The Great Peanut Tour

I've been riding this bike tour since 1989. The Cattail Creek Campground in Skippers, VA is home to this event and has been since 1978. What started as a small gathering of Emporia VA area cyclists has turned into a "must do" for the entire East Coast cycling community. How did this come to be with virtually no promotion? Simple- good old fashioned southern hospitality. The rest stops on the ride are all provided by local farmers and churches. They pay for the drinks and food. Just for the chance to meet cyclists from all over (one guy from Australia a couple of years back) for a day and to spread fellowship. It is an odd mix. Spandexed cyclists from all walks of life co-mingle with hardy peanut, tobacco, and cotton farmers in John Deere hats and church ladies carrying trays full of cookies, pbj sandwiches, cucumbers and watermelon rind pickles. And peanuts, lots and lots of peanuts. The cyclists just eat it up and through word of mouth the event has grown to over 1000 riders. Everywhere that there is a ride, you will hear riders saying "Oh, you have to do the Peanut!" The ride is now a four day extravaganza, starting with a 25 miler on Thursday, the 81 mile Lake Gaston ride on Friday, and the NC Metric (65 mi) and VA Metric on both Saturday and Sunday. The weather is usually great but in 26 years there has been all kinds. Hurricane Fran tore through the campground one year, tornadoes closed several roads another but the rides went on. Which lead to the words on the bottom of the application: "No rain date, no tornado date, no hurricane date." I'll be there next year, eating watermelon rind pickles and soaking up the hospitality.