LeConte

11 cyclist/friends go for a hike together in The Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Newfound gap> Appalachian Trail > Boulevard > Jump Off> Boulevard > Myrtle Point > Boulevard > Cliff Tops >LeConte Lodge > Alum Cave > Beer

14ish miles of rouged Appalachian/elevation hiking. It took about 7 hours and hurt worse than the 115 miles on the bike last weekend.

Thomas has some fantastic pictures of the day over at Harvest the Ride.

I took a few pictures:









I have to give credit to Mike Ford who came along after having finished riding the entire Blue Ridge Parkway in the previous 7 days. Had I just fished that kind of ride, I probably would take at least one day off.

Ron Paul on oil/Iraq

Picture Catch-up

Its been a busy month and I've fallen behind on the updates.
We've been on some trips latly, camping and family biking in Virinia:




We went to Florida and played on the beach:

We did some sailing and various boating:

We went to Tara's grandfather's 80th birthday party. I can only hope to be living life to the fullest at that age the way he is.





Noah and I have done some fishing latly, we have been moderatly successfull.

Noah is growing so fast he is already wearing my sandles and helment

Of course theirs been a little riding going on.

I road the Cherohala Challenge yesterday, 115 miles with +10,000' of climbing. 7:18 total time with a 6:45 ride time, 46.5mph peak!!!

Lots of fun packed days latly

Education

A couple of videos that have been powerful for me lately. I'm not sure I believe it all but its interesting.





If you have the time and attention to read a couple of hours this site Peak Oil is a very good and well documented read. Whatever the "truth" is i do believe we are on the brink of a radical change in civilization as we have known it to be and your not going to find out about it through mainstream news until its already happened.

Greenway Beer Bike

I scored a sweet new bar bike off Ebay last week. I got it together last night, should prove to give lots of commuting and bar hopping fun.


Love the head tube badge:

May Ride Log

Kind of a slow month on the bike.

1st Greenway Fix 2:00
3rd PMBAR 9:15
6th Neighborhood Ride :30
7th Haw Ridge 2:00
9th Commute to Work 1:30
10th Cyclocross adventure 4:30
12th Commute to work 2:00
14th Rode to a Bar :30
16th Commute to work 3:30
17th Road Ride 3:00
18th Raccoon Mountain 3:30
19th Commute to work 2:00
21st Haw Ridge 2:00
24th Iron Mountain Trail @:30
25th VA Creeper 2:00
29th Rode to store in Fl :30

39:15 in May with a week of vacation and sinus infection in the mix.

Words cannot describe

I suggest clicking the little arrows in the lower right corner to make it full screen then watch in amazement.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Recent Rides

A few words about some recent rides:

PMBAR (Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race)

This is a race outside of Brevard, NC and is just about the most fun day on a bike one can imagine. It’s a great format with checkpoints throughout the forest that nobody knows where they are until the start of the race you have to go to a minimum number of the possible checkpoints to finish (or more to win) in any order you deem best. It’s great because you’re seeing other people doing the same race as you going different directions all day but you have little idea whether they are doing better or worse than you. It has a total party atmosphere. For safety you compete as a team of two, Jeff was my partner this year. We had a great day and met out #1 goal of finishing, it took us a little over 9 hours. I road briefly with a bunch of old paddling friends, that was cool to see how so many people of similar interest have had those interest evolve in the same way. Knoxville was well represented at the event with about 10 folks coming out, all clad in the Union Jack.
I bought a couple of raffle tickets at the event and won a new mountain bike frame that happens to be Tara’s size. It’s a Vessago “Bandersnatch” in traffic safety green/yellow, where going to build it up with leftover parts and stuff to make her a nice neighborhood/greenway/grocery bike. I’m looking for a cheap 29er wheelset for it if anybody has one.

Fired up and ready to go, It seemed Jeff and I had some of the burliest bikes out that day:


Rider Meeting Harper's Crew in full force:



Me sketching out on the bridge, notice how the bridge is bowing up:


Jeff on the bridge, notice how the bridge is bowing down:


End of the day collecting my raffle prize, Tara's new town bike:



Cyclocross Adventure:

This past weekend Jeff and I couldn’t decide on what to do so we went with something completely new and went cyclocross exploring/adventuring. We went up to the Citico Creek area riding some fire roads and some single track that ties some fire road sections together. We did about 20 stream crossings, 200 log hops, 3 miles of horse chewed mud, and 4,000 feet of climbing in some of the most beautiful mountains of Tennessee.



Lots of Stream Crossings:




Lunch Break and map check:


It was a great ride and a beautiful day:


Photo credits to Brado and Jeff

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April Ride Log

April was a decent month on the bike with a little over 44 hours. Several trips out of town and a couple of local rides I dont do very often.

2nd Greenway Weiner Fix 2:30
5th Road ride 2:30
6th Parkway/Dragon/Parkway 5:30
7th SK8 :30
8th Trailer ride with Noah 1:30
9th Haw Ridge 1:30
10th Haw Ridge 1:00
12th Pisgah 2:00
13th Pisgah 5:30
14th Neighborhood Fix :30
15th Concorde 2:00
17th Greenway fix 1:00
18th Family greenway ride 1:00
20th Raccoon Mountain 3:00
21st Farragut Fix 1:30
22nd Commute to work 2:00
23rd Haw Ridge 2:00
25th Commute to work 2:00
26th 12 Hour Allycat 1:30
27th Farragut Greenway 2:00
29th Farragut fix :45