Quick update

I haven’t posted much lately. Just too much going on. CarolAnn and Brian Blair came into town last week for the Cohutta 100, they both did very well and seemed to have a good time. I took Brian down to Raccoon Mountain on Sunday. We missed a few of the better trails but I think he had had enough by then anyway (Having raced 100 miles the day before and all). Noah is doing well his personality is becoming more apparent every day.





Banjo lessons are going well.


Just a week until PMBAR, I hope Jeff is ready.

Squeezing in the last of the Pisgah “Seasonals”

I had a great weekend in Pisgah trying to squeeze the last bit of life out of the seasonal trails this year. In Pisgah some of the trails are referred to as “seasonal” meaning that they are only open to bikes during the winter months (Oct. 15th – April 15th) when hiker traffic is low. It’s only a handful of trails but some of them are among the best trails in the forest and some of them help tie trails together to make loops that just aren’t achievable otherwise. Jeff, Thomas, Eric, Levi and I met up in Brevard on Saturday. On the way in Jeff and I spotted DJ’s car at a local bike shop so we stopped in and recruited him and his wife to join us for the day. We snagged the last roadside campsite along the river by the stables. This spot just happened to be on the opposite side of the river from the road and that made for allot of fun all weekend. Once we set up camp we made our way over to the hatchery and made a loop up the fire road down Long Branch and Cat Gap then we loaded up and went over to North Slope for a quick spin around. Not too much ridding Saturday and all at an easy pace in preparation for Sunday.



Sunday was what this trip was all about, I have had the route I’ve wanted to do for a while but have never had a group that was interested in the idea and everything come together to pull it off. It’s a shuttled point-to-point ride and goes a little like this…. Laurel Mountain -> Pilot Rock -> 476 -> The Pink Beds -> Club Gap -> Avery Creek -> Clawhammer -> Presley Cove -> Black Mountain. It’s not that long at about 25, and the climbs aren’t that horrid, but the descents are some of the finest around. To get Pilot, Avery, and Black Mountain all in one day is as much as any mountain biker could ask for. So we met another crew from Knoxville (Jay, Jen, Shawn, John, Chris, and John from the UK)at the bottom of Black mountain Sunday morning to consolidate gear into a few shuttle vehicles and head to the beginning. It’s about a 30 minute shuttle drive and I think a few folks where getting nervous about the whole idea. One of the Participant (John from the UK) had just moved to the US a few days before, wandered into Harpers Bike shop and bought a bike, this was his first ride in the States and his first ride on his new Heckler. I have to say that Britt ripped. The ride went off like clockwork, You would be hard pressed to get a better group together for such an unknown undertaking. We lost a couple of folks at the bottom of Avery but the majority pulled through. I think everyone agreed that this is one of the best routes they had ever done in Pisgah.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the camera out too much all weekend. Thomas has some nice pictures over at Harvest the Ride to check out though.

Still no dogs on the grill

Another Wednesday night at the ridge and still no sizzling meat in 08. Matt brought a grill this week and everything.

As usual we left the lot with a bunch of big wheel bikes with drive train deficiencies.

At some point the crowd dwindled.


We hit some rocky descents on the way out of the woods.

And then headed for hydration.

Dragon

Jeff and I hit the Parkway/Dragon/Parkway ride Sunday, at a hair over 65 miles, about a zillion feet of climbing, and one 22 mile stretch with over 634 curves of fun. This is one of my favorite road rides and I expect its one of Jeff’s favorites now too.

Weiner Re-route

With all the rain lately the “wiener ride” got moved over to a greenway ride this Wednesday. As any Weiner ride several groups went off and not all stayed together. We had a solid crew of two fixys, three single speeds, one cyclocrosser and one lime green “Cardio Hot Rod”. We did a little off-roading, 28c tires and a fixed drivtrain are not the tool for muddy trails.






Of course we had to stop in for some refreshments in town.


This rig was down at Market Square, words cannot describe my envy of this set-up.


Photo credit to Matt AKA “Go-Kart-Motzart

Its about time I get back to some bike commuting: