Harrisonburg Virginia

For one last fall biking expedition I headed south to Harrisonburg, Virginia on the 1st of November seeking single track and at least moderately warmer weather. The forecast was good - lows around 30 F and highs in the mid 50's with sun. The drive to Cumberland was awesome but I shoulda listened to Google Maps after that cause the scenic route I was hoping for turned out to be littered with small, un-interesting towns, slow traffic, and insipid food. But pulling into Harrisonburg my hopes were raised - there was obviously a downtown renewal going on.

Harrisonburg (41,000) is the home to James Madison University, Eastern Mennonite University, and a super-great bike shop by the name of Shenandoah Bicycle Company. Harrisonburg's done a bang-up job making downtown vital and interesting in the past few years with new shops, well preserved historic buildings and lots of cool restaurants. The Shenandoah Valley here was known as the breadbasket of the Confederacy, but my take is that it's the Chicken McNugget basket now, sporting both a Cargill and a Purdue poultry products plant nearby. I caught a load of doomed proto-nuggets off to meet their re-maker on my way to the trails one day.

Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition are working very hard to make it a bike friendly community. Many right lanes downtown are painted for full bike sharing, as are some of the major residential feeders. Even in the colder weather, I saw several after-work bike commuters, lights blazing, tooling home. And it's not just a campus thing - I saw several bike commuters in the ag products zone. City elders have visited Davis, Sacramento, and San Francisco to check out their bike friendly communities. It's only a matter of time till Harrisonburg is certified too.

I pulled into town late afternoon and headed straight to the Shenandoah Bike shop on Main Street hoping for recommendations on the best riding in a huge national forest networked with trails. They helped me out beyond all expectations - easily spending a half hour with me marking up several rides - enough to keep me busy all day. I came back the next day asking for more and they were just as accommodating.  Bought the indispensable and excellent map, and with daylight short, popped over to check out the nearby Hillandale Park trails.


Hillandale park hosts the Rocktown trails, build by IMBA Trail Solutions in partnership with the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition as one of their gateway trail systems designed to get folks mountain biking. This system certainly fits the bill admirably. The pump track was busy with young riders, adults were out after work circling the beginner loops, and a kid's mountain bike ride was exploring the intermediate and advanced inner trails learning rock handling skills. There are only 4 miles of trail here but they're great for a quick ride after work, or to hone your technical rock skills.


Afterwards, I prowled Main Street looking for restaurants recommended by the guys at the shop. Instead I found The Blue Nile, an Etheopian joint in the heart of the Shenandoah. I love Ethiopian, so I turned in and sat down. Very enjoyable - above average of Ethiopian meals I've had. I settled on the vegetarian sampler for two - because I like variety and because I wanted leftovers for a trail lunch the next day. Pretty easy to keep - just leave it in the car given the projected lows.

On this trip I didn't sleep in the car - it was going to be too cold for the comforter from the apartment, and we'd left our sleeping bags at home for lack of space. I passed on the very nice bed and breakfasts - not much point without my sweetie there to appreciate them. I'm all about cheap. The Day's Inn smelled wonderfully of Indian food in the homey lobby, but twice the registration bell brought no one. I figured they went shopping or something. Ah, but a little further from town at the interstate - jackpot. Motel 6 for $40 a night. Plain, clean, and available. Home away from home. Not as cheap as my favorite underpass in Cumberland, but it had heat, a shower, and I knew when the bathrooms would be open.


Breakfast was wonderful thanks to the shop's recommendation of The Little Grill - a little out of downtown on the edge of a light industrial area, it is a funky, quirky, employee owned business with not a little blue-collar hippie flair. My waitress (no doubt an employee/owner) was most accommodating, even mixing coffee with coca for me and serving a off-menu half order of fine whole wheat biscuits and gravy. Awesome buckwheat pancakes too (with buckwheat and rice flour instead of wheat flour). Soft inside, crispy outside, just like I like them. I'll be back tomorrow to try one of the local-egg omelettes. Tonight I missed out on Mexi night there (all you can eat) so I could go to Clementine's - a classy, nicely decorated bistro downtown. With a nice variety on the menu, I was pretty psyched. And it was good, but not quite great. Each dish, while well prepared, seemed to just miss its potential. Worth visiting, but I guess not an all-time favorite.

Enough about the town, how were the national forest trails? Next time.....