Tara, Noah, Levi and I went to visit my mom last weekend for Easter in Central Mississippi. It was a great trip although long car rides become a different sort of adventure with a one year old. Noah had a big time at my mom’s house. She had a little red wagon he could have pushed for 30 miles If we would have let him.
I took the fixy to Mississippi and went out for a couple of road rides. The only places I know to ride at my mom’s house are on the Natchez Trace and I have a little hand drawn map of a ride that goes on not far from her House called the "Pig Out in Pocahontas". The event starts/finishes art a BBQ joint in a wide spot of a country road town, called Pocahontas. The route is ~30 miles and it takes me 5 miles each way to get into the loop. On Friday I rode the loop nearly proper skipping a section of highway by riding the “Hilliest road in the county”. That netted me ~40 miles on Friday. Saturday I went out to do the same loop but I realized looking at my hand drawn mad I could link some roads together to do the “Hilliest road in the county” twice. I worked out taking a little longer than expected but I found my way ok. This did result in my longest fixed gear ride of my life at 50+ miles. It was very interesting to get really tired on a fixy. I ride that bike allot but never more than a couple of hours and never near the point of exhaustion. When I start getting tired on a coasting bike, I sit up allot coast downhill more often than killing it and generally chill out. The Fix just doesn’t allow that type of recovery. I wasn’t blown to pieces tired but the inability to rest for a second on the bike was mentally taxing situation I had never experienced before. My respect for fixed gear endurance folks took a step forward as did my own interest. I think I’ll be rolling fixed off-road again soon and I have a desire to try an easy event on the fixy weather it is a road metric or an off-road sub 40 miler.
I hit the Haw Ridge twice this week on the Turner focusing on climbing. Tuesday I crossed the ridgtop 6 times, Wednesday I crossed it 7 times. That type of riding at the ridge is something I started doing at the end of last summer, really focusing on the interior ups and downs and staying away from the shoreline puts a new twist on the trail system and makes it feel entirely different. I’m completely in love with the Turner now. It’s an outstanding climber, possibly the best all around climbing FS bike I have ridden, the rear tire is just glued to the grownd on the tech ups and with a flip of the Pro Peddle leaver you can stand and honk on it on smooth ups with no ill effects. On the downs and flowy areas it’s just a rock solid traction machine. I’ve owned beefier, longer travel bikes that were not as confidence inspiring.
Friday we were supposed to leave for Pisgah to camp a few days but Noah has been a little under the weather and looks like overnight rain so we opted to take advantage of daycare on our day off and go ride together, just Tara and I. It’s the fist time since Tara found out she was pregnant we have ridden in the woods together. She had never been to Raccoon Mountain before so we loaded up the singlespeeds and headed south:
