Dan Casey

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Holger Andersen calls himself "the global rider," and probably with good reason. Although he hasn't (at least not yet) ridden 'round the world as the Roanoke Valley's own Randall Johnson has, Anderson has done large chunks of it.

He's pedaled from Denmark to the Straits of Gibraltar -- and back. Japan. The Czech Republic. In the summer of 2001, the 52-year-old teacher from Denmark set his sights on crossing the United States. A week after his early June start in Norfolk he took a breather from his east-to-west odyssey in Roanoke, and took a spin around Botetourt County with the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club.

The ride is known as Springwood Loop. This 33-mile jaunt features gently rolling byways that pierce deep green woods and crisscross pastoral fields between historic Fincastle and Buchanan.. A colleague had sold me on this ride with the unusual observation that it seemed downhill all the way.

Physics and topography make that about as impossible as cold fusion or a perpetual motion machine. But because of outside factors -- wind, principally -- such a perception is not. A breeze on your back during a barely discernible climb along undulating asphalt can make you feel like a Tour de France champion, especially if you catch that wind on the back side of the ride.

That's pretty much the setup with Springwood Loop: Long gentle downhillls, flats, and itty bitty climbs that roll you back to the start and make you wonder where all those miles went.

Historic Fincastle

BRBC member Helen Burnett led this ride, which is a regular feature on the bike club's monthly schedule. Besides Anderson, we were joined by about a dozen other riders, including two couples on tandems, Ted and Fey Remandaban, of Roanoke, and Ken and Ann Marie Newbury of Salem.

The ride started at the Botetourt County Courthouse in Fincastle, just a block off U.S. 220. With a fairly long break at a midpoint convenience store, it took a little under three hours, and we were taking it pretty easy.

Fincastle is a tiny town that dates to 1772 and is considered the oldest established community west of the Blue Ridge. Established at Miller's Mill, it was named after Lord Fincastle, son of Lord Dunmore, Virginia's last royal governor. Antebellum churches, red brick buildings, restored homes and tree-lined streets give it a quaint village atmosphere.

Its courthouse, which has been ravaged by fire (but later restored) a few times in the intervening years, was designed by Thomas Jefferson. It was probably one of his earliest projects. The building is small and cramped inside, and evokes none of the grandeur of some of Jefferson's better-known creations, notably, Monticello.

But it once served as the center of justice and government in one of the largest counties in North America. At one time, Botetourt encompassed a huge mass of land, stretching west to the Mississippi River and north to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. It's much smaller and easier to ride by bike today.

Buchanan

It took us about 2 minutes to get out of town and on the road (that's how small Fincastle is). Soon were rolling down the dark shade of Springwood Road, and, not much later, cutting across open hayfields. So far, so good: except for small blips of ups here and there, the all-downhill promise was holding up.

Dan Casey | The Roanoke Times

Holger Andersen of Denmark on a Saturday morning early in June outside the Botetourt County Courthouse in historic Fincastle. A few days earlier, Andersen, 52, began an east-to-west across-the-USA ride in Norfolk. He stopped for a day in Roanoke and decided to do a ride with the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club.

Related

Map

• Map of the beautiful byways of Botetourt

Route information:

• From Fincastle courthouse, left on Main Street.
• .3 miles, L on Rt. 630
• 10.3 miles, R on Rt. 43
• 14.1 miles, R on U.S. 11
• 14.3 miles, R on Rt. 1305
• 15.0 miles, R on U.S. 11
• 15.1 miles, L on Rt. 1308
• 15.2 miles, R on Rt. 1321
• 15.9 miles, R on Rt. 617
• 16.6 miles, R on Rt. 625
• 16.9 miles, Exxon station -- break here From Exxon, L on U.S. 11
• 17.2 miles, L on Rt. 640
• 27.4 miles, R on U.S. 11
• 27.5 miles, L on Rt. 798
• 28.0 miles, L on Rt. 640
• 31.2 miles, R on Rt. 602
• 32.5 miles, R on Rt. 220 and an immediate R on S. Church St.
• 33.1 miles, L on Main St. back to courthouse

In no time at all, it seemed, we were in Buchanan. My colleague Matt Chittum, a reporter on The Roanoke Times, has done a better job of describing this small town's history than I ever could. Here's what he wrote about Buchanan in an article a few years ago:

"Like many of its brethren frontier towns, Buchanan sprouted on the river bank like a volunteer oak tree, and over the years has stood about as firm in the face of floods, fire and civil war.

"The seed of Buchanan was Loony's Ferry, which back in the 1740s made short the trip across the James River from the south shore to Cherry Tree Bottom on the north side.

"The town's name comes from Col. John Buchanan, a settler soldier whose father obtained the land grant for 337 acres along both sides of the James where it crooks an elbow around the base of Purgatory Mountain.

"John Buchanan set up the town of Pattonsburg on the north side of the river in 1788. Twenty-three years later came the town of Buchanan on the south side. Before the end of the 19th century, the two became one under the name of Buchanan.

"The promise of Buchanan was the river from which it sprang. Its first boom followed the construction of the James River and Kanawha Canal, which would have reached from Virginia to the Midwest, if it had gotten any farther west than Buchanan. It never did.

"Water transportation gave way to the railroad. Then, as in most places, the railroad succumbed to the highways.

"But always Buchanan survived because it was in the middle of whatever kind of thoroughfare people were using. In the middle of this century it was U.S. 11, running the length of the majestic Shenandoah Valley."

Then, in 1964, Interstate 81 was opened, and the small town was left in the lurch. It's been slowly dying ever since. More recently, preservationists have been able to halt that wither. It looks like Buchanan is on its way back.

The lore of Lithia

We took our break at an Exxon station on U.S. 11 just southwest of Buchanan and proceeded on toward Lithia. Unlike Buchanan or Fincastle, Lithia has no commerce. It's a collection of houses that hardly even amounts to a village. What it has got, however, is lore and legend, born from a famous spring with curative powers, a famous (and now defunct) fiddlers convention. For awhile, it was infamously known as the home of a handful of some outlaw bikers, until their leader got himself killed, that is.

Lithia's notoriety began in the late 19th century with Frank Fringer, who found a roadside spring and began bottling that water and selling it off the side of a truck. It was a lithia spring, with mineral salts that just plain made people feel good.

Fringer is long, long gone. But his boarded up spring house and general store still remains. You can see it on the left of Virginia 640, right next to some Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks.

The climb back to Fincastle begins shortly after you pass Fringer's old store. But like I was told, it's hardly noticeable. The hills are gently rolling, so it's easy to get up enough speed on the downs to easily power past the next up. we were back were we started before I knew it.

Getting there

To get to Fincastle from Roanoke, take Interstate 81 north for about 10 miles to exit 150, where you pick up U.S. 220 north. Take it about 10 more miles, and hang a right onto a small side street when you see a sign marking the courthouse. It's at the top of a short but steep hill. There's a small lot there you can park in.