, unlike the oddly zoned commercial and residential clusters I’d been cycling through. I’ve gone from odd, to familiar, to unfriendly in the space of a few hundred miles. Talking to locals and cyclists, it’s a loss of industry and investment that accounts for this. As with the UK, safety and poverty are inversely related.
This makes me feel small though, almost vulnerable. I have to push so hard to move through these areas of America, and still there’s 1000s of miles to cover. I’m also powerless to change the safety of my surroundings when their cause is systemic. I can’t use bear spray or puncture repair kits on risks caused by socioeconomic issues. I just have to cycle through, observing how the atmosphere shifts and keep my wits about me.
With the abruptness with which friendly faces morphed in suspicious ones, I hope it’ll return to more outward kindness soon. Or at the very least, swap it all for empty wilderness.
